Georgia Tech MBA

Hudor Hero @ Ideas 2 Serve

Last week, Phil and I debuted our extremely simple solution for water disinfection at Georgia Tech's Ideas 2 Serve competition. This product is aimed at third world countries and the 1.1 billion people who do not have sustained access to clean water. While we didn't win the competition, we received some great feedback from the judges and we have decided to continue with the project. I am in the process of creating a website for our Hudor Hero solution, so stay tuned for more info. In the meantime, this video will hit all the high points about the solution. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions!

Maybe I'll actually end up at SOCAP this year. 

Be Inspired.

Open space, natural light, a chalkboard wall and a wall for pushpins. Crayons, a slinky, and a bean bag chair. Oh, and a projector, prototypes and large monitors featuring existing patents. That's not what you were thinking at first, was it? It's my latest idea to foster an innovative culture around me...a sort of "inspiration room".

Take a place that has a thousands of patents on record, say a research university or big technology company. I believe it is safe to say that many of these patents were never commercialized. Sure, a lot of the technology is old and no longer applicable, but what about the concept or the challenge that was being solved. Or is there a new way to apply that technology to solve a different challenge? Has a market grown for an older idea that was too advanced for its time? So much potential just sitting there. Potential needing new minds to take a fresh look. 

Is is possible to create a database with a user-friendly interface where people can search through the organizations patents and look for new ideas? And then unlock the potential of this database through the use of an "inspiration room". The space should have prototypes and large monitors to search the database. Sessions held in the space can focus on a type of technology of challenge being addresses and people connected in that field can go through a facilitated brainstorming session. People needing a dose of creativity can use the space to imagine and feed off of others' ideas. Inventors can present their previous creations and ideas to panels tasked with finding a new use or solution.

Is this being done somewhere already? What else should be included? What won't work?

Credits: University of Southern Indiana's Innovation Discovery Process and a white paper by innovation strategy firm, Strategos.

My Video Game Week

The week from November 9 – 15 was a video game week. Woohoo! The Georgia Tech MBA marketing club decided last week to create a video game for a competition entry. I applied for an amazing associate brand manager position at Activision. And then - I worked on a team that built and launched a Facebook game in a weekend! That’s a pretty great week if you ask me. Now that I’m all hyped up about it, I want to work with the resident video game expert in my class to create a Guitar Hero video of me and take it viral! (It’s probably not cool to talk about taking something viral, is it? Just do it.) This sort of viral, guerrilla marketing reminds me a little bit of that girl who made www.twittershouldhireme.com website. Oh – anyone want to help make the video?

We’re still working on the GT MBA marketing club game. There’s not a lot of time to get it done, but we’ve got a great team and a killer offering. I’ll keep you updated on the progress with that. Some key messaging for Georgia Tech MBA marketers has already come out of the project and I can use that to really push the idea to come to GT for fantastic marketing talent.

Now, the Facebook app – it’s actually up and running. Go – sign up today!! (I’m training my team while writing this.) About 100 people got together Friday night and pitched 60 ideas for new startups @ ASW3. Teams were formed and started working on about 15 different ideas. On Sunday night, 12 teams presented and about 8 groups had alpha or even beta products to demo! How cool is that?!? Todaysbrackets.com, gomodo.me, Voicify, xpensetrack.com, FanTrendz, FlexSeats, Moody Tweets, Fake Whale, EventTank. Really great stuff. I worked on a team that was full of awesome talent, cooperative attitudes and a strong work ethic. The game looks sharp and is fun to play even at its basic level. I’m pretty sure the team will keep working on it. The marketing group (including me!) created Twitter, Facebook, a blog, a name, a URL…Touchdown Nation! We tweeted about it, invited friends, posted videos, showed screen shots and built excitement for the release. And it worked! Over 80 users signed up yesterday and the number continues to grow. It was a great experience about feature creep, statistics, Ruby on Rails, Facebook games, revenue models, target markets, key word advertising. Oh, there was also great food (thanks John!) and entertainment (thanks Lance!). Pretty great weekend.

Back to training my team.

And making that Guitar Hero video.

Business Plan Competition: Here We Come!

I got some exciting news yesterday (at least I think it's exciting). Georgia Tech hosts an annual Business Plan Competition where business students gather with technical students and pitch a business plan.

Through random chance (or is it?), I met a materials engineering Phd student in the Tech Starbucks back in August. Yesterday, I found out that the early stage technology created by my new friend is a viable entry into the competition! The technology works, but we're not sure if the process can be sped up enough to be commercially viable. But if it works - it will be huge.

What do they say about the young...? Oh yeah. Young and idealistic. Throw in some over-optimism and maybe some over-confidence. That's us. Young and entrepreneurial - out to change the world. I love it! Maybe it won't work. I mean, we're going up against a process that has been around for over 50 years. A lot of people have attempted to overtake the labor-intensive and time-consuming refining process (no, it's not oil). However, it's going to happen one day. Why can't it be us? This is probably a bit dreamy for a university business plan competition. 

Let's start with market sizing, target market and technology. Business plan here we come... 

Re-Inventing Your City In The New Economy

I'd like to make a few comments about an article I read in Business Week (Sept. 28, 2009) recently. The article discuss the transformation that Pittsburgh has made in recent years in response to the decline of manufacturing in the US. Pittsburgh lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the 1980's and the lost doesn't seem to be recoverable. The city could have given up, people could have moved away and stores could have closed their doors. Instead, "eds and meds" stepped up to the plate and offered another way for the former steel town to survive. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) has focused on economic development recently and created jobs and opportunities that have more than made up for the lost jobs in heavy industry.

"The cities of the future...will be driven by companies like UPMC and sophisticated universities that take intellectual property and translate it into services and commerce." - Jeffrey Romoff, chief executive of UPMC.

This process is positive, but slow-growing. In an all too familiar phrase, "the city has not yet produced a critical mass of high-tech startups that can grow to be major employers." Are there lessons that Atlanta and Pittsburgh can share? What other cities are focused on economic development through high-tech startups? One lesson that Pittsburgh is sharing is that "persistence with new ventures is critical. Pittsburgh people take the long view". And my favorite quote of the article: "They do economic development the way the Steelers play football. Not flashy. You win as a team. You get the job done."

There has been a lot of discussion about the viability of Atlanta as a startup cluster. If one looks at resources in the metro area, Atlanta can certainly compete with (or exceed?) Pittsburgh - Emory, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, UGA, Piedmont & Northside Hospital, Southern Company/Georgia Power. I don't know that whether the startups are B2C or B2B really matters. I like the focus that UPMC seems to have - "high-tech startups that can grow to be major employers". Actually, to me, 'major employers' mean B2B and health care. I think we're well positioned for that.

Cool To Be A Scientist

"The United States does need to increase—significantly—its investment in research. The nation needs Sputnik-like programs to solve a variety of critical problems: developing alternative fuels, reducing global warming, eliminating hunger, and treating and preventing disease. Engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and their associated colleagues have vital roles to play in such efforts. The nation- government, business, education, and society—needs to develop the road maps, create the excitement, and make it really cool and rewarding to become a scientist or engineer."
(Vivek Wadhwa, Issues in Science & Technology, Where the Engineers Are, Spring 2007)

Do people really know what the opportunities are in the science and technology fields? I spoke with a mother of two girls on a plane recently and her elder daughter is very interested in math and science and also has a flair for art. I mentioned the Industrial Design program at Georgia Tech and the mother had not heard about this type of program and asked what else there is to do besides engineering? This was a very smart and capable woman who, I believe, is asking a very normal question. A quick search on the Internet can start to help answer the question of what to do in math and science, but none of it is really “kid-friendly”. It certainly doesn’t help in the quest to “make it really cool to become a scientist or engineer”.

How can an organization “make it really cool and rewarding to become a scientist or engineer”? My initial thought centers around a conference with entertaining keynote speakers, fun breakout sessions, and an expo hall full of research projects and experiments. After much thought and discussions and feedback, I view this like a branding project. How can we brand STEM careers as the “cool” thing to do? I am looking forward to meeting with the founder of Tech High, a high school here in Atlanta that focuses on math, science and technology education for high schoolers. Perhaps he can help me structure the tools needed for this branding project.

Thoughts on my Social Entrepreneurship Idea

The Feel-Good Part
How many different professions did you want to be when you were a kid? I went through the requisite phases of wanting to be a doctor and a teacher and a ballerina. I feel like our imagination as children runs wild and the possibilities are endless. It doesn’t seem so far-fetched to dream of inventing something new or building something great or running our own business. How many of us end up doing those type of things when we grow up? Do we lose our imagination or is it just that reality sets in and we fear the unknown? Or is it that we can’t see the path to our dream? I love the stories of people who don’t lose their imagination, strive to forge their own path and ignore what reality seems to be telling them. It’s inspiring. And it’s also not too late to change direction. But see, there’s a big part of me that says it doesn’t have to be about changing direction later in life. If I was inspired, if someone helped me find the path in high school, I could have been an expert by now! What can I do to give someone that opportunity?

The Economics Part
No one doubts that the economy is changing. People are spending less money. Less money flowing through the economy has a significant impact on the number and types of jobs that are available. High growth is going to come from totally new ways of doing business and new products and services. Is the next generation of workers prepared for this? Will there be enough people pushing the value creation curve forward through innovation?

There are a lot of really fascinating developments occurring in the science, technology and engineering space. We need that to continue and increase. We need to ensure that the next generation is passionate about pursuing innovation. We can’t leave it up to someone else.

Innovation Makes Money

My significant other made a comment the other day over dinner.  He said that it seems like we (Georgia Tech MBAs) spend more time learning about innovation than making money - and isn't business school supposed to be about making money?  So I thought I would write a few things about how learning to manage innovation is a key element of making money.  

Proctor & Gamble is a 170+ year old company and in 2006 the company was worth about $70 billion.  When you look at growth around 5%, you are talking about a $3.5 BILLION increase in profits.  That kind of growth is not going to come from finding a new way to market soap and toothpaste and diapers.  It's not going to come from chopping the bottom 10% of your workforce every year.  It has to come from new, innovative ideas. In our highly competitive and fast-moving world, P&G is not alone in this struggle for growth.  It seems, then, that talking about innovation IS talking about making money. 

When A.G. Lafley took over P&G in 2000, the stock had fallen from $118 to $52.  Lafley started by restructuring and cost cutting, saving $1.7 billion.  But he also mandated an overhaul of the R&D and innovation policy at the company.  The charge from the top was to get 50% of new products from OUTSIDE P&G.  This required a radical change in the thinking and culture at P&G, but the company stepped up to the challenge and implemented a "Connect and Develop" system.  The system effectively sets targets for innovation and creates networks of sources for the innovation.  The results were pretty good in the mid-2000's: Crest Whitestrips, Swiffer, Mr. Clean Autodry, and the Magic Eraser.  The stock price in 2006 for P&G was $105.  Looks like there was some money being made there. 

One last thing to note - the typical success rate for new ideas?  About one in 100. 

New Principles in New Places

I read an article today about management innovation and how changing the way managers do what they do can lead to long-lasting competitive advantages.  Management innovation is bigger than both process and service innovation and really even bigger than operational innovation.  Management guru, Gary Hamel, describes the four elements of management innovation as:

• Commit to a big problem
• Search for new principles
• Deconstruct your management orthodoxies (the most difficult one!)
• Exploit the power of the analogy

What got me really excited was the idea to search for new principles in unrelated places.  If you want to build a highly adaptable organization, look at systems that have been able to adapt and survive for long periods of time.  Hamel uses examples such as nature, markets, and constitutional democracies.  The diversity in nature allows life to survive through dramatic changes in the environment.  Markets reallocate resources from less promising opportunities to more promising opportunities.  Democracy allows many different groups to influence policy.  A closer examination of what principles make these things successful can provide an example worthy of imitation.  Can we use a market structure for assigning consultants to various projects?  Does the market system or democratic voting work for developing new drugs?  Where can diversity, competition, allocation flexibility, and activism be utilized as a tool for improvement?  I love biology and love the idea that we can look to processes and characteristics of nature to find new ways of managing.  Creativity - here we come!

Asking "Why" Leads to Innovation

One of the best places I know for people watching is Disneyland.  The sheer diversity of the people that wander the magical streets of the amusement park lends itself readily to observation.  And, I suppose that you could learn quite about about human nature across various cultures just sitting the French Quarter listening to the jazz band play.  (I am, of course, referring to the French Quarter in Disneyland, not the actual NOLA French Quarter - although, I'm sure that's great people watching too.)  Are there ideas for profitable products and services in the Magic Kingdom? 

In the study of two different innovation strategies, there is one point that comes to prominence and that is Observation.  This is a key element of the IDEO innovation process as well as the process that Strategos teaches.  This step of observation and discovery is described as "shadowing, consumer journey, storytelling, and extreme user interviews" as well as "gain new perspectives, identify insights about unmet needs, identify limiting beliefs, and trend surfing". What these processes are suggesting is that the process of innovation involves ethnography.  Formally, ethnography is defined as a genre of research that uses observations to provide a descriptive study of human culture. It is doing just what IDEO suggests, go to the grocery store and look at how people interact with a shopping cart.  Discover something new that you wouldn't have thought of before and don't enter the field of observation with a list of pre-supposed hypotheses.  Probe for the meaning behind the action and there you will find a truly innovative idea.  Ask "why" during this first phase of innovation. 

There are three methodological principles to be cognizant of when embarking on an ethnographic discovery journey. 

1.  Be Natural - the value-add of ethnography is that the observation happens in a natural environment, not something contrived like a focus group where the only reason the people showed up is for the free food.  The researcher can participate or just observe, but keep it real either way.  

2.  Understanding the "Why" -Why do we do what we do? What lies beneath the mechanical function of the task and what cultural norms are forming our actions?

3.  Discover and Be Open - leave preconceived notions at the door and don't be afraid to deviate from what the original objective was.  It's about figuring out what's important and that's what we're here to learn. 

I think the more observant one is of people and their interactions with others and stuff, the more ideas will flow about how to create something of value.  Observation and discovery leads to insights about unmet needs.  And solving unmet needs is the best way to generate great idea for a business.  Since Disneyland is about 2,000 miles away, I'll have to be on the lookout for really good people watching places.  Any suggestions?