Ending of Course with Superb Guest Lecture

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In this post, I am going to share my overall experience on course of Open and User innovation and my feedback on our Guest lecture ‘Anna Rosling Rönnlund’, founder of Gapminder.

First of all, the real reason why I have joined this course was that we had one lecture related to Entrepreneurship for Engineers course which was given by Mr. Serdar. In that lecture, I got really impressed by the way he interacted with students. He made us to participate in the class by calling us with our names which was very impressive and unique for me in this European culture of studies. So I made my final decision to attend the course on Open and User innovation, though I did not know the ABC of it.

Being an introvert by nature, I was a little shy during the first few classes. But Serdar was so kind and encouraging that I started to participate in the class. I have enjoyed learning in that class because everyone was so nice and friendly. I really thank you everyone in the class for being so kind and helpful. I have learned a lot from our classmates. They were very confident and informative. Some of you knew a lot about innovation which had inspired me a lot.

Mr.Serdar has a very different way of teaching and dealing with the students. He has answered all the questions very elaborately and clearly and I can say now proudly that I know the basics and core concepts of open and user innovation. It has widened my way of thinking and looking at things in a different way. Most importantly, it has given me confidence and helped me to improve my communication skills which I think would definitely help me in my career.

Now let’s come to the great lecture given to us today ( 2nd December 2015) by one of the Gapminder’s owner Anna Rosling. We met her before the class and I found her very charming and inspiring person. Her colleague Jasper was also very nice. The nice thing was that he was also an EIT ICT student. J. Mr. Serdar introduced us with her by calling us with our names that felt very nice to me.

Anna Rosling started her presentation on Gapminder and DollarStreet Project by showing us very cool pictures and interacting with us by asking some questions included in one of their surveys. That really helped me to understand that our perception on world’s statistics and income or health of people worldwide in different nations is actually wrong. We should have an effective way to visualize the world’s economic conditions based on different nations. Vizabi project is also an interesting project to visualize the data in different forms. Anna showed us the data on different household items used by families of different income levels. I think that data can help us to locate those people and help them to lead a better life. The data generated by DollarStreet can provide opportunities to organizations and agencies to tackle the poverty and other problems in the world effectively.

Last but not the least, it was a great end of the course. This course has provided me a lot of good memories and knowledge and I will cherish those precious moments throughout my life.

Thanks a lot everyone J

Delphi Method In User Innovation

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I was reading “The Cathedral & the Bazaar by Eric Raymond” and there I came across a term “Delphi method”. In simple terms, it is a communication method involving experts and one facilitator to solve a problem by doing several rounds of giving opinions and reviewing the solutions until they reach towards a consensus. It is mostly used in making policy making decisions, marketing and forecasting. However, from my point of view, this method is used everywhere and by almost everyone. The only difference is in the roles of experts and facilitator in each scenario. Let me give some examples to clear my point.

A housewife goes to shop for grocery. She sees different brands of teas. She is used to drink one brand A. But there are B and C brands as well which seem very tempting. Now comes the Delphi method. She is the facilitator or controller and experts are his friends who have used brands B and C and the internet which has given information about benefits of the other brands. So by viewing the opinions of experts (friends, internet), she (agent) has come up to the conclusion to buy brand B instead. More examples can be seen easily if we look at different situations from the perspective of Delphi method.

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Now comes the main point of this whole discussion. Can we apply Delphi method in User innovation? As far as my understanding is concerned, I think we surely can.

Delphi method applies in all phases of User innovation. Initial phase of user innovation is always personal itch. While facing some personal problem and trying to find a solution, Delphi method helps the user in reaching towards the final decision of doing innovation or not. Next phase is the developing of innovative product. Here Delphi method can be used to decide which resources will be used in the development process. User can involve his friends or other experts while making the decision or he can do it on its own as well. As the innovation process progresses, more users will be added and they also become the part of this Delphi method in the improvement of the innovated product.

Long story short, I think Delphi method is everywhere and can be used effectively while making important decisions in innovation process.

Regards

Amna

Relationship between User and Producer Innovators

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We all agree that innovation is important because it can fulfil the user needs, benefits the society and helps the firms to gain profits. There are also lots of other benefits of innovation but the most important factor which determines the quality of innovation is the originator of the innovation. Now here comes the interesting part. Most of us will say that the originators or sources of innovation products are manufacturers or firms which sell them. However, it is not true.I  will try to explain the real originators of innovative products which are Users

First of all, let me clear the difference between users and manufacturers.

  • Users of the products are people or firms who use the product
  • Manufacturers are the firms or organizations who sell the products

So there are two basic components in the whole innovation process and there is a clear relationship between these two acting components.

The key point is that every innovation starts with user. It is the user who is always the originator of the innovation product. This whole process can begin because of the following factors related to user:

  • User finds a problem or need and he wants to fix it but there is no solution available in market
  • User wants to innovate because of enjoyment or pleasure
  • User wants to innovate something because he wants to learn
  • User wants to innovate for social welfare

No matter what the reason is, it is the user who starts to innovate. Manufacturers do not take part at this point because they see no market here. As the user builds a product, other users see the benefits and modify or improve the product for their own needs. Gradually, the product starts to be used by many users, each adding something in the product innovation process.

Now the manufacturer jumps in and says to users that their part is over, Now it is his time to take the product to the next levels, He takes the product and makes it in a fancy way and sells it.

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Figure 

Producers believe that the product is their innovation and the first user innovative product which is in fact a part of their whole product is just a crap.

Users make their innovations products open so that other users can help them to improve the product.

Today, manufacturers are driven out of the innovation products because

  • Users are better in creating them
  • Users are greater in number than manufacturers
  • Users can combine the best solutions by other users because they share it open
  • Users can get the best of all solutions but no producer can because of Intellectual Property

So the moral of the story is that users are feed stock of innovation process and there is a need for protection of this precious resource of innovation by the community.

 

Circle of Innovation

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Hello Everyone, this is my first post on this blog site on entrepreneurship and innovation. Tomorrow we have a second lecture of Open and User Innovation and I am really looking forward to it. I have read an assigned article to us and I have analyzed it with my own understanding and concepts which I have developed so far. I think my first post should be about sharing my analysis which may help others see this article and understand it with a different perspective. Lets see what I have understood and got from the assigned article on Finding your Innovation Sweet Spot.

Product developers are always getting this advice from the Marketers that customers are always right or customers get 100% of the votes. Entrepreneurs should develop something which should meet the needs and wants of customers. They should develop products by placing themselves and perceiving themselves as their current and potential customers. But what really a person needs or wants cannot be describe or explained clearly. If it is easily explainable and identifiable, it means there is something already present in the market which can fulfil that need. This is clearly not an innovation which is desired for entrepreneurship. So if the customers can’t explain clearly what they need, how entrepreneurs can develop something according to their needs and problems. If a company tries to extend the features of its existing product little bit, it cannot be able to lure the customers to take out the money from their pockets to buy that new product easily.

One way to deal with this problem of making customers break their established ways of spending money and buy your new product no matter how much it costs, is to think out of the box. This means think for the new product service without bounding yourself to one domain. But this also rises the issue of how can we reach a best solution or develop a service or product if there are infinite different domains of thinking our service into. It can lead to coming up with an idea which can totally contradict the current position of the company in the market making it difficult for the company to pursue that product for a long time. For example, Scott Company which made sanitary paper tissues and towels went into making paper dresses for the party as being a novel and new idea for marketing. This idea helped the company with big sales and profits but the company was overwhelmed with big promotion and sales eventually and ended this product saying that it was a paper tissue company, not a dress manufacturer. Scott only used this idea of disposable paper dresses to advertise its new paper products but it lead to creation of an industry of paper dresses which was not the motivation of the company behind this innovative product.

 

 

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So the simple solution is that think freely far enough from existing products but keep yourself inside the imaginary circle of company’s position and capabilities in market. This is what we call finding your sweet spot of innovation. The above circle diagram shows how one can move within a circle of company’s position and capabilities using five patterns of systematic inventive thinking to develop something innovative.

Hope the above explanation helps the readers to think about innovation by binding your thinking power within a circle of company’s limitations with choosing an existing product as starting point or center of circle and moving away from the product by applying one or more out of five patterns for thinking in a systematic manner until reach your final destination of innovative product,

Regards

Amna