Archive for category Making Memes (my presentations and workshops)
Social Based Innovation, human-mashups under emergence
Posted by jayvanzyl in 02 Reframed Thinking, 05 Ecogenetic Changes, Making Memes (my presentations and workshops) on June 26, 2009
Does innovation require a different outcome during these times? Will a lean approach make me more successful? Do we have to do things differently than before? Would people adopt the approaches quicker than before? There are a number of questions that are left partially unanswered as academics and practitioners struggle to find easy answers for their individual settings.
Discovery, Invention, Innovation, Improvement, Creativity; throwing these in the organizational “pot” creates more confusion than solving problems. When [man] saw fire for the first time, was it a discovery? Imagine the surprise and excitement when the uneducated and uninformed caveman felt the heat from the fire for the first time. But, how do I keep this thing going? How was it created? Got asked before the long road to innovation to turn the discovery into something that is more controllable. The invention of making fire came much later.
Innovation during lean times is about the realization; that most of what we’ve learnt during the previous knowledge cycle since the beginning of the industrial revolution, is now under threat. We are working on two innovation re-think projects called “Built to Thrive”, that focuses on understanding business innovation as an eco-system activity; and “Social Based Innovation”, that focuses on the approaches to follow to re-invent yourself.
Participative Customer:
Historically we found that many of the time-locked concepts for example “client centricity”, “best practices”, “talent management” and “scorecard based measures” to mention a few; create common and copied views of how the world works. This imitation without understanding deeply why you need it has destroyed more companies than any other. The great pioneers of our time do not copy; they engage and immerse themselves deeply in the activity of their business and then redesign their future’s appropriately. The industrial era’s mindset is still fresh in the minds of managers and they find it difficult to shift [paradigm] to an era where the value creation activities are now socially influenced.
Let’s take one such example called ”client centricity”. Listening to your customers is a sure way to get into trouble; they have entirely different approaches, mental mindsets, and outcomes in mind compared to you and your business. The future is about crowdsourcing, crowdspirit, co-design, co-production and immersion. You do not want to give your favorite mobile provider or bank the exact requirements of what they need to make for you in the future. You want to be surprised and enlightened. This requires a much more networked and involved approach to understanding the issues and problems of the day. It also requires more insights into the solutions that might result in financially successful and environmentally friendly outcomes. Business models are evolving through the development of the participative customer as a means to get closer to the action; where the economic customer is seeing financial value in the network.
Social Networks:
Look at some of the latest innovation ecologies, these are essentially crowdsource based idea generators, that emerged over the last 2 years or so. Coke, Starbucks, Apple, IBM, etc all now have active and very vibrant idea to innovation communities that allow customers, competitors, and staff to interact in an integrated world of information sharing. They leverage the organization’s shadow and the industry’s undercurrents to gain deep understanding of of the shifts that are taking place. So, instead of copying, they allow for the crowds to co-produce and co-design the intended future. Market segmentation and coarse grained approaches will disappear and swarm based approaches and unique value approaches will emerge.
Our approach to delivering value is “Social Based Innovation”. Leveraging the shadow organization in achieving innovative outcomes. It’s not about product innovation; it’s about the offering. It’s not about process innovation; it’s about capability innovation. It’s about leveraging the social value in the business and not the elitist team that’s responsible for innovation. It’s about mobilizing the crowd through tribes and not the formal structure where innovations get trapped.
Obsessive Execution:
It’s in the portfolio; the success of your innovation efforts. The translation and articulation into meaningful actions. It’s the journey “from here and now, to here and now”.
Let’s take a view on innovation terminology that’s still in use today; “product based innovation”. Maybe the concept called “product” does not exist. Maybe there is only “service based innovation”. Take the chair you’re sitting on as an example; is it a product or a service? It was designed at a point in time where the collective knowledge of chair making and manufacturing got frozen and encapsulated into that chair. But, it is used to deliver a service for you tonight. It might be comfortable easy to adjust, etc making it a great service delivery platform. If the chair is not comfortable will you walk away thinking that the night was not useful?
Presentation: Social Based Innovation, human-mashups under emergence
Posted by jayvanzyl in Making Memes (my presentations and workshops) on June 9, 2009
We are living in times of seismic change and accelerated shifts in paradigms. Reframed thinking results in new business configurations being tested and uncharted territories unearthed. This results in business renewal activity that impacts the human component of the business directly. Social shifts result in people looking at the world differently.
Humans are integrated with technology and used as a driver to deliver new growth platforms. What are the new emerging practices of innovation as social networks connect people like never before? Can we learn from the historical successes of innovation? How are successful companies using innovation to compete in this fast changing world? Where does human innovation fit in the new business?
This presentation covers four key areas when looking at Social Based Innovation:
- Where has the customer paradigm taken us as crowdsourcing emerges
- How does the social network affect the human-technology ecosystem
- Using innovation capabilities to drive obsessive execution in the innovation ecology
- Forget about talent we need to focus on harnessing genius
These critical questions will be answered through case studies and insights into the latest innovation findings.
Presentation: Towards Capitalism 2.0, Signs of a new world order
Posted by jayvanzyl in Making Memes (my presentations and workshops) on May 29, 2009
We believe that studying cycles of change can teach us something about the world we’re in. But, every now and then a change comes along that shifts our perception of the world pushing our reasoning beyond all logic. Our inability to read signs of change push us into uncomfortable territory.
Economic systems, human reasoning about financial systems, and the current reasoning of the business world are all under scrutiny. We are concerned about the environment and global warming. Our renewed interest in human rights and the global population explosion all contribute to uncertain times.
This presentation takes the audience through a journey of some of the signs that need to be understood. It is a journey that starts with some of the key and fundamental challenges of modern commerce, and ends with some of the unanswered questions of our current state.
Presentation & Workshop: Reframed Innovation on the Horizon
Posted by jayvanzyl in Making Memes (my presentations and workshops) on May 29, 2009
Sustainable and successful organisations have the ability to explore new frontiers of competitiveness during challenging times. New business configurations and alternate uses of scarce resources are tested and uncharted territories unearthed. Innovation is used as an approach to drive competitiveness. But, the influence of new technologies and the ability to respond to changes affect the organization’s delivery capability.
Innovation disciplines are used to drive growth opportunities whilst protecting existing platforms of operation. This results in a number of critical questions being left unanswered. What’s involved with the practice of innovation? How are the most successful companies using innovation to compete in this fast changing world? Where and how can technology be used to drive innovation success? What can we learn from these (and previous) experiences?
This workshop has been broken down into a number of topic areas that highlight different aspects of how business renewal can drive performance through innovation and emergence. It brings together the realms of strategy for innovation and the ability to re-invent the business to ensure successful outcomes in this highly competitive and fragile business environment. Social Based Innovation approaches are unveiled and the participant is taken on a journey of reframing…
Presentation: Emergence of Bank 2.0, Innovation in a new world
Posted by jayvanzyl in Making Memes (my presentations and workshops) on March 4, 2009
Innovation is under scrutiny in the financial services world as global competitive pressures force organizations to rethink their business models and operating environments. Can financial services organizations benefit from innovation? How are the most successful companies using innovation to compete in this fast changing world? How can the incumbents participate in this new world of financial reconfiguration.
Bank 2.0 is a presentation about the new view of where financial services might end up. The cycles and waves of change are forcing the world to rethink the dogma of yesteryear.
This presentation covers some of the important aspects companies need to understand about the ways in which innovation is used to compete in dynamic markets. Some of the topics include:
- The meaning of innovation in the financial services organization. Is innovation responsible?
- A bruised landscape and faulty maps of execution. Useless strategies and broken crystal balls.
- Cycles of disruption and emergent paradigms. The contemporary role of “customer”.
- Social network phenomena and the relationship with financial services.
- Innovation Tools for a new age.
From workshop to action: making innovation work!
Posted by jay in 07 Offerings, Making Memes (my presentations and workshops) on November 6, 2008
At SystemicLogic we’ve developed approaches to get innovation implemented through Reframing. Different situations require different solutions. Innovation should not be trapped in a division, process or some part of the business where its seen as the “solve all our problems” concept. We promote the philosophy where innovation is seen as a cultural initiative that’s underpinned with strong empirical work and integrated systemic approaches (the ecosystem of innovation). There are differences between NPD (New Product Development), Improvement, Innovation, etc.
Consider this cycle:
Reframe -> Reconfigure -> Reframe -> Reconfigure
Sounds simple? Well, it is a lot more difficult than you think. In order to Reframe you will need some of these tools:
- View of the Landscape
- Understanding of Paradigms
- Competence Profiles
- Dominant Idea
- Measures and Health Checks
In order to Reconfigure you will require:
- Social Networks as Platform for Transformation
- Business Architecture
- Innovation Portfolio
- Product/Service Platform
These are some tools needed to facilitate the conversations as you progress from that first innovation workshop onto the cyclical actions needed to institutionalize innovation. Financial and other benefits need to be quantified and used to guide initiatives.
Presentation: Built to Thrive and the human innovation imperative
Posted by jay in 10 Uncontaminated Generation, Making Memes (my presentations and workshops) on October 30, 2008
Sustainable and successful organisations explore new frontiers of competitiveness as a matter of doing business. Reframed thinking results in new business configurations being tested and uncharted territories unearthed. This results in businesses renewal activity that impacts the human component of the business directly.
Human Innovation is used as a driver to deliver new growth platforms. What are the new emerging practices of innovation? Can we learn from the history of innovation? How are successful companies using innovation to compete in this fast changing world? Where does human innovation fit in the new business?
This presentation covers four key areas when looking at Human Innovation:
- Capturing value by using emergent Social Networks
- Understanding the Human Eco-system by reading collaborative participative cues
- The drive towards Transparency creates new opportunities
- Forget about talent we need to focus on Managing Genius
These critical questions will be answered through case studies and insights into the latest innovation findings.
Feedback on the Product Line Practice Conference 2008 in Limerick, Ireland
Posted by jay in 09 Economies of Scope, Exploring the World, Making Memes (my presentations and workshops) on September 10, 2008
Limerick is a great city that is filled with history and Irish pride and is the host to the 2008 SPLC Conference. I came here once before (to present a paper on product lines) for the ICSE 2000 conference at Limerick University and remember the place fondly. From Wikipedia: The city itself dates from at least the Viking settlement in 812. The Normans redesigned the city in the 12th century and added much of the most notable architecture, such as King John’s Castle and St Mary’s Cathedral. During the civil wars of the 17th century, the city played a pivotal role, besieged by Oliver Cromwell in 1651 and twice by the Williamites in the 1690s. Limerick grew rich through trade in the late 18th century, but the Act of Union in 1800, and the famine caused a crippling economic decline broken only by the so-called Celtic Tiger in the 1990s.
The SPLC 2008 (SystemicLogic is a Gold Sponsor!) had brought together 233 people from some 15 counties. I’m the only one from Africa and there are a few people from Australia. The content is great as usual and the focus is still primarily on electronics, automotive, military and complex manufacturing related activity. We (Martin and I) were the only people with a focus on financial services. Our presentation and paper attracted a lot of attention as the move towards Service Line Practice is not being considered by this community.
The abstract of our paper is (Martin Krsek, Dr. Jay van Zyl, Robert Redpath, Ben Clohesy): Product Line concepts are widely used and adopted across a number of industries. Whilst the software product line concepts are readily accessible to commercial software product companies, the application within corporate environments whose core business is not software has been less evident. What are the types of challenges that large corporate organisations need to overcome? This paper presents a number of hurdles which have been observed during the adoption of the concepts at two large financial services organisations. One particular hurdle relates to the difficulty that business divisions within those organisations have in perceiving a return on investment when a product line is established that crosses business unit boundaries. Furthermore a number of enabling mechanisms, related to funding, IT project and general management aspects are proposed which are showing positive results in facilitating the adoption of Product Line Practices in corporate financial service organisations.
Some of the conclusions from the paper are: From our observations it is a key issue that the Software Product Line approach is demonstrated to align with the organisation’s strategic business objectives, and is shown to provide business benefits with acceptable risk. Modeling techniques and tools are available for product line modeling and they should be used to aid this strategic alignment. The business silo project driven organisation design must be amended and complemented specifically with the creation of a product management function and governance mechanisms to ensure that products scoped into a product line are not withdrawn without due consideration of the implications, and specifically the implications for the product line business case.
- An economic model comprising the initial investment, charging model and return on investment by the product line over time must be designed and integrated into the internal costing mechanisms of the organisation. Financial service organisations that pursue the adoption of Software Product Lines by addressing these hurdles are positioning themselves to derive similar benefits, albeit on a smaller scale to those obtained by commercial software companies operating in the open market.
- Future work will undertake further empirical studies, at large financial institutions, of Software Product Line adoption to more closely identify the hurdles to adoption as well as refining the solutions and enablers to overcome them. Approaches to be employed will focus on identifying and formalising points of commonality and variability during requirements modeling and engineering.
- In addition, economic models and methods to motivate a view of software as an asset based on traditional valuation models, as used for physical assets that exhibit features of an upfront investment, compulsory charges for those making use of the asset, ongoing maintenance costs and depreciation over the life of the asset will be investigated. The presence of service oriented architectures must also be factored into approaches and a conception of Service Line Practices introduced with their attendant implications and shift in thinking.
Just to re-iterate some of the business goals of using Product Line related principles and practices (as presented by Philips Healthcare by Luc Koch):
- Increase development efficiency (shared architecture, composable flexible systems)
- Increace similarity of products (user interface, shared software architecture)
- Improve quality and reliability
- Reduce time-to-market
In conclusion: After discussions with prominent researchers in the field we are convinced that further research in service line practice field (check out my previous post on Seperating service lines from product lines”) will benefit the product line community greatly. The use of product lines to deliver service lines:
- use service line to deliver service platform for many instances to execute on software platform (typically centrally executed systems for example Google)
- use product line to deliver product platform for one instance to execute on software platform (typically on embedded systems for example mp3 player, but also used for other software intensive systems)