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INNOVATION, 22 January 1996
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Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 23:04:45 EDT From: editors@NewsScan.Com To: innovation-list@NewsScan.Com, innovation@NewsScan.Com Subject: INNOVATION, 22 January 1996
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Innovation -- A NewsScan Service ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Because time and information are your most valuable assets, Innovation offers a weekly summary of trends, strategies, and innovations in business and technology, giving you an executive briefing on ideas for the future. It is written by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TRENDS The Eyes Have It In ID Systems Problem Solvers Look To Human Models Internet Jobs Take Off Dress-Down Day Is Here To Stay
STRATEGIES "Free" Is Still An Attention-Getter If They Come, Then You Can Build It Innovation-Owners "Keep Up The Property" Better Satisfactory Competition Painting A Moving Project
INNOVATIONS Asthma Monitoring Via Modem Climbing Wheelchair Computers Milk Profits For Dairy Farmers Fuzzbuster Transformers
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>TRENDS
THE EYES HAVE IT IN ID SYSTEMS Increasingly, building security systems are moving beyond magnetic cards or punch-in codes, in favor of biometric-based systems. The new systems use complex algorithms to match users' eyes, voice, finger or palm prints to a database of stored images. Future markets for the technology include cars and credit cards, says the head of a security consulting firm, who anticipates the market for biometric hardware growing at 38% a year throughout the decade. In the next few years, stores will be equipped with readers that match the shopper's features to those encoded in their credit cards. Already, Los Angeles County has saved $14 million over three years by using a biometric verification system, such as electronic fingerprinting, for delivery of government benefits. The latest trend in biometric systems is to use the unique patterns in the eye's iris for identification purposes. (Investor's Business Daily 17 Jan 96 A6)
PROBLEM SOLVERS LOOK TO HUMAN MODELS Scientists are looking to nature-based models for new ideas on problem-solving, realizing that in many cases, Mother Nature really does know best. A typical example involves computer virus detection programs. Most programs do their virus-scouting by checking against a database of known viruses, but the problem is that new viruses are being created all the time. A computer scientist at the University of New Mexico decided to take a lesson from the human immune system, which uses a "negative selection" process to develop T-cells that are highly sensitive to foreign cells invading the system. The computer program does the same thing, resulting in strings of computer code that are ultra-vigilant against the introduction of "foreign" code. When the software encounters something unfamiliar, a window pops up on the screen that says, "A change has been detected." The software then identifies the file where the suspected virus is located. "I really believe that our computer systems are so complicated, we can't use them effectively till we make them look more like biological systems," says the program's creator. Interval Research hopes to have a commercial version of the new antivirus software on the market in the next year or two. (Wall Street Journal 16 Jan 96 A1)
INTERNET JOBS TAKE OFF A recent survey on the hiring plans of 400 companies shows that about 50 of them plan to hire a general manager or similar executive to oversee Internet-related work in 1996 -- that's about three times as many as were reported last year. And for every top Internet manager hired, companies add about another 20 Internet workers, says the head of Christian & Timber, which conducted the study. In addition, another 50 companies plan to add chief technology officers or chief architects to their business structures, who will oversee the selection, implementation and management of the companies' information technology environment. (Information Week 15 Jan 96 p72)
DRESS-DOWN DAY IS HERE TO STAY A recent study conducted on behalf of Levi Strauss & Co. and the Society for Human Resource Management reveals that 90% of U.S. employers permit their workers to report to work dressed casually at least occasionally, up from 62% in 1992. "We are experiencing the single most fundamental change in how people dress for the office in this century," says Levi's consumer marketing director. "We think that by the year 2000 half of all U.S. corporations will allow causal dress on a full-time basis." Employers cite improved workplace morale and productivity as motivators for the trend, while workers tout the advantages of smaller clothing budgets. And while men's casual clothes sales have soared, women's clothing makers are suffering -- men needed to go out and buy clothes that bridged the gap between sweats and suits, but women already had nice looking casual wear in their closets and didn't need to purchase new dress-down outfits. (St. Petersburg Times 18 Jan 96 E1)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>STRATEGIES
"FREE" IS STILL AN ATTENTION-GETTER As companies struggle to figure out how to generate income on the World Wide Web, advertisers are turning to a tried-and-true buzz word -- "free." "It took us a couple of months," says Ziff-Davis Interactive's VP for market development, "but we found that users respond to ads that offer things free." One of the most widely read ads on Ziff-Davis's service is one posted by Epson America that offers a free screen saver to users who click onward for more information. CompuServe's manager of interactive advertising agrees: "The challenge to a user is, `There is free software here if you check us out.' People are greedy. It works." (Investor's Business Daily 15 Jan 96 A6)
IF THEY COME, THEN YOU CAN BUILD IT There are basically two ways you can price something. You can start with how much it cost to produce it, and add a profit (the "cost-plus" approach); or you can decide how much you need to sell it for, and then work backwards to figure out how to design and produce it (the "target costing" approach). But fierce competitive realities remove the luxury of cost-plussing, and force you "to manage costs from the design phase forward and to launch products at prices that will attract broad segments of customers and forestall imitation." Target costing forces an organization to articulate its product-development goals very precisely and to communicate them to everyone working on a development project. Since target costing prohibits you from simply raising the price and launching the product, it forces the product designers of each particular subsystem to come up with a convincing answer to two interesting questions: How much does this subsystem cost? And how much do customers value this subsystem? After they answer those questions, they can finish designing the product. But not before. (Robin Cooper and W. Bruce Chew, "Control Tomorrow's Costs Through Today's Designs," Harvard Business Review Jan/Feb 96 p88)
INNOVATION-OWNERS "KEEP UP THE PROPERTY" BETTER Is the reason large, bureaucratic companies find it so hard to act "entrepreneurially" that they are large and bureaucratic? Or is there a more specific reason -- i.e., the fact that they are owned by someone else? "Worker ownership provides the key advantage of the entrepreneurial enterprise" -- and the difference between the large firm and the small firm is who owns the firm. In the case of innovation, the small firm often has the advantage, because innovation is a type of economic activity characterized by a "low profitability, highly uncertain" return profile. The likelihood of success is small; it's difficult to observe the value of labor output over long periods; and the ratio of capital to labor investment is low; these factors, which make innovation costly to large firms, make likely the emergence of small firms owned by the central innovators, who hope to reap extraordinary rewards. Rarely are large firms able to replicate the incentives of a small, worker-owned firm. One interesting exception is franchising: "The important commitment role of ownership is well-illustrated by the fact that franchise arrangements are used for precisely those tasks where small, worker-owned firms are otherwise prevalent." Maybe we need to franchise R&D. (Steven N. Wiggins, "Entrepreneurial Enterprises, Endogenous Ownership And The Limits To Firm Size," Economic Inquiry 33 p54)
SATISFACTORY COMPETITION Just about every company or organization prides itself on slogans claiming to be customer-oriented or client-oriented, but those slogans are often empty-meaning, self-deceptions that create "an illusion of proactivity which leads to organizational smugness and strategic drift." You will have a customer-oriented organization only if you work on the intraorganizational factors "necessary for creating the value system which will enable the whole organization to become more responsive." You need to define yourself in customer-based terms, not self-absorbed terms focused back on the organization; show sensitivity and proactiveness about customer/client needs; take regular, structured measurements of customer happiness; and integrate customer satisfaction into mainstream organizational goals. You don't succeed unless you compete. You won't succeed in customer satisfaction unless you regard it as a competitive arena, that deserves every bit as much focus as the design and development of your products or services. (Sonny Nwankwo, "Developing A Customer Orientation," Journal of Consumer Marketing 12(5) 95 p5)
PAINTING A MOVING PROJECT The traditional way of developing a product was to make a clear separation between concept development and implementation. You'd start by focusing extensively on customer needs and on technical feasibility, and then you'd produce and get approval for a detailed and thorough concept document -- at which point there would be a "concept freeze" project milestone, with the idea being that if the initial work is done right it shouldn't be necessary to make expensive changes later. But the traditional model works well only in an environment where technology, product features, and competitive requirements are predictable. It does NOT work well in turbulent, highly uncertain markets such as those created by the confluence of the computer, telecommunications and media industries, where "major changes in standards, customer requirements, and technological possibilities may happen on a monthly or even a weekly basis, a time scale much shorter than even the fastest development project." So the ability to adapt to rapid change during the project's evolution becomes a crucial competitive advantage. To be able to achieve that kind of project flexibility, you need to predict the areas of most frequent change and partition project tasks to create the tightest problem-solving loops around the most critical interactions between design choice and system performance. (Marco Iansiti, "Shooting The Rapids: Managing Product Development In Turbulent Environments," California Management Review 38(1) 95 p37)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>INNOVATIONS
ASTHMA MONITORING VIA MODEM Enact Health Management Systems in Mountain View, Calif. has developed a pocket-sized airway monitor for asthmatics in order to help them and their physicians track their lung functions and adjust medication accordingly. AirWatch records how hard and how much air a patient can blow and transmits that data to a central computer where it's faxed within minutes to a doctor's office. Each month the doctor and patient receive a summary that charts medication levels and provides information on how well it's working. (Business Week 22 Jan 96 p94)
CLIMBING WHEELCHAIR Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception Lab have developed a motorized wheelchair that uses two front legs to assist the wheels in climbing up over curbs, opening doors, pushing obstacles aside and stepping over small objects. The device also allows its user to navigate difficult terrain, such as sand or mud -- "The wheels slip, so the legs dig in and pull," says creator Vijay Kumar. A small modification will even allow the machine to climb steps. (Scientific America Jan 96 p35)
COMPUTERS MILK PROFITS FOR DAIRY FARMERS The dairy business isn't what it used to be -- on high-tech farms, computer transponders worn by each cow allow weighing meters to measure how much milk each one produces. The data is fed into a computer in the farmer's office, where he monitors the herd's yield, and uses automatic gates to send some to the veterinarian, some to the breeder -- and others to the butcher. (St. Petersburg Times 19 Jan 96 E6)
FUZZBUSTER TRANSFORMERS Now that speed limits are rising on many roads, radar detectors are being retooled to do more than just warn that Smokey's just around the bend. The new fuzzbusters will still spot speed traps, but also will alert drivers to traffic accidents, road construction, and even approaching trains. A small number of ambulance, police and fire-rescue services are testing devices that send signals to trigger the new radar devices. "It's the wave of the future," says the chairman of the Dade County Expressway Authority. "A major complaint from commuters is congestion and the resultant delay." The devices signal a railroad crossing with the familiar ding-ding-ding sound, and approaching emergency vehicles are displayed as moving lights accompanied by rapid beeping sounds. The newest models feature digital screens that display a written message about the upcoming traffic hazard. (Miami Herald 17 Jan 96 B1)
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