Helping Others Go Vertical

Innovation in Entrepreneurship - A Case Study on Keen Mobility

by Meri Gruber

Keen Mobility is a story of innovation, invention and entrepreneurship. Innovation is often focused on inventions and new products, but innovation is also a new way of thinking about conventional wisdom. Jeffrey Phillips wrote an insightful post "Innovation, Invention and Entrepreneurs", defining innovation as "a new idea that is put into valuable or profitable action." What is so wonderful about the Keen Mobility story is how Vail Blackwell Horton and Jerry Carleton combined innovation, invention and entrepreneurship to deliver value for a large, underserved population and create a profitable, growing business.

Keen Mobility was founded by Vail Blackwell Horton and Jerry Carleton. Vail and Jerry were college roommates at the University of Portland (UP). Vail, born without legs, had been using artificial legs to walk but the crutches he needed to use with the artificial legs were destroying his shoulders. He wanted to find a better way to keep walking - for him, and for others. Vail went in search of a way to fulfill this mission.

Vail brought an idea for a new type of crutch - one with shock absorbing technology - to a group of engineering students at UP. He suggested the engineers try to build a working prototype for their senior project. They agreed, and the student engineers went to work. The concept worked! The engineering students successfully built a working prototype, and Vail and Jerry realized their concept could fly. They set off to start a company to build a product that would help Vail stay vertically mobile, and help others do so as well.

Full of enthusiasm, Jerry and Vail looked at each other across the table of their rented student digs in North Portland, asking what all entrepreneurs ask at this point, "What now?" They had zero idea how to launch a company and needed expertise and funding. Financing is tough at the best of times, but this was in 2001, in the midst of the dot com and telecom bust.

Jerry and Vail called the UP Center for Entrepreneurship. They also set up every meeting, coffee and lunch they could with people they could learn from. By approaching people for mentorship, not funding, they built relationships for the long haul. The company wasn’t bankable at this time, but many of these early contacts later became investors.

The UP Center for Entrepreneurship encouraged the team to enter UP's Entrepreneurs Challenge and other business competitions. By April 2002 they had won the $10,000 first prize in the UP competition and third place in Portland Business Journal's business plan competition, winning $35,000 in cash and services. UP sent them to more competitions around the U.S. where they consistently finished in the top three.

The team also looked for other sources of funding. They wrote a successful proposal to UP to fund their trade show booth and travel costs. They contacted the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). With support from the Lemelson Foundation, NCIIA awards approximately two million dollars in grants annually to college students or recent graduates of member institutions. Keen was awarded a $10,000 NCIIA grant funding prototype development and provisional patent filing costs.

A great partnership, Vail focused on creating the product and the vision for company while Jerry continued fundraising efforts. The VC environment continued to be difficult. Jerry "took every meeting he could get." Innovation continued. They partnered with universities where student engineering teams would apply to NCIIA to prototype Keen's new product ideas. Frugality reigned supreme. In one example, now part of the company's lore, Jerry opened the company bank account at US Bank because of their "Five Star Service Guarantee" that said if you waited in line for more than five minutes, they credited $5 to your account. Jerry made sure to pick the longest line in the bank every time.

The business plan competitions were great for press, as was their compelling mission to keep Vail and others vertically mobile. Jerry recalls, "We were never in crisis capital mode, we had options." When they went out to raise their first preferred round, they "couldn't stomach" the VC terms, so they turned to angel investors. Jerry was on the road, once meeting in six different states in 48 hours. Jerry had the mindset, "every person was a potential investor, or knew a potential investor." Jerry hit the mark - the company's first preferred round was oversubscribed.

Innovation also comes from understanding your market. One of Keen Mobility's best selling products lines today, Tru-ReliefTM foam, started as an important addition to their shock absorbing crutch. When looking for a solution for shock absorbing underarm foam, they discovered a superb foam that could also relieve pressure points. Pressure sores can cause severe discomfort to wheelchair users and can be life threatening.

A crutch with shock absorbing technology was the company inspiration but ultimately represented only a small market. The team realized they needed a full suite of "world-class products focused on safety, mobility, and comfort for the disabled, elderly and injured." They now focused their efforts on building out their product line.

The team went on to close their Series B preferred, again oversubscribed, with about half coming from Series A investors, and half new investors. In 2005, Keen added their first intuitional investor, Crobern Management Partnership, after the Series B close. Jerry describes Crobern as "a venture firm with an angel attitude." Crobern's focus in health care, and their ability to provide value beyond the dollars, has been a great fit with Keen. Jerry points to their early years as an important training ground. "The training we received in the lean years gave us such a respect for the money we raised." Needing only half of the first tranche, the company gained credibility with their new investor when they bought CD's with the extra money.

Keen Mobility today has "over $2.5 million in annual sales, 25 different product lines, more than $1.7 million in capital, and 12 employees. Keen Mobility has also been recognized by the Oregon Entrepreneurs Forum as one of the three most successful growth-stage companies in the state, ranked number 30 on the 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies List, and was placed on the Governor's Honor Role for Employers of People with Disabilities."

Keen Mobility has been named in 2008 and in 2009 to Inc.'s annual ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America and to the Portland Business Journal's Oregon 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies list three consecutive years. Vail and Jerry were both named to the "Top Forty Under Forty" list by the Portland Business Journal.

Vail holds numerous honors, including his appointment to the Secretary of State Advisory Committee for Worldwide Disability Policy and was named an "Oregon Healthcare Hero" by Senator Gordon Smith on the floor of the US Senate. Vail is also founder and chairman of Incight Foundation, dedicated to empowering people with disabilities through education, employment, networking and independence.

Jerry, who from year two was amazingly attending law school at night, was admitted to the Oregon Bar in 2007 and joined Bullivant Houser Bailey PC. "Having a real life case study to immediately apply my classroom lessons was an incredible opportunity." Jerry's hard won lessons in founding and growing Keen Mobility inspired him to "pay that forward, taking companies into and through the trenches." He continues to be part of Keen Mobility as a Director and Officer of the company.

Vail and Jerry's story, the story of Keen Mobility, is a story of innovation, invention and entrepreneurship. From Vail's initial inspiration and invention, they used creativity, ingenuity, dedication and hard work to grow their company. What Vail and Jerry show us is that innovation is a mindset, that when confronted with challenges, new ideas can change the game.


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Meri Gruber is a leading expert on business execution. She blogs on the intersection of innovation and business execution at www.competingonexecution.com

Four New and Old Healthcare Ideas

by Rocco Tarasi

There are more innovations occurring in healthcare than anyone can count or keep track of, but I was particularly interested in these four - three that I've experienced personally and one that I've read about. They include a new product, a new pricing philosophy, a new business model, and a new distribution model.

1. Getting closer to the famous 'Star Trek tricorder'
   
   • GE's new portable ultrasound puts an ultrasound machine in a doctor's pocket - about the size of a smartphone. According to an early-trial doctor, "Having Vscan at my disposal at all times has allowed me to use ultrasound in a number of settings and with patients that I wouldn't have anticipated before." This isn't just a better ultrasound - in fact its probably worse, as the images are not as good as traditional machines. But it's now-portable capabilities mean it can be used to diagnose problems that doctors wouldn't have used ultrasound for before.
   
   
2. Wallet-busting ER fees
   
   • When we renewed our company-provided health insurance, the co-pay for emergency room visits jumped from $50 to $250. My reaction to that 400% price increase wasn't outrage but rather, 'good idea'. Part of the reason that ERs are clogged is because there isn't much disincentive from going. Increasing the price might be able to influence user behavior to either look for alternatives or to more critically evaluate whether the ER trip is necessary. Which leads to our next innovation...
   
   
3. More ER alternatives
   
   • I've used services like MedExpress before when I couldn't see my regular doctor, but I recently received a letter from my physician, who is part of a UPMC's medical juggernaut, that UPMC was opening its own off-hours clinic for nights and weekends when your normal doctor's office is closed. Apparently they've realized that people don't just get sick during business hours. Given the increase in my ER co-pays, this new service is a great alternative.
   
   
4. Pediatricians from the horse-and-buggy era
   
   • When we took our one-year old to the ER for last year, we waited 7 hours before we saw a doctor. While his injury fortunately wasn't critical (and he pretty much slept the entire time), we saw countless other kids sick or injured and in obvious pain stuck in the waiting room for hours. One little girl with a dislocated elbow was in the waiting room for over 2 hours. If you are willing to spend the money, there are some pediatricians that don't maintain offices but instead visit your house - or the ER - whenever you need them. Like the old days, I guess. They limit the number of patients they attend to, and charge a not-inexpensive fee per month per child, on top of what you pay for insurance. But for those with the money to spend - and if your kids are prone to injury - this can be well worth the price.

It is interesting to look at these types of innovations in the big picture. Several target the choke points like the ER, where a combination of alternatives and incentives serve to move the delivery of healthcare elsewhere. New products like GE's pocket ultrasound disrupt other chokepoints inside the hospital, offering immediate results from your exam room without needing to travel to another department. These are the business model changes and disruptive products that will make the most difference in improving healthcare.


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Rocco Tarasi was an accountant, investment banker, and CFO before becoming a technology entrepreneur. He writes about innovation at www.InnovationMinute.com with a focus on "everyday" innovations in business models, sales strategies, products and services.

Innovation Perspectives - Innovating a Health Care Fix

This is the seventh of several 'Innovation Perspectives' articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on 'What product or sector is in desperate need of innovation?'. Here is the next perspective in the series:

by Mark Roser

In looking across various sectors the area of healthcare stands out as a particular opportunity for innovation. And, regardless which side one takes politically, there is no doubt a surplus of opportunities for improvement. In the US, government healthcare (Medicare and Medicaid) together with private healthcare account for a significant percentage of GDP.

As professionals involved in open innovation, readers of this blog will no doubt bring a valued perspective on how we can deliver innovation in this space. Whether we work in the healthcare field or are simply consumers of healthcare, the lessons that we learn from open innovation collaboration are intrinsically required in innovating the future of healthcare.

Each health transaction is touched by a multitude of stakeholders:

• Patients and their network - family members, caregivers, friends, etc.
  
• Doctors (generalists and specialists) and their network - health technicians, clerical staff, reimbursement specialists representing the doctor, professional societies, etc.
  
• Health institutions (hospital, medical center, practice, etc) and their network - administrators, IT specialists, physical plant & facilities management, etc.
  
• Pharmacies and their network - pharmacist, pharmacists assistants, retail pharmacy operators, etc.
  
• Pharmaceutical companies and their network - scientists, clinical experts, marketers, etc.
  
• Payers (insurance companies or government body such as Medicare Medicaid) and their network - claims specialists, underwriters, administrators, customer service experts, etc.
  
• Primary researchers (who develop new cures) - NIH, Universities, entrepreneurs, etc.
  
• Educators - internet websites, magazines, professional development & continuing education, etc.
  
• Regulators - FDA, etc.
  
• Media - TV news, magazines, etc.

Classically, there has been a variety of silos that keep these parties separated. The silos were further reinforced because each silo had its own vocabulary and position within a cultural hierarchy.

As specialists in open innovation, we can be helpful by demonstrating ways in which collaborative efforts can be realized. Collaboration is quite a challenge; it requires that each of us - wherever we fit in the overall network - has a responsibility for being sufficiently self-aware that our universe is much bigger than our immediate circle. We have a responsibility to learn the language of the networks around us and understand that the current relationships that exist between silos are not set in stone, but rather a reflection of our history. We can see the weaknesses in the current system and instead of finding fault, we can find ways to bring people together.

By behaving in small ways, and demonstrating collaboration we become the change that we wish to see.

Regardless of your political views on healthcare, there is opportunity for us each to help.


You can check out all of the 'Innovation Perspectives' articles from the different contributing authors on 'What product or sector is in desperate need of innovation?' by clicking the link in this sentence.

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Mark Roser has been working with companies internationally for over 12 years to identify new markets, clarify product & service growth opportunities and lead exploratory development programs. He can be reached at mark.roser*at*openinnovators.com

Innovation Perspectives - 911 Call for Innovation and Revolution

This is the fourth of several 'Innovation Perspectives' articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on 'What product or sector is in desperate need of innovation?'. Here is the next perspective in the series:

by Ric Merrifield

I define innovation as figuring out a way to accomplish the same outcome, the "what" we do, in a way that doesn't resemble "how" we used to do it. Flight check-in over the web doesn't resemble the experience of talking to the airline employee at the counter, but it accomplishes the same three outcomes (confirming a reservation, conducting a survey, and managing logistics when there is luggage). A revolution, by contrast, I would define as an innovation that results in a dramatically different, or richer experience. E-mail and text messaging haven't just replaced prior forms of communication, they have revolutionized the way we communicate in ways we couldn't imagine 20 years ago.

Right now, I see very distinct places where innovation is desperately needed, and at the same time, I see a place where a revolution isn't quite overdue, but it's getting there.

The most urgent innovation needs are in U.S. health care and energy. People in Washington are chipping away at ways to improve the administration of health care and the role of insurers and doctor incentives, and while I will grant that those are all big messes that need cleaning up, that's not where the greatest need is. The greatest need is to stop people from needing to see the doctor in the first place and the way to do that is managing wellness in a structured, disciplined way. People get there insurance through their work in the US, and the companies should mandate regular checkups and the insurers should provide statistics (not at the individual level - for obvious privacy reasons) as to where the risks are and then invest in wellness programs accordingly.

Just at Microsoft alone, if they don't take action on diabetes and obesity alone, in less than six years they will have to spend about $70 million more each year - and most of that will be avoided if the high risk employees lose just six pounds before they turn 46 (source: The American Diabetes Association, and Microsoft Corporation). People ask about the return on investment from wellness programs - there it is. Energy - this one is harder but more obvious. The car replaced the horse, we need something to replace our dependency on petrochemicals. I don't know where it will come from, waves, wind, cold fusion, whatever, but we need it soon.

As for where the revolution is needed, or why, I would say we need it because we are in a new era - the era I will call post-decentralization.

We grew up in a world of a finite number of TV stations, the record labels decided what music we would listen to, and we all got newspapers (all very centralized sources of news, entertainment, music, and information). Now, we are in a very different world that includes social networking, YouTube, blogs, iTunes, and the iPhone. Most of the sources information, music and content have become almost cartoonishly decentralized.

That's great from a control perspective, but except for those who are really on top of it all, it's hard for people to feel comfortable that they are getting connected to the right stuff that's most aligned with their needs and interests. We need innovations to do better match making between consumers and all of these decentralized sources of apps and content. I shouldn't have to find the best news articles, blogs, video clips, and music, they should find me based on who I am and what I am interested in. I happen to have some ideas on how that will happen - but that is going to allow us to really fulfill the potential of the internet, and it will be awesome.


You can check out all of the 'Innovation Perspectives' articles from the different contributing authors on 'What product or sector is in desperate need of innovation?' by clicking the link in this sentence.

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Ric Merrifield is known at the "Business Scientist" at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA and is the author of "Rethink". He blogs about ways to rethink through getting out of what he calls "the 'how' trap".

Innovating Healthcare

by Rowan Gibson

The first modern hospitals were founded in Europe and America in the 18th century. About a hundred years later, both the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry began to emerge. So it's safe to say that, in much of the developed world, the healthcare business has been around for about two or three centuries. And, over time, like most other businesses, it has become bigger, better and faster. But has it actually become different in any essential ways? Not really. Yet that's about to change. In a world of hyper-accelerating change, global competition, rapidly commoditized products and services, and unprecedented patient primacy, the industry is waking up to the need to reinvent itself from top to bottom for a whole new era.

Over the last few years, I've been spending a disproportionate amount of time with healthcare people. Not because I'm sick (thankfully!). But because there's a growing recognition right across the industry that the strategies and business models of the last couple of centuries may no longer be fit for purpose. The world is simply changing so much, and so quickly, that the old ways of doing things (and they are very old) are looking increasingly archaic, perhaps even obsolete.

As regular readers of this column will know, my approach to radical rethinking and renewal is centered on a set of strategy tools called the "Four Lenses of Innovation". Briefly, they are: challenging orthodoxies, harnessing trends, leveraging resources in new ways, and addressing unmet customer needs. And if we look at what is happening in the healthcare industry around the globe, we can see numerous and very exciting examples of these four "lenses" in action. Here are just a few.

One of the stubbornly enduring orthodoxies in hospital management is the age-old notion that we all make mistakes - "to err is human". Everyone has heard horror stories of people having the wrong leg amputated, or getting an operation that was meant for the patient next door. Every year in the U.S., for example, millions of hospital patients suffer injuries - about 100,000 of them fatal! - from things like false medication, incorrect dosage, inefficient diagnostics, duplicated procedures, and so forth. Yet in healthcare, people have long accepted these medical errors as "part of the system". This is clearly an orthodoxy that must be challenged. When IBM took a good look at what was going wrong - and all too often it was stupid things like illegible handwriting, misplaced decimal points, missed drug interactions and allergies - they realized they could alleviate the problem. They offered to use IT to help hospitals manage their patient data a lot more effectively, in much the same way that companies manage their supply chains. This was the birth of IBM Life Sciences, which has grown from a 2-person unit in 2000 to a multi-billion dollar, 1500-employee business today.

Consider another orthodoxy - this time in the pharmaceutical industry. The traditional pharma model is based on drug discovery - testing thousands of compounds to see if any of them makes a measurable difference. It's a model that has essentially remained unchanged since the industry got started in the 19th century - the only difference being the scale and efficiency with which today's pharma companies can manage the compound-testing process. Today, however, a new set of players has emerged - companies like Amgen, Genentech, and Genzyme - where the business model is focused on understanding disease mechanisms (i.e., genetic diseases, immune system disorders, heart disease, cancer) and creating targeted products that address those mechanisms. Their promise is 'personalized medicine', in which the therapy can be matched to an individual's own unique genetic makeup, as opposed to big pharma's "mass medicine" model. By innovating around gene-based therapy, which is based on completely different skills and assets from conventional drug-making, this new breed of pharma companies is fundamentally changing the game. Which explains why Swiss pharma giant Roche was recently so focused on swallowing up biotech pioneer Genentech.

Now think about trends. Look at what's happening in the technology field alone - from e-health to handheld scanners, mobile information devices, telemedicine, surgical robots, remote diagnostics, "integrated digital hospitals", 24/7 access to full medical records, and the list goes on. Or consider the parallel trend "from high tech to high-touch", where design elements such as nature, color, lighting, noise reduction, and so forth, are being used by a few cutting-edge hospitals to promote what is known as a "healing environment" that treats both body and soul.

Then there are healthcare providers that leverage their resources in novel ways to create new value for customers. India's Apollo Hospital Group, for example, which is the largest healthcare provider in Asia, and the third largest in the world, uses its expertise to offer medical business process outsourcing - i.e. writing of diagnosis reports, medical coding, billing etc. - to hospitals right across America. And for many of these hospitals, Apollo take cares of radiology, X-rays, ultrasound, CTs and MRIs when it's nighttime in the U.S., taking advantage of the time difference. The company's IT-enabled services already generate tens of billions of dollars.

And what about unmet customer needs? Again, there are great examples. Like Florida Hospital, where staff did "day in the life" profiling of patients so they could better understand and address their problems and frustrations. Or California's Fresno Surgical Hospital, which has modeled itself on the Ritz Carlton hotel to offer a '5-star patient experience' - including luxury rooms, mini-bars, art on the walls, and food prepared by a Ritz-Carlton chef.

True, many of these examples are still about improving what has always been done. But as all this exciting innovation activity continues, I believe we'll soon see the healthcare industry doing things it has never done before.

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Rowan Gibson is widely recognized as one of the world's leading experts on enterprise innovation. He is co-author of the bestseller "Innovation to the Core" and a much in-demand public speaker around the globe. On Twitter he is @RowanGibson.

Innovating Health Care with S.I.T.

(The LAB: August 2009)

by Drew Boyd

Health Care Reform, as the U.S. government sees it, promises lower costs, better access, and improved quality for all. Let's apply a structured innovation method to health care to see if we can achieve some of these goals. For this month's LAB, we will apply Systematic Inventive Thinking to the hospital discharge process.

Discharging patients from the hospital is a critical aspect of health care delivery. It is a time of transition where one group of care givers stops treating the patient and another group starts. The most frequent type of transition occurs when patients go from hospital to home, happening nearly 40 million times each year in the U.S. Studies show that about 20 percent of discharged patients have an adverse event - a preventable emergency department visit or re-admission - within 30 days following hospitalization. The discharge process is so important that a cottage industry is emerging around it. Some consultants, software products, best practices, training, and research studies focus just on discharging patients.

To use S.I.T., we start by listing the components of the service (process):

1. Issue the Discharge Order
2. Schedule follow-up appointments with next care givers
3. Develop medication plan
4. Identify post discharge services (nursing, rehabilitation, etc)
5. Develop written discharge plan
6. Review diagnosis with patient
7. Review tests and procedures that were performed
8. Review written discharge plan
9. Confirm patients understanding of the plan
10. Wheelchair the patient out of hospital

To apply S.I.T., we use each of the five templates to one or more of these components to create a "virtual product," a hypothetical solution for a yet-to-be-identified problem. We then work backwards from this "solution" and match it up to potential problems that it solves or benefits that it delivers. This is classic "SOLUTION-TO-PROBLEM" innovation.


1. SUBTRACTION:

• Remove the Discharge Order. This is a great way to start off using a structured innovation method, especially in the group workshop setting, because it creates a sense of anxiety and ambiguity. The Subtraction template is particularly good at breaking fixedness, those static frames of how we think the world works. After all, how can you have a Hospital Discharge Process without the Discharge Order? Using Function-Follows-Form, imagine the potential benefits of removing this first step. For example, instead of starting the discharge process upon written doctor's orders, now the process starts the minute you arrive in the hospital. Instead of "Hospital Admissions," the patient enters the hospital with the intent of discharge. At arrival, the pre-conditions for leaving the hospital are developed, so that the patient can leave when those conditions are met.

2. MULTIPLICATION:

• To use Multiplication, we make a copy (or copies) of a process step and change it in some way. Let's make copies of Step 9, confirm the patients understanding of the discharge plan. We multiply that and change it: the patient confirms their understanding when they arrive home. Perhaps the patient has to go to a web site that tests understanding of the discharge process. The potential benefit is more compliance with the discharge plan and reduced complications.

3. TASK UNIFICATION:

• This template requires us to take a step in the process and assign it an additional task or job. Let's take Step 2 - scheduling follow-up appointments with the patients family doctor (and other care givers). The additional job is to require the family caregiver to issue the Discharge Order. In other words, it is now the family doctor who determines when the patient leaves the hospital, not the hospital doctors. Benefits? Perhaps this could shift the risk of complications to the "receiving" doctors and away from the hospital. This might encourage the family doctor to be involved earlier in the hospital stay so they are better able to make the right decisions.

4. DIVISION:

• This template works in three ways: dividing a step physically, functionally, or preserving division - dividing while preserving the characteristics of the whole unit. For this exercise, let's divide Step 3, The Medication Plan. Perhaps the hospital develops the medication plan using only generic drugs forms. The determination of using generic versus name brand drugs is "divided" out for later determination by the family doctor.

5. ATTRIBUTE DEPENDENCY:

• This template is the odd one in that it uses attributes of the situation instead of components. The idea is to create (or break) dependencies between attributes to create the "virtual product." Normally, we would create a full matrix of attributes, both internal and external to the situation, a tool described in other LAB's. Here is one example of how this would work for the hospital discharge process. We create a dependency between: patient's understanding of the Discharge Plan and reimbursement by the patient's insurance company. The more they understand it, the more hospital charges are reimbursed. Benefit? This could encourage more compliance with the plan and reduce re-admissions.

As with all businesses, hospitals will survive and thrive with a sustained commitment to innovation. Leading hospitals such as The Mayo Clinic and others are doing just that to transform health care from a political debate to real change.

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Drew Boyd is Director of Marketing Mastery for Johnson & Johnson (Ethicon Endo-Surgery division). He is also Visiting Assistant Professor of Marketing and Innovation at the University of Cincinnati and Executive Director of the MS-Marketing program. Follow him at www.innovationinpractice.com and at http://twitter.com/drewboyd

Part 2 - The Power of the Question (Rx for Deadly Mistakes)

You may or may not know this: Art has its foundations in utility.

Great works of earlier centuries were never meant to hang in museums and adorn private collections any more than elegant Egyptian hieroglyphics were meant to simply beautify crypts, wooden totem poles to garnish the forest, or coarse images of the hunter's kill to decorate the walls of a cave. Rather, they were intended for a very specific purpose or to signify a specific event, judged first and foremost by function and usefulness, and by the ability to meet the requirements of the commissioner. They were made by people, for people.

Deborah Adler knows it, though. She was a design student when her grandma Helen took grandpa Herman's prescription medication Amoxicillin by mistake in 2001, and it was a clarion call for Deborah to apply her skills and make sure such a thing never happened again. Coming from a family of doctors, the world of medicine was a familiar one. When the unfortunate accident occurred, it became clear to Deborah that she had an opportunity to develop an idea that both hit close to home and satisfied her need to help others.

A single question drove her pursuit of a new design: How can I make medicine bottles more safe and user-friendly?

She immersed herself in the problem, exploiting her own need for an MFA thesis project at New York's School of Visual Arts. She discovered that people take medication incorrectly 60% of the time. Grandma Helen's problem was almost universal.

Medication bottles hadn't changed much in 60 years. Sure, there was child-proofing in the 1970s. But simple observation told a story of deadly complexity: Inconsistent labeling, confusing numbers, poor color combinations, hard-to-read shape, and tiny type, (except for the drugstore's name and logo).

Her goals? Clarity. Visibility. Intuitiveness. Personalization.

The new design included turning the bottle upside down and flattening it, so the label doesn't wrap out of view. The prescription information is delivered in a hierarchy of priority, starting with the medication in big bold letters. Back label directions (e.g. "Take with food") are standardized and icon-based. Information cards tuck neatly into the back of the bottle label. Color-coded rings make it hard to take the wrong medication, because every family member has their own designated color.

Target liked it so much that they bought up her patent rights and fast-tracked the design to all 1000-plus Target pharmacies nationwide, dubbing it Clear Rx.

The Clear Rx design is a true work of art. So much so that the New York Museum of Modern Art put it on display in the autumn of 2005.

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Matthew E. May is the author of "IN PURSUIT OF ELEGANCE: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing." He is constantly searching for creative ideas and innovative solutions that are 'elegant' - a unique and elusive combination of unusual simplicity and surprising power.

incentive2innovate - Healthcare Industry Applications

The first panel on the second day at the incentive2innovate conference at the United Nations was on applying incentive prizes and open collaboration in the healthcare industry. The panel was moderated by Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Chairman & CEO, X PRIZE Foundation:

Eric Eisenstadt, Ph.D., Deputy Vice President for Research, J. Craig Venter Institute
Lisa Latts, M.D., Vice President, Clinical Excellence, WellPoint, Inc.
Yury Rozenman, Head of Strategy and Marketing, Healthcare & Life Sciences, BT Global Services
Dean Kamen, President, DEKA Research & Development Corporation



Rather than trying to recount the discussion, I thought I would present the Top Insights from the part of the panel and the breakout session outcomes that I was able to catch:

1. Interesting idea for healthcare - Connecting people to earn health points that would allow people and communities to compete on health.


2. Creating collaborative competition - Group 6 would like to encourage health insurers to compete for a prize for wellness improvements.


3. Group 7 would like to create a smart, immersive environment that people can use to educate themselves and to connect with other people facing the same procedure (pre-operation).


4. Group 10 focused on how you change people's behavior and changing the whole system around desired outcomes to support behavior change.


5. Persistence, compliance, and adherence are key in healthcare.

What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Interview - TheVisualMD.com founder Alexander Tsiaras

I had the opportunity to meet up with thevisualmd.com founder Alexander Tsiaras on May 7, 2009. We had a fascinating conversation about healthcare and the work that Alex's company is undertaking. Here is a video excerpt from part of our conversation:




Here are some of the key insights that bubble up from our conversation:

The Internet is an interactive medium, and if you want to be successful you have to learn to tell a story. Storytelling has a huge impact in fundraising, the outcome of politics, the behavior of consumers, etc.

Yet, most of the content on the Internet remains about gossip and commerce (even today). There is still a shortage of quality, deep content.

With thevisualmd.com, Alex and team are trying to tell interactive stories. If thevisualmd.com were a print publication, they would aspire to be LIFE magazine - beautiful pictures with good captions that together tell a story for those who want to browse, but with deeper content for those who want to explore the topic further.

Thevisualmd.com is of course an Internet site, and it has beautiful visuals that allow people to go through the story linearly or explore non-linearly. Alex is always trying with his team to think about the best way to use digital technology to have an impact on the people who consume the content.

For most companies, when it comes to utilizing digital technology, they tend to create cool graphics instead of using the technology to tell an impactful story. Many traditional companies are still intimidated by digital technology and provide tactical, unimaginative, and restrictive briefs as a result. The end result? Companies often blame their agencies for the lackluster outcomes from their digital presences.

In healthcare, one of the greatest tests is to achieve improvements in wellness. The biggest problem that wellness programs face is compliance. Patient compliance is dependent on three key things that most patients can't visualize or easily understand:

• Causes


• Consequences


• Solutions

Another challenge the healthcare industry faces is the defensive, cautious mindset of most healthcare organizations (especially big pharma). You could see this difference if you were to attend the TED conference and observe the level of collaboration and sharing of information that occurs there, and then attend the TED Med conference and observe the quiet distance between attendees.

Realizing the full promise of electronic medical records and potential behavioral changes from integrated wellness programs will require overcoming this combination of healthcare organizations' mindset and the patients' inability to visualize.

That is why we need to create solutions that provide a constantly updated wellness and treatment profile so that patients are more aware of the causes and consequences and can make changes in their behavior to improve their wellness.

Sensors built into mobile phones that can contribute real time data and the broad adoption of electronic medical records will provide the necessary data foundation, but there will still be a need for someone to provide the stories and visuals that link the causes, consequences, and solutions that will ultimately result in the necessary behavioral changes.

TheVisualMD tells great visual stories and feels it has an important role to play in our more-connected medical future.

What do you think?

Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Best Kept Secret in Wireless Innovation

I came across an article in Fast Company on a wireless technology standard that I think most people (especially non-techies) have probably never heard of - ZigBee.

ZigBee is a wireless technology that uses significantly less power than WiFi and as a result is ideal for monitoring applications. The application detailed in the Fast Company article was a remote healthcare monitoring solution called AT&T Telehealth, but the technology is also touted for energy management and efficiency, home automation, building automation, and industry automation.

If you are interested in learning more about ZigBee, they have lots of educational information on their web site.

What other uses can you imagine for this technology?

@innovate