Optimizing Innovation - Simon Dewulf of Creax

by Braden Kelley

We are happy to bring you some of the key points and insights from Simon Dewulf's talk at the Optimizing Innovation Conference, which was held October 21-22, 2009 in New York City.

Simon Dewulf, Managing Director of Creax, spoke about how there are 67 million patents in the patent database and that a majority of them are 20+ years old and so they are free to use. And, how the other half are patents that could be applied for free to another purpose.

Simon spoke about an intersection example involving a Kraft need and a Goodyear expertise - cutting of viscous elastic material (cheese versus tires). There is no reason these two companies couldn't collaborate because they don't compete.

Amongst other things, Creax has software that helps people visualize connections and search terms from the information in the patent database. Apparently, less than 3% of patents make more money than they cost to file.


"Research is often re-search - the solution is often already existing."


In addition to companies with problems that are looking for solutions, there are also a lot of materials companies that have developed lots of solutions that are in search of a problem. This can be solved somewhat using the patent database.

Four ways of looking at your search for innovation:

1. Value and function

• What values do we want?

2. Out of the box in time and space

• What resources do we have?


• Utilizes the 9 windows method from TRIZ (surrounding, before/box/after, components)

3. Analogy across domains

• Where do we look for inspiration?

4. Variation of properties for new or improved functions

• What do we change, what do we gain?

All customer value requirements can be attributed to four main values:

• More performance


• Less harm


• More convenience (aka interface)


• Less price (aka cost)

They have simplified the TRIZ methodology down to properties and functions and brought in the patent database.


"Can you connect something that is different to something that is better?"


Finally, here are five questions you should be asking yourselves:

1. What can you achieve by changing properties?


2. What other industries should we be following?


3. Who should we be partnering with?


4. Who should be licensing to or from?


5. Why does it take so long to apply in a different domain?


• If you apply a surface similar to a golf ball to trains, you get 30% less friction.

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Unleash Your Inner Genius

Ten great ways to boost your personal creativity

by Paul Sloane

Let's say you are wrestling with a tough issue - maybe at work, at home, with your children or in your social life. You have been stuck for a while and you can't seem to make a breakthrough. You want to come up with some really creative ideas. What can you do? Here are ten great practical ways to boost your inventiveness and to crack the problem:

1. Ask why, why?

• Ask, "why has this issue arisen?" Come up with six different reasons and for each of them ask, "why did this happen?" Keep asking why for each cause. This helps you to better understand the different reasons why this is a problem and so in turn you will see different possible solutions.

2. Sleep on it

• Ponder the issue and all its aspects for some time and then put it out of your mind. Get a good night's sleep. The subconscious mind goes to work and often you come up with great ideas the next day.

3. Talk it over with someone who has nothing to do with the situation

• They will often ask basic questions or make seemingly silly suggestions that prompt good ideas. Two heads are better than one but people who are too close to the issue will often come up with the same ideas as you, so try an outsider.

4. Ask how some celebrity would tackle the issue

• What would Steve Jobs do? Or Bob Geldof, or Richard Branson, or Salvador Dali or Margaret Thatcher or Madonna or Sherlock Holmes? Take each individual's approach to its extremes and it will likely give you some radical solutions.

5. Pick up any object at random and say to yourself

• "This item contains the key to solving the problem." Then force some ideas. Try this with several different objects and you will have a selection of radical and inventive ideas.

6. Use similes

• Try to think of a different problem in another walk of life that is like your problem. Say you want your staff at work to try new ways of working. You might imagine that this is like getting your children to eat vegetables. List various methods you might use with your children to encourage or persuade them to try vegetables. Then go through the list and then see if any of the ideas can be converted into things you can try at work.

7. Imagine an ideal solution in a world where there are no constraints

• (e.g. you can use any resource you want) Now work back from that ideal and challenge each of the constraints that is holding you back from achieving it. Many of the obstacles can be overcome when you take this approach.

8. Open a dictionary and take any noun at random

• Write down six attributes of that noun - so for tree you might write - root, branch, family, apple, trunk and tall. Then force some links between the word or its attributes and the problem in order to come up with fresh ideas. You will be surprised at how well this works - for individuals or in a group.

9. Ponder the issue and then go for a walk around an art gallery or museum

• The range of external stimuli will help you conceive plenty of new ideas.

10. Draw a picture of the situation showing the people and the issues in simple cartoon style

• Put it up on the wall and then imagine how the story could develop. Think of it as a cartoon strip. Many people's brains work better in images than in words or numbers so this can lead to fantastic ideas.

These methods work for individuals and for groups. Try them and see what suits you best. Above all keep reminding yourself - there are some great solutions for my problem - I haven't found the right one yet but I will!

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Paul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creativity, innovation and leadership. He is the author of The Innovative Leader published by Kogan-Page.

Instinctual Innovation versus Intellectual Innovation

One of the best Twitter names that I've come across recently is @ShowerThinker. It's an account for an inventor that makes post-it notes for the shower called Aqua Notes.

This Twitter name captures a well-understood fact - that a lot of great ideas (and ultimately innovations) come to us not from brainstorming, but from the connection to our subconscious that occurs in the shower (or pretty much anywhere else in the bathroom). If so many great ideas come to us when our active mind is elsewhere, then why is such little attention paid to this source of innovation.

A lot has been written about creativity and the brain, left brain vs. right brain thinking, and how often the brain just needs to get out of its own way for creativity to occur as there is no single creative area of the brain.

In my own cuarto de bano moment, I came up with this contrasting phrase to help us frame the conversation - Instinctual Innovation versus Intellectual Innovation.

Intellectual Innovation begins with active efforts to capture and develop ideas using techniques such as brainstorming, greenhousing, etc.

Instinctual Innovation springs forth from a collection of sometimes un-connected information that collects in an individuals brain. Often ideas that form the basis for instinctual innovation rattle around as part of a collection of problems in search of solutions for a long time before emerging.

I've created this table to lay out some of the differences:



Innovation has garnered a lot of attention in the press over the past couple of years, and many executives have the word rolling off their tongues quite easily now. In some organizations this has translated into employees being trained to be better intellectual innovators, or into creativity consultants helping stimulate the organization's intellectual innovation for a particular project.

But much less attention is being paid to instinctual innovation. To build sustainable instinctual innovation you have to train members of your organization to be business innovators. You also need to provide members with a set of clear and actionable innovation goals along with a simple visual framework to decipher them. And, most importantly you have to invest in the organizational change necessary to create a culture of continuous innovation.

Then, and only then, will instinctual innovation be best able to emerge from any part of the organization on its own timeline and integrate with the intellectual innovation that is also going on at the same time.

Intellectual innovation can help drive the short-term growth of an organization. But, when combined with instinctual innovation, the two together can create an innovation engine to power the organization now and into the future.


What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)