Introduction to Innovation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjZX-AHdmHo

1. An Introduction to Innovation
Thomas J. Howard
thow@mek.dtu.dk
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same licence and if including the following statement:
“Original material by Thomas J. Howard for course 42629 – Innovation and Product Development
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Technical University of Denmark”

2. What is Innovation?
2 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

3. Why Innovation?
…$$$!
…growth…
…demand…
…competition…
…sustainability…
Innovation is a way of generating
business!
3 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

4. Definitions…
• “An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as
new by an individual or other unit of adoption” Rogers (1995)
• “Innovation is the successful exploitation of ideas” DTI (2004)
• “Innovations are new things in the business of producing,
distributing and consuming new products or services” Betje
(1998)
• “The first commercial application or production of a new process
or product” Freemen & Soete (1997)
• “The things that make your wonder how it was done
before they appeared on the market” Tim McAloone 2010
during a drinking session with Sofiane Achiche and Thomas
Howard, Copenhagen K.
4 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

5. Image taken from http://www.effectiveui.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/innovation.png
5 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

6. Famous Inventions…
Bicycle Pierre Lallement, 1866
Radio Guglielmo Marconi, 1897
Computer Alan Turing, 1945
Penicillin Florey & Heatley, 1940
Internal Combustion Engine Nicolaus Otto, 1876
World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee, 1989
Light Bulb T. Edison/J. Swan 1879
Cat’s Eyes Percy Shaw, 1936
Television John Logie Baird, 1923
Telephone Alexander G. Bell, 1876
6 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

7. Invention vs. Innovation
Singer
Spengler Hoover
Howe
7 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

8. Invention vs. Innovation
8 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

9. Invention, Commercialisation & Diffusion
Invention Commercialisation Diffusion
INNOVATION
9 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

10. Innovation…?
10 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

11. Degree of Innovation
Newness to market
New Completely
Product New Products
Lines
Newness to Company
Improvements
to Existing Line
Products Extensions
Cost Product Re-
Reductions positioning
11 Source: Adapted from R.G.Cooper (2001)
Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

12. Classifying Innovation
R. Garcia, R. Calantone (2002), A critical look at
technological innovation typology and innovativeness
terminology: a literature review
12 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

13. Technology/Market Taxonomy
Breakthrough
Novelty of Technology
Technical Paradigm
Innovators Innovators
Application Market
Innovators Innovators
Established Emerging
Novelty of Market
13 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

14. Typology – Markets & Technology
• Application Innovator
– Uses existing technology to produce complementary products
– Usually into more specialised/niche markets
• Market Innovator
– Develop new markets with existing technologies
• Technology Innovators
– New technologies used in new products sold in established
markets
• Paradigm Innovators
– New technologies, new products and new markets
14 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

15. Application Innovators
The iPhone applications provide a user with a slew of
different kinds of features or attributes. The new version
equips a user with a camera producing good quality
photos but the older version had only 2.0 mega pixel
camera. In the latest iPhone version, you can click photos
and also edit the images.
http://www.iphone4developers.com
15 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

16. Market Innovators: The Sims
Will Wright and Maxis team created
tools, and mechanisms with which to
construct relationships between
objects, and some basic spaces - but that’s
it. The rest is over to the user.
Therefore, a pretty adaptive approach and
extraordinarily successful:
The best selling computer game of all time
(with significant female userbase) so it
clearly tapped into something.
www.cityofsound.typepad.com/blog/designingforadaptation.
ppt%20
16 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

17. Technology Innovators
17 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

18. Paradigm Innovators
The Global Positioning System is a constellation
of 31 satellites that is used to calculate your
position.
http://www.unavco.org/edu_outreach In 1991 WiFi was developed in the
/resources/how_gps_works/Larson_G
PS_MiddleSchool.ppt Netherlands by Vic Hayes under the
former NCR Corporation/AT&T.
www2.hawaii.edu/~mpolende/p7mylafep.ppt
18 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

19. 3 Routes to Invention
Individual
( heroic )
Corporate Invention
( Closed )
Open
19 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

20. Risky business…
20 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

21. Sometimes it works
http://bit.ly/A1fBtA Shared using Image Space Media (www.imagespacemedia.com)
21 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

22. And sometimes…
http://www.zoxed.eu/photos/bikes_c5.html
22 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

23. You may not be far from success!
http://www.hoinareala.ro/detop/2_68_Segway%20004.jpg
http://0.tqn.com/d/motorcycles/1/0/R/C
/-/-/BMW_action.jpg
http://www.beloblog.com/ProJo_Blogs/newsblog/archives/smartcar.jpg
23 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

24. Why do Innovations fail?
•Technological failure
–it doesn’t work
• e.g. Rolls-Royce’s ‘Hyfil’ carbon fibre fan blade
•Market failure
–Change in market conditions
• e.g. Dupont’s Corfam artificial leather
–Product doesn’t meet consumer needs
• e.g. Sinclair C5 electric car had a range of 6 miles
–Poor marketing
• e.g. Sinclair C5 – an open topped vehicle was
launched in mid-winter
24 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

25. No one is perfect
EDISON:
“I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work.”
Thomas Edison became a holder of
1,093 US patents as a result of one
thing - perseverance. He had no formal
education yet by the age of 14 had
developed an entrepreneurial spirit and
started his own newspaper, which
funded a kit for a chemical laboratory
that he set up in the basement of his
family home.
25 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

26. Accidentals: Bill & Steve
Think of the computer entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates at Microsoft or Steve
Jobs at Apple - both born in 1955, making them the right age to have time
to play with the newfangled microprocessors in their teens.
Then Michael Dell was the right age to exploit the idea of making cheap clone
copies of IBM PCs in the 1980s. Of course, the country and society you are
born into may also have a profound influence on your career prospects.
In research Jim Bright conducted with Robert Pryor and others, they found in
a sample of more than 750 young Australians that about 80 per cent
reported a chance event had significantly influenced their careers. Luck, it
turns out, is the norm, not the exception.
Many in our sample reported that being in the right or wrong place at the
right or wrong time had impacted their careers. Others said unintended
experiences had led them into different opportunities. So if luck plays such a
significant role, how can we make ourselves more lucky?
http://thebigchair.com.au/news/career-couch/success-luck-or-planning
26 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

27. Accidentals: Viagra
The drug company Pfizer was looking for something that would relax these blood vessels
to treat angina, however its trials in people were disappointing. Pfizer were about to
abandon further trials when the trial volunteers started coming back and reporting an
unusual side effect - lots of erections.
Pfizer senior scientist Chris Wayman was charged with investigating what was happening.
He created a model 'man' in the lab. He took a set of test-tubes filled with an inert
solution, and in each one placed a piece of penile tissue, taken from an impotent man.
Each piece of tissue was then connected up to a box that, at the flick of a switch, would
send a pulse of electricity through the tissue.
Applying this current of electricity mimics what happens when a man is aroused.
The first time he did this nothing happened to the vessels. However, when he added
Viagra to the tissue bath the penile blood vessels suddenly relaxed - as they would for a
man to give him an erection.
He said: "What was amazing about this study was that we saw a restoration of the
erectile response. Now we were on to something which could only be described as
special".
...Viagra was used to treat nearly
30m men in its first ten years
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8466118.stm
27 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU

28. Summary
• Innovation is trick to define but is generally seen as the
exploitation of an new idea.
• Many ways to categorise innovation types, but the simplest and
perhaps most useful are those that categorise on 2 axis: Technology
newness vs Market newness
Exercise
• In groups of 3, try to think of a new example of a product or
service to fit in each category of innovation.
• Place on the same matrix at least one of your business ideas you
will be proposing to you group this week.
28 Adapted from David Smith’s “Exploring Innovation” by Sofiane Achiche and Thomas J. Howard 2012
for course 42629: Innovation and Product Development Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU