Innovation Strategies: Finding the Next Big Idea

Sadness.. It's my last session at my first GHC!

The presenter founded a company called Rubicon in 1999. It's a
high-tech consulting firm that has big-name clients such as Logitech.

Innovation is critical! She said that we should consider ourselves as
innovators, which is interesting to think about. I had never thought
of myself as an innovator before. I suppose I could look at our work
with WiCS as innovation!

The speaker brought up an interesting story about the CEO of FedEx,
Fred Smith. He wrote an undergrad paper about his applied idea from
telecommunications and banking industries to transportation He got a
C on it! His classmates and professor did not like his idea at all.
This is so inspiring to me since I have received less-than-stellar
grades on essays in my undergraduate study, and that can be so
discouraging. It's nice to realize that even some of the most
successful people in industry have not always done as well as they
would like!

She told us another story about the inventor of Post-It notes, Art
Fry. As a college student, I can attest that Post-It notes are pretty
much the best invention ever. :)

One of Apple's inventions, the first mouse for a Macintosh, was a
"reinvented" invention that was originally debuted in 1968. Twenty
years later, it became a successful Apple product.

Some innovation lessons:
-Build on existing concepts.
-Do more elegant solutions.
-Serve the new demand.
-Serve exising customers with more.

Five part framework for innovation:
-Map it -> compare to competitors and benchmarks
-Listen and knit -> research methodology
-Seek out new minds -> find other good thinkers, be curious, and ask questions
-Seek the wand -> ask powerful questions, find solutions for problems
-Plot out options -> develop alternative scenarios, work on scenarios
with industry leaders

This was a very interesting, thought-provoking session. What a great
way to conclude GHC!