Privately-held v Publicly-held companies drive two different types of innovation

Camper, Lego, Nike, Bose, Ikea , Rolex, Sony, Swatch , Alessi.

From the list above, the reaction towards one brand over the other is subject to one’s experience of the product. It is influenced by the size, product range and marketing and advertising strategies of the companies. The list looks like a random choice of companies, but in fact I have chosen these companies to compare privately-held and publicly-held: does that make a difference in terms of innovation?

Innovation from Disabilities

These pictures show personalities that we probably recognize easily.

King George VI, British King during World War II; Albert Einstein, inventor of the theory of general relativity; Ray Charles, soul musician and singer; Ludwig Van Beethoven, German composer and pianist; Helen Keller, American author, political activist and lecturer; and Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera (just to highlight a few of his 1093 patents).

Yet, there is something that these personalities have in common – disabilities. 

Jugaad – A new discipline for the economy of the future

It’s been called ’low-cost’ or ’frugal’; now recognizing India’s excellence – although not monopoly - in the domain of ultra-low-cost innovation, it’s finally been given a Hindi name: Jugaad.

Traditionally, Jugaad are locally-made small trucks that provide low-cost transportation for people and goods in rural India. These small trucks, equipped with an engine derived from an irrigation pump,  typically cost less than $2,000. Recently, the use of the term Jugaad has been extended to describe an improvised arrangement or work-around, which has to be used because of lack of resources or excessive constraints.

Leonardo Da Vinci: rapid prototyping

Returning from the MIT Energy Initiative conference in Rome, I roam the small exhibition at Leonardo Da Vinci airport, where prototypes of some of Leonardo’s many flying machines have been built according to his designs.

As I study the last one, a curious device called ’flapping wing’ (right) designed to lift the board and the person standing on it who actions the lever, I stumble on this instruction that Leonardo wrote next to his drawing:

Bose: Passion Driven Innovation

A few years ago when I was living in France, my elder brother visited me. We both walked down to the small city centre in hope of finding a home theatre system for me. Back then, I was a novice to the audio world with very limited knowledge on available systems, whilst my brother had years of experience of assembling speakers, woofers, sub-woofers and amplifiers on his own to achieve the best sound effect and quality.

We entered a store that sold several systems. My eyes were immediately caught by popular brand names such as Sony and Yamaha, particularly with the display of large multi-component systems. The intricacies intrigued me and were compelling evidence for what I perceived to be high quality.

While I kept myself busy with the popular and catchy systems, I realized my brother was stationed in a corner looking at what appeared to be a black box akin a computer CPU.

Diversity and Transparency: the X-Factor way to more winning ideas

In their book Innovation Tournaments, Christian Terwiesch and Karl T. Ulrich identify four levers (and contend that there are only four) to more winning ideas:
- Coming up with more ideas (good or bad)
- Improving the accuracy of the selection process
- Enhancing the average quality of ideas
- Broadening the distribution of idea quality.

The X-Factor (alongside other talent-hunt TV shows) provides a good illustration of these four levers.

It’s a Kodak Moment: 3 Innovation Lessons

Whilst the ubiquitous advertising phrase “It’s a Kodak Moment” was part of most Americans households, the same phrase brings back nostalgic moments as the more than 130-year old company filed for Chapter 11 Protection for Bankruptcy mid January 2012. The news covered the headlines of mainstream business magazines with reports diving deep into the reasons for the strategy that went wrong. With a strong past glory, the last of Kodak moments steered me along the lines of what could have been its blunders that led to its downfall, almost like a freefall.