Innovation Engineering

The Power of Intangible Networks

Patrick Corsi, Hervé Christofol, Simon Richir, Henri Samier, Patrick Corsi, Hervé Christofol, Simon Richir, Henri Samier

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781905209552
• eBook ISBN: 9781118614754
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Elektrotechnik & Telekommunikation

This title explores the issue of innovation engineering, a feature that is essential to the continuation of growth and development in the commercial world. Discussion is divided into three parts: Part I covers the historical basis of innovation, noting that diversity rests upon a duality between concepts in theory and applications put into practice, as well as discussing how innovation has resulted from the interaction of numerous factors, be they societal, human, managerial, organization or technological. Part II focuses on practical applications – the technologies, tools and methods employed in putting theoretical innovation into practice – while Part III looks at what factors underpin success, discussing the social and psychological aspects involved in successful innovation engineering. Consideration is also given to recent developments and systems which will assist in ensuring the continuation of this process in the future.

PART 1

The Global Innovation World: Which Visions Ahead?

Introduction

This first part introduces the historical basis of innovation as well as the relationships with foresight with a view to understand what levers to act upon in order to create a new wealth. Such wealth lies in human resources, changes in individual and collective behaviors, and management styles that are associated to networked organizations and finally new creation and collaboration spaces.

Each chapter stresses some theoretical foundations that are required for a deeper understanding of innovation and is illustrated with practical cases and applications. We state that diversity in innovation always rests upon a duality between “theory” (the concepts) and “practice” (applications). The variety of the seeds to innovation, be they human, affective, technological or organizational, means it is necessary to create a method on how to put into use the proposed steps within enterprises and organizations.

We introduce foresight and innovation in order to analyze how these two disciplines cross-fertilized themselves throughout their history. Then we explain that innovation results from the interaction of societal, human, managerial, organizational, scientific and technological components.

We develop the notion of collaborative networks made of individuals, projects and enterprises in a way similar to communities of practices based on the evidence that an optimal functioning of a technological network is founded on individuals and their competencies first. On a side account, the systemic propagation of innovation will lead us towards new concepts through an analysis of enterprise cases.

We then discover new realms of innovation based on information technologies that own their own laws and therefore are characterized differently from classical innovation areas. We develop networks of innovation through their modeling, organizational and information technologies aspects while taking care of analyzing the existing and future impact on employment and remote working relationships.

Finally we shed light upon value management and the enabling the notion of “valorization” that bridges working methods and enterprise goals.

In so doing, this first part delivers a number of realistic views about innovation while decoding the intrinsic complexity of a discipline that is resolutely multi-dimensional, pluridisciplinary and, above all, intensely compelling.

Chapter 1

Inventing the Future ¹

“Tomorrow will not be like yesterday. It will be new and will depend on us. It is less to discover than to invent. The future of the ancient man had to be revealed. The future of the 19^th century scholar could be forecast. Our future is to be built by invention and work. We have been progressively freed from material job by our machines, only to be asked to provide more and more intellectual work, really human work, that is, invention” [BER 64].

When reading this quotation from Gaston Berger, father of the French “prospective”, one immediately understands the very close link between futures thinking and innovation, thus breaking with a future-oriented thinking, which is traditionally more retrospective (projecting the past onto the future) than “prospective” (imagining new futures).

What are we talking about? Fashionable notions today, innovation and future thinking are in fact very complex objects that are not easy to categorize; the effort to explain them before describing them is seldom taken. That is why we will first undertake to define some concepts and then explain some of the basics of futures thinking.

An innovative look through futures thinking on innovation and a future-oriented contribution of innovation to futures thinking: the cross-fertilization of these two attitudes towards the future — indissolubly linked — can restore meaning and purpose to the shaping of our future.

So, first of all, we will precisely define the notion of innovation and show the profile of the innovator; then we will introduce the field of futures thinking and the notion of change. Finally, we will show what futures thinking can bring to innovation and how the former contributes to the latter in order to invent the future.

1.1. Innovation

“The problem of the future transforms itself and, to some extent, simplifies itself when, rather than over-emphasizing the prospective discoveries, one thinks on the basis of manifested needs or satisfaction of deep expectations” [BER 60].

What are we talking about when we speak of innovation today? Let’s define the nature of innovation itself before we turn to the more human-oriented profile of the innovator.

1.1.1. How should innovation be designed?

Three distinctive approaches help to encompass the topic and reveal its main points.

1.1.1.1. A change

First of all, an innovation is a change. As such, it directly engages futures thinking, which is a field of studying, creating and leading change.

The word “innovation” comes from the verb “to innovate” which means to “introduce something new” or to introduce “a new idea, method, or device”.

The introduction of this novelty goes through various different processes according to its domain. In the economy, this is the introduction within the process of production or sale of a new product, equipment or process, which presupposes a phenomenon of integration of the novelty into the existing process. In sociology, innovation is defined as a process of influence that leads to a social change and whose effect is the rejection of the existing social norms and the adoption of new ones. Within this framework, the problem is less about integrating innovation with what already exists than substituting a new system for the previous one.

Alongside these definitions are two fundamental approaches to innovation. The first one helps to distinguish between innovation and invention; the second one between two different natures of innovation: incremental innovation and radical innovation.

1.1.1.2. A contextualized process

Innovation is different from invention, although it also manifests itself in change. Yet a change occurring at the level of the object itself creates only a change “in itself”, independently of specific contexts, while the change induced by innovation modifies a set of strongly differentiated processes (e.g., from the assembly line to the final use of the product). For if invention is defined as “the action to imagining, inventing, creating something new” or “the faculty to find something, to create by imagination”, then innovation, especially in the economy, defines itself as “the whole process proceeding from the beginning of an idea until its materialization (the launching of a new product), through market research, the development of the prototype and the first steps of the production”.

Moreover, innovation can change the modes of distribution, of consumption, even the recycling of the innovative object. In doing so, innovation can extend its ramifications, induced impacts, even to its modes of payment, transportation or interpersonal communication. This is how it constitutes a process, at the opposite end of invention which is only a specific moment whose effects are limited to the object of invention.

Indeed, this makes innovation a lot more complex, much more so than invention. Because innovation is not only the expression of the emergence of change (as invention is), but is also the expression of adequacy to this change in the world, it can only exist in conjunction with the social and economic acceptability of change. Thus, if invention can be considered as disconnected from time and space, innovation is, on the contrary, the reflection of its time and a specific space through the culture of this location.¹

1.1.1.3. From incrementation to rupture

The generic word “innovation” encompasses two distinct phenomena: an incremental change and a radical change. One often forgets to remember this fundamental distinction, thus erasing a cleavage intrinsic to the very notion of innovation.

Incremental innovation concerns a change brought to an already existing product (in the broad sense of the word). It improves the product, according to a specific use, or attaches complementary functions to it, transforming it into a slightly different object.

Radical innovation creates a product that is rarer and very different from those which existed before. This is not only because it must be the fruit of an invention in rupture with what has been already existing before — which is the most difficult because it comes from scarce effort of imagination — but above all because the environment will accept less easily a whole novelty as opposed to a simple improvement, as novelty often induces a chain reaction of change. So the advent of a real novelty and its economic and social acceptability is an infrequent phenomenon.

Considering the current pressure coming from the need to reduce the “time to market” and from the shortening of return on investment, incremental innovation is most favored by companies. It usually provides fewer benefits, but does so more quickly, and it is generally less risky than radical innovation whose parameters, in addition, are less well understood and less easily controlled.

Indeed, incremental innovation can be guided thanks to methods such as functional analysis or morphological analysis [REY 93] or more specific methods like TRIZ, for example. Radical innovation is less amenable to such an analytical and systematic approach (see below).

1.1.2. Profile of the innovator

Whether an independent innovator (innovating almost by chance) or a researcher within an industrial research center (innovating by professional duty), cognitive phenomenon related to innovation is not well known. It is often said that innovation is the fruit of the marriage between invention and its market. However, the skills of the innovator are generally due to some features of their personality profile.

1.1.2.1. The liberating role of ignorance

Most innovators share unique, perhaps strange, similarities which suggests that some qualities are correlated to the faculty of innovating.

Among them, ignorance plays a special role. In fact, too much knowledge would reduce imagination, learning substituting itself for invention, the mind closing itself over what it has already gained, refusing to imagine solutions which, filtered by the current theories, would not appear to conform to the body of knowledge. Moreover, one observes some intellectual laziness over building novelty from a certain level of learned knowledge.

It is easy to test this on students for example: to ask them to work on a topic they do not know anything about. At the end, you will always get some nuggets from smart brains that have entirely rethought the problem according to new criteria. Doing so, they have gone beyond the usual analysis of most of the well known experts, simply because they have considered the problem from a new and more innovative approach. However, if you ask them to work on a topic they know something about or about which they can access information, the best result will be a good compilation with the least personal contribution.

Researchers, writers and other intellectuals know well the phenomenon of the “white paper” whereby, after a very intensive period of documentation, everything seems have been said on the topic and nothing new can be added. Only when enough time has passed for this information to have been forgotten can the brain work again by itself.

This “distancing” from knowledge or information is often seen as a capacity for critical judgment, an aptitude for discernment. By taking a critical look backwards at acquired formal knowledge, the innovator opens the door to other kinds of knowledge which is more intuitive and more subconscious.

1.1.2.2. The quality of the listening for signals

So, although he should be ignorant — at least partially — the innovator must be attuned to societal needs and expectations in order to differentiate himself from the inventor. That is why he usually possesses an ability to “listen for signals”. This intuition allows him to read the weak signals hidden within the informational noise of our societies, to distinguish between what is the real and structural, and what are only mass media constructions or “lifestyle” fashion effects.

This listening ability expresses itself through a capacity of problematization, a means of transforming scattered, often ill-assorted data into a coherent whole carrying meaning or significance. Innovation then comes from the research of an answer to a problem, such as the Tetrabrik® system replacing the traditional glass bottle.

The innovator’s ability to listen for signals does not limit itself to intuition of the societal expectations. It is also tuned, even unconsciously, on his environment: colleagues, hierarchy, personal relations, etc. So the innovator can mobilize his network for the benefit of his idea — to test it, or for its diffusion — to achieve it.

Thus, while the inventor is rather solitary, enclosed in his garage, the innovator is an integral part of the thickness of the world: he thrusts his offshoots, his tendrils, his extensions deep into it. It is as if the quality of his listening for signals would give him access to a new dimension within which his mind can easily build new solutions.

1.2. Futures thinking

Moore’s Law extends computer memory capabilities; “nomadic objects” (things are built to be easily moved everywhere); electronic objects perform ever more functions without an end in sight; the Internet every day spins the McLuhan global village web; the effects of an acceleration of the pace of change are felt everywhere, even in our everyday life, jamming our bearings and perceptions of time.

Time, change, novelty, future: the scene is set. As Janus, futures thinking presents many facets: “interdisciplinary discipline” to study the future, “science for action”, “science of change”, “philosophical attitude” toward the future; futures thinking is all this and much more, hence the urgent need for some definition.

1.2.1. Futures thinking: a tool to build the future

As is the case with every complex object, futures thinking is very often sliced into various sections in order to be better understood. Industrial futures thinking (the French prospective industrielle) is different from State futures thinking. Strategic futures thinking is different from organizational or managerial futures thinking. Exploratory futures thinking is dedicated to the exploration of the future, while the normative futures thinking is dedicated to the building of the future. Global futures thinking (whether industrial or strategic) contrasts with territorial futures thinking (used to build or plan a territory or community project), regional futures thinking (also called “regional foresight”...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• PART 1: The Global Innovation World: Which Visions Ahead?
• PART 2: Tooling Innovation: Which Methods to Play and How?
• PART 3: Innovation Management: Which Factors Underpin Success?
• Bibliography
• List of Authors
• Index