"Most innovations fail but if companies do not innovate they will surely disappear."
What is creativity and what is innovation?
Creativity is to rescue the positive in each situation, thinking of alternative problem solving in a diversified way.
Innovation is manufacturing based on these different solution alternatives and being accepted by the entire society.
What is the usefulness of creativity?
For some it is a game, for others the essence of art, for others a livelihood oriented towards development and innovation and for others a lifestyle.
We recognize creativity as an attribute of each person, which is manifested in their occurrences, in their works, in their way of seeing and perceiving reality.
Imagination, intuition, fantasy, tolerance for adversity, willingness to find alternatives or discover opportunities that are not so obvious to others are constitutive elements that shape our creativity.
The combination of these elements mixed with creative tools enhance creativity but it differs from person to person.
For me the usefulness of creativity is like wondering about the usefulness of a baby.
It is something that must be nurtured, seen to grow, exchange questions and continue to practice it so that it matures.
How do individuals value the innovation options that are available in the market?
First, consumers assess the attractiveness of a product based on perceived value, and this is a totally subjective process.
Second, consumers always evaluate alternatives in relation to a benchmark, which is usually made up of those products that the consumer currently owns or consumes.
All improvements relative to that benchmark will be viewed as a gain, and deficiencies as losses. But you should know that losses have a much greater impact than gains of equal magnitude.
This overvaluation of losses in relation to profits is due to the fact that the consumer values the status quo positively and that those things that he already owns seem more reliable than those that he does not yet.
In short, it is not enough that a product is better. Gains need to far outweigh losses for consumers to embrace.
Several studies indicate that the ratio between profit and loss must be 3 for the consumer to find the new product more attractive. This is similar to the rate of return on a project where the benefits must exceed the investment by more than 3 times in a given period of time.
A similar bias, but in the opposite direction, occurs among employers.
They, after working hard on a new product, hope that consumers will see the same value in their innovations that they see. This leads to entrepreneurs being biased as well, but in the opposite direction, by a factor of three.
We are thus faced with a situation in which executives who unreasonably overvalue their innovations by a factor of three, must also predict the behavior of consumers who unreasonably overvalue existing alternatives also by a factor of three.
The result is effect nine, which is the enhancement between what the employer and consumers perceive about reality itself.
The only way to overcome this is by achieving that the perceived benefits of the new product exceed by more than nine times the perceived losses associated with the change.
What are the relevant factors to face the problem?
Not all new products are in the same situation. It is possible to identify a variety of situations depending on the radical nature of the changes introduced in the product and the changes required in consumer behavior. On these bases it is possible to distinguish four different situations:
1) If the degree of product change is small, and the required change in consumer behavior is also small, we are faced with an easy success story.
This is the case, for example, of toothpastes to which a whitener has been added for adults or a vitamin is added for children. An additional attribute is incorporated into the product that adds some benefit, but the consumer is not required to change his behavior.
2) If, on the other hand, the additional benefit offered is still small but the intended change in consumer behavior is not, we are facing certain failure.
This is for example the case of the innovation introduced with the Dvorak keyboards, where the layout of the keys optimized the performance of the digitizer depending on the language involved, but it implied a very important change in behavior for people who are already used to the layout. on the QWERTY keyboard.
3) A third type of situation occurs with radically new products that demand substantial changes from consumers in their behavior, which implies that the products will take time to prevail. This is the case of cell phones, an innovation that took more than 15 years to become widely used on a large scale, in part due to the bulk of the devices and their low battery life. It can be a success but after a long period of time and therefore you must have a great financial capacity.
4) The last case is that of products that involve large changes in products but do not require changes in consumer behavior.
This is the case of the Google search engine, which, by means of an improvement in the search algorithms, achieved a very important improvement in its efficiency, without requiring the user any skill other than filling in the search field. Only this category is guaranteed success.
The companies that created the Nintendo Wii or the i-Pod changed the “video game” product or the “listen to music” product, but without requiring additional skills from the customer, and did so by manufacturing a blue ocean, that is, they created a new market.
What can companies do to address this problem?
They can deal with this problem in various ways. Some of them involve accepting resistance from consumers.
In this case, the first thing is to become aware that the adoption processes take time, and that patience is necessary. However, these processes will be faster to the extent that the benefits of the change exceed the damages.
It is necessary to be aware that this relationship is very disproportionate when changes in consumer behavior are involved.
One way is that the consumer can be induced, if possible to eliminate the old product, through refunds to withdraw them from the market, for example in household appliances.
This type of action poses enormous difficulties, mainly because it requires high costs, either in terms of resources or time.
Another way of action is to minimize these resistances. To do this, the first step is to design products that are compatible with consumer behavior. Some software companies opt for suboptimal designs in the new versions of their programs with the sole purpose of allowing users of previous versions to operate them in the same way.
Alternatively, minimization of resistance can be achieved by seducing consumers for the first time. A concrete example is that of IKEA, which targets young people who are going to buy their first furniture. Most of these young people do not compare all the factors during their purchase, whereas older people do. This allows the consumer not to perceive losses such as the assistance of sellers in the purchase process or the assembly of the furniture on their own or less advertising of the product or even a rustic packaging.
All these variables that are usually ignored in the process of developing new products and in the evaluation of the risks involved, we see that their analysis is of great importance when seeking the success of projects of this type.
Are there paradoxes in creativity?
In creativity and innovation the strangest paradoxes occur.
For example, most people believe that creativity is based on applying imagination, intuition or waiting for a creative spark to solve a problem, and forget that the most critical thing is perspiration and the tools used to solve it. For something it is said that 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration are needed.
-Most believe that one is creative if one is free and divergent, while innovation and invention have recognized principles.
-Most believe that creativity is important but apply it almost never.
-It is thought that innovation is something humanistic close to the artistic, while innovation is a systematic process similar to that of an exact science.
-Most innovations fail but if companies do not innovate, they will surely disappear.
-It is believed that creativity is synonymous with play and instead should be a productive and profitable process.
Anyway, we could continue until we were exhausted.
Who defines an innovative product?
Until users and the market try and adopt an innovative product, there is no assurance of its success.
For example, the first objective of the telephone lines was to be able to listen to plays from distant locations in the United States. It never became profitable in this modality but it was a success in the transmission of local news and weather forecast.
Those who invented SMS didn't know the scope of this technology until they put it in the hands of teenagers, and then sales skyrocketed.
Wikipedia is an interesting concept and idea due to the contribution that we all make as users. And it has turned out to be attractive and profitable, although at first everyone was suspicious that it would have a lot of false information.
There are also some authors who indicate that changing the furniture is an innovation, although in my opinion it is a pseudo innovation. The market or society are the judges of an innovation, and I assure you that there are no better inspectors.
Is there a place for chance or intuition to innovate?
Few stories of successful product modifications are recognized as a result of chance, namely:
Ivory Soap: In 1878 at Procter & Gamble the soap factory malfunctioned and the paste mixers blew air into the base mix.
The managers also launched the product on the market thinking that no one would notice. But the soaps floated through the occluded air, lasted longer, and people immediately adopted them. The success continues to this day.
Saratoga French Fries: In 1853 George Crum was working at an exclusive resort in Saratoga Springs, New York, and railroad mogul Vanderbilt arrived for lunch.
Her favorite food was the resort's french fries.
But the resort had run out of fries and there were many plates with fries, which had not left the kitchen because they were sticky and too thin.
So Crum took those fries, fried them with fat and ajó, and with that he rose to fame with his Saratoga fries.
Even Vanderbilt was addicted to Saratoga fries and recommended them to the jet set, where they were hailed as typical North American food.
Post-It: In 1968 a 3M researcher Dr. Spence Silver, found a glue that did not stick very much but allowed its use several times.
Art Fry used the glue on pieces of paper to mark his various songs for the Sunday church choir.
When marketers saw its use, they distributed it to the secretaries of various companies for free. Its success was immediate and it is already the best-selling product in quantities of 3 M.
But these success stories as a result of accident or chance are still very rare, compared to the millions of products resulting from research, development and innovation.
It is estimated that 99% of the products launched on the market come from careful planning and promotion.
In this sense, systematic inventive thinking is widely used in the development of new products. The Function follows Form procedure, works virtually by manipulating an existing product and creating mutations into new Forms.
Then, with development and marketing strategies, the different forms found are investigated and the one that can be profitable and attractive to the market is selected.
But even following a systematic procedure, there is no assurance of success.
Do companies fail to find your innovative product?
IBM was created to manufacture cash registers, and later it manufactured commercial scales until it found that in bank computers and industries, it was its main business and it became a leader.
However, it did not prosper in software or in manufacturing personal computers and wasted a very interesting potential market.
We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way, although companies ask for security guarantees such as market studies, surveys, etc.
An alternative that I see in software companies is to use alpha clients, who provide their comments and result in a beta emission of a certain product or service, in order to minimize risks.
What is the goal of creativity?
As in everyone's life, there should be clearly established goals as a starting point.
Creativity in Advertising must serve the client's objective, that is to say: increase sales, recognize a brand, raise awareness of a product, win a market segment, etc.
In the case of the Industry, it must solve administrative and technical problems efficiently.
But it can also improve social, environmental and other problems as long as the problem and its contradictions are clearly defined.
If you search Google for a "creative architecture" you will find more than 10 million results, and if you search for a "creative technology" you will find more than 28 million results, while a "creative education" returns more than 55 million items.
In other words, creativity is a tool for obtaining results and objectives rather than a hobby or game.
In the case of creative architecture, the creative is usually in the conceptual design and then the project is put on track within phases determined by experience.
On the contrary, advertising is where the initial phases should be correctly defined and include brand preferences and other subjective factors, and then develop creative strategies.
In industry, each problem has its various restrictions (economic, technical, time, etc.) and contains many contradictions, and that is where the basis for applying systematic methodologies for solving it is.
Now, from a strictly personal point of view, being creative is to enrich the analysis of reality, generating alternatives for change to it.
Depending on the objective and the context, you must satisfy what you require or your company requests.
In the face of the world crisis, is it still valid to be creative?
This crisis threw a new awareness of the end of excesses, of marketing, of the proliferation of launches of hundreds of unnecessary brands, but also excess of information and abuse of natural resources, all of which led us to the current crisis.
The stories of modernity that built us as communities, by identity, affinity, homogeneity are no longer frames of reference, now the difference, the tribes, what differentiates me from you, creativity and innovation is what makes up identities.
Value is not the place of belonging, a niche in the sense of a home, an institution, a nation, but a network, that space where we all express our individuality.
Courage is being creative and different and not certainty.
That marks the world's agenda today and although it is true that there are no guarantees that an innovative product will be successful, if the company does not innovate, it will most likely be left behind.
In this current crisis, is the future of product innovation on the Internet?
Economists have not yet agreed to come out of the crisis: Keynes's recipe, which is committed to applying the mobilizing capacity of the State; or Schumpeter's recipe, which relies on the energy of entrepreneurs. The solution seems to lie in combining both factors: the power of the State and the risk of the innovators.
However, innovative products will come from fields as different as:
a-Education: There is not a single child equal to another when it comes to learning, so the educational system must be personalized.
Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School, says that the student will succeed in school based on his degree of intrinsic motivation and in this, education at home is essential.
b-Disruptive technologies. Nano robots capable of curing diseases, 3D memories that multiply storage capacity, liquid batteries and solar energy, with projects such as Desertec, which aims to feed all of Europe with solar energy that could be captured in the Sahara desert.
c-Urban agriculture with orchards grown on company roofs, gardens and basements. Cities like Brooklyn, London, and Tokyo are leading the way on these issues.
d-Smart Industry with 3.0 technology, efficient and agile where, for example, Rolls-Royce does not sell aircraft engines, but guaranteed flight hours.
The crisis means that innovative products designed for poor countries are now in demand in other rich ones, such as smaller and cheaper yogurts and desserts for the Indian market, which are a success in Europe.
e-Businesses where it is necessary to reinvent the models based on what interests the customer, such as in the cell phone market, where the product and the service of listening to music are inextricably intertwined.
f-Purchases where, for example, in the United Kingdom, a web portal since 2006 allows you to choose between different supermarkets and products through the network. There are already smart highways, domotic houses and everything interlaced with simulations and systems for predicting user behavior.
g-The outsourcing or Outsourcing where China, India and Africa, will monopolize the majority of world factories and development centers. The Apple iPod does not have any of its components, nor its design, nor its development and marketing has been done in the United States.
But always considering that the Internet changed our whole way of thinking, buying, innovating and marketing. I give you examples.
Google, Yahoo and Wikipedía have most of their tools to use for free and some were developed in conjunction with committed people.
Products and services are tested in beta editions before they go to market and use specific people as alpha customers. In this way, risks and failures are assumed more quickly. I myself am an alpha customer of various university training products on an ad honorem basis, in exchange for getting to know them more closely and see if they adapt to our idiosyncrasies.
Before, writers wanted to publish their books on paper, but now those same books are downloaded for free on the Internet, or they are printed on demand, and sometimes they are even written in conjunction with the readers, and then they are published in various media.
Will the Internet reach everyone?
In the next two decades we will have an impressive number of interconnected objects online, even more than the growing number of people surfing the web.
For example, the refrigerator will be able to exchange information with the supermarket shelves, the washing machine will be able to communicate with the clothes and the clothes that we are wearing will be able to “speak” to the objects we come across.
This connection of the physical universe and the virtual universe of the Internet is the “Internet of Things”.
It is the announced revolution that describes the ITU Report published especially for the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2007.
This Report explains that a unique identification device can be installed on the mobile phone to transmit the identity and the place where the user is or allow the reception of specific information from that place.
Many items in the industry already have an electronic tag with a radio communication transmitter, which allows the item to be located online anywhere, anytime. It is an identifier as small as a grain of sand that can be applied to almost everything.
The infrastructure needed to support this Internet of Things is developing rapidly, because in 2005 there were more than one billion mobile phones worldwide and by 2010 there will be more than five billion.
Mobile Internet services and the realization of the higher speed mobile networks of the new generation, such as 3G networks, allow the user to connect from practically anywhere and access the networks at any time using permanent connectivity.
On the other hand, solutions are studied to extend the coding system of Internet addresses. Current 32-bit code allows for about 4 billion addresses, but 128-bit code would create addresses to assign a trillion identifiers to objects every day for a trillion years.
We will live in a world full of invisible networks of tiny interconnected processors, all imperceptible to users.
The late Mark Weiser said years ago: "The most advanced technologies are those that we do not see, those that merge into the context of everyday life to the point that they are part of it."
The extension of the Internet to objects will be one of the applications of essential technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID), wireless detection or nanotechnology.
RFID was invented in the mid-20th century, and materials that exploit nanotechnology began to be marketed more than a decade ago.
The combination of these technologies makes it possible to create the increasingly frequent “smart” objects, for example automata, “smart cars” or “smart buildings”.
On the other hand, the progress of miniaturization will make it possible to connect smaller and smaller objects that will be able to communicate with the network and with each other.
The ITU Report examines recent advances in nanotechnology that will make it possible to offer ever greater treatment capacity in an ever smaller volume.
In a recent interview you talked about TRIZ, could you tell us briefly what it is?
Historically it is taught that trial and error or chance or lateral thinking are useful methods for solving problems and situations, but the reality is that they are highly inefficient, unfocused, subjective and mainly do not tend to an optimal solution.
They are methods that teach that quantity is the best, but we and the industry in general do not need a large quantity but rather the optimal solution to a given problem. All these virtues are offered in TRIZ.
TRIZ is the Russian short for "Inventive Problem Solving Theory". TRIZ is a systematic guide based on Knowledge Management and aimed at solving problems and situations.
TRIZ operates with 40 inventive principles, as these are continuously repeated according to statistical data from the study of millions of patents, and in addition TRIZ teaches that the evolution of objects and processes follow certain pre-established guidelines.
TRIZ is heuristic in the sense that it is a guide to alternative solutions, such as when one chooses, touches and smells a melon on its end, to know if it is ripe enough.
The physical effect pointers contain 6000 effects and are the database, which adds to the heuristics of the method.
Now, TRIZ operates with contradictions and if the basic contradiction of the problem is not overcome, it persists. For example suppose that you install a more powerful engine in your airplane to have more speed, but since this makes the airplane heavier, then you must increase the size of the wings, to be able to take off and stay in the air.
But now it turns out that there is more weight and inertia to overcome, and the objective was not well resolved, because we must find a win-win formula, without having variables that worsen.
For example, more speed and power are achieved with a fuel additive, without damaging other variables.
TRIZ also operates with ideality, that is, to move back from the problem and see if it is possible to reach the RFI: Ideal Final Result, without doing expensive reprocessing.
Putting together Ideality and Contradictions there is a powerful problem-solving tool, because they include purification (correctly establishing the problem), with the clarification of contradictions (detecting the roots of the problem) and finally with creativity to obtain the best solution (tendency to ideality).
These are just two tools out of the dozen available to solve all kinds of problems, be they technical, administrative or social.
