Discovering Ideas & Opportunities observing everyday events

Those who own a pet, especially a dog will appreciate with what I am saying. It’s a demanding job to take your pet out for his routine every morning. He may be feeling relieved watering few electric poles but his “street” smart buddies do not take pleasure in his act & consider it an offense committed in their own terrain. They envy cozy life your pet enjoys and therefore start barking endlessly at him and indirectly at you; after all, you are the reason for his comfort. (Much the same way, you abhor your colleague who according to you is a blue eyed boy of your boss )
On my jogging track, I have this gentleman who strolls with his pet quite comfortably. Initially he must have had two choices when encountered with such a difficult circumstance either fight or flight. He did neither of these things but still tamed them. I see TRIZ connection is his act. 
In terms of Contradiction Matrix parameter, the problem he is facing can be categorized as “Harmful Factors (Barking Street Dogs) Affecting the System ( his pet, he himself & other joggers )” As per TRIZ inventive principles this factor is improved ( reduced I mean) by using three Inventive Principles ( Ideas) : 2 – Taking Out or Extraction, 10 – Prior Action, 35 – Change of Parameters
These principles can be applied to own dog, street dogs, he himself and many other system elements (Such elements can be found by going up and down the problem hierarchy explorer)
Let us apply these principles and see what solutions we can generate to find a solution to this problem.
Principle 2 Extraction: Separate interfering part or property from a system or object, or single out the only necessary part
Ideas: Take the street dogs out from the place by informing municipality (Too Ideal Solution)
Have a separate toilet for your dog. (Everybody likes the dog, but not his toilet, there are lots of public places so why to have a separate toilet inside Hmmm……)
What you really want a dog or his ability to bark & scare thieves, extract that ability and get a doorbell that has a barking sound.
Make the dog comfortable with his routine by taking him around in your (un) co-operative society premises. ( Where are there no street dogs) Of course, you will very soon will be thrown out of the society … Neighbors consider your dog as a headache. ( Neighbors headache owner’s pride ).
Leave the dog alone on the street while you extract yourself and sit in a car watching the dog show 
Use your prowess and get the zone declared as “NO STREET DOG ZONE” (Difficult for the street dogs to follow, they can’t read. Hmmmm…)
Think some more & list ….
Principle 10: Prior Action
• Perform the required change of a system or object ( either fully or partially) before it is needed
• Pre-arrange elements such that they can come into action from the most convenient place and without losing time for their delivery
Ideas
Take the stick or stone to scare the dog and drive them out (Easy to imagine difficult to execute)
Take the spray that defunct the street dogs temporarily (Be aware of some animal lovers they will defunct you, they love animals more than they love human beings.)
Take something that changes emotional parameters (Read the idea under the principle 35 parameter changes)
Make the dog infertile
Principle 35: Parameter Changes
• Change object’s physical state ( e.g. from physical to virtual)
• Change the concentration
• Change the degree of flexibility
• Change emotional and other parameters
Ideas:
Why you want a real dog get a virtual dog that keeps you busy with everything as the real dog except the harmful things. Nintendo has such toys where the user take care of this virtual dog much the same way you take care of the real dog. (http://www.lucylearns.com/nintendo-dog.html) In case you don’t follow his routine it dies. ( electronic circuit cease to function after a set number of defaults)
Shut the street dog’s mouth by a mask so they cannot bite and bark, here you are reducing the noise decibels (concentration) by introducing a silencer (Difficult, who will bell the cat? Dog I mean…)
You & your dog wear a mask or a suite so that street dogs can only bark which you will able to ignore, the danger is they will think you & your dog are extra-terrestrial and may bark even more
Change the emotional parameters; if you always thought that stick, stone are the best ways to keep the street dogs away then I am sure in reality you haven’t found this to be the best way. Can you then feed them with some food? Just reverse the emotions from hatred to compassion, love. Yes, this seems to be a better option. This is precisely the idea this gentleman uses. Study has shown that street dogs become violent / bark because they are hungry and therefore can be dangerous.
This man gathers all the dogs in one corner & feeds them with biscuits, all the other dog lovers also synchronies their timing with his so they and their dog escape the wrath and enjoy their peaceful routine Uncle is doing a great social service
Now, let’s get serious and ponder on few things
There is a business opportunity hidden in every problem. It can be unearthed by careful questioning thus going beyond the present solution and problem.
In this case by asking a question “Why Do I Want To Solve This Problem”? Leads us to think whether “taking the dog out “is a right problem or “having a dog itself” is a problem. Both these questions lead us to problems of household security or one’s emotional engagement beyond human associations. (Sometime we are comfortable with any living thing except the human, it’s all because of our complex neo-cortex you see) These clear or subtle needs sprouts business ideas like burglar alarms, home security systems or need for a virtual pet (toy) which can be accompanied anywhere ( without being literally carried I mean) and can be cared during moments of loneliness. Nintendo may have picked up business opportunity for its virtual toys with such insights.
The morale
1. All our social innovations need to address inclusiveness. What applies to dogs applies to human also.

2. Observe carefully and you will find many business opportunities. Your product may not still stop people having a pet, but will provide solutions to those thinking of owning one because of an unmet need.

Book Review: Breakthrough Indian Innovations – A Book by Porus Munshi

In our childhood, we retired each night by listening to grandma stories. These stories proffered us with invaluable words of wisdom so much so that even today we summon up those words / lessons while dealing with many real life situations. All these stories are of the Indian soil and many of them date back to thousands years and are truly eternal.

“Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen” a book by Porus Munshi achieves this rare fate by bestowing upon its readers golden nuggets of Indian passion and wisdom. It covers, in equal proportion, the hard (ideas) and soft part (attitude. Culture etc) of innovation, making it an amazing read. Frankly I wouldn’t have lifted this book at the first instance, had I not spotted Sh. Ratan Tata’s and Dr. Mashelkar’s admiration of it. The approach of story telling itself is quite Innovative which improves reader’s inspiration quotient and triggers fresh flow of adrenalin to take on with the challenges at hand.

To most of us innovation is product, process, service and technologically related which is expected to beef up top as well as bottom line. We have never quite understood the importance of innovation beyond this customary envelope and see how other areas / domains can be transformed for social good, making those who are part of it appreciate that they have a job to do and their job can make a great difference to lives of many people. Innovation efforts do not always result only into tangible benefits, on the contrary when it touches lives it attains perfect immortal state.

The book takes snapshots of 11 Indians who made a difference through their breakthrough innovations making a permanent dent in the memory of those associated with it and those who were/ are benefited from it. I was inspired by all the case studies, but few of them touched me the most.

“Shantha Biotech which was inspired by Sh. Varaprasad Reddy was taken up by a cause of making Hepatitis B vaccine available & affordable to the common man at Rs. 50 first (Rs. 15 now) as compared to its then prevailing price of Rs. 2250 (as it is imported), which kept poor Indians stay away from it and as a result succumbing to an avoidable death.

It’s never too late to work for a cause if you are inspired which is what Dr. Venkatswamy did after retiring as a surgeon from the government hospital and founded “Arvind Netralaya” with virtually no funds. Many technical and human innovations have gone in building Arvind Movement. It’s a perfect case of functional innovations under the resource starved circumstances. It works on a mission statement “Eradicate Avoidable Blindness” and in its pursuit have become the world’s best “eye care” institute.

The Surat Transformation led by its commissioner Sh. Rao turned it from a city victimized by plague to the second cleanest cities in India. The feeling of oneness, empowering the powerless and a common goal of cleanliness achieved this magical transformation.

The Trichy police department under its head Sh. Tripathy started an innovative approach of community policing turning it from a city of violence into a city where people live in piece & harmony. This was achieved without increasing the security infrastructure in terms of manpower and equipments. It altered the image of the police in the minds of themselves first and then the society. So, police rather than acting after the crime has ensued started taking proactive steps to change the circumstances that led to the crime. This was achieved by them by being a friend, troubleshooter & becoming part of the community than merely a standing in the middle as a regulator.

I will soon share many such nuggets ( in detail) in my upcoming posts correlating it with language of innovation (TRIZ or Systematic Innovation, I mean)

I conclude by summarizing important take away from this book

1. Innovation is all about aspirations first, people next and finally about ideas.

2. You don’t need special projects in order to innovate instead you can innovate and make a difference with the job in hand.

3. Many times we dig dipper into a problem realizing later that our efforts have gone in vain. We therefore need to look into detail and at the bigger picture in order to innovate. Remember devil lies in the detail and in the bigger picture

4. Every one of us is the leader, irrespective of his/ her organizational hierarchy, once we shoulder responsibility for change to make a difference. However we also need to keep in mind that the greatest dilution point is in a space 6 inches between our ears, so avoid dilution, dream and let your team dream with you. It’s your collective dream that will achieve the ideal result. Be honest with what you do even in the face of an adversity.

5. Inclusive innovations will win over a long run and will have sustaining benefits. ITC IBD case proves this point, wherein middle men who went out of job after implementation of e-chaupal were given a new role where they look after logistic, packaging, transportation, paperwork and handling job. The lesson: Nobody has to loose for someone to win.

6. Orbit shifters are ordinary people like you and me. Question Everything around you, unleash, unlearn to Innovate

7. Innovation cut across disciplines and need a cause in the first place; rest all will fall in place. Sh. Varaprasad Reddy of Shantha biotech is an electronics engineer. Dream & passion override many other things including your professional training. So TRIZY.

Read the book and also encourage others to do the same. Let us get inspired to innovate and announce to the world that I in India is not for inhibition and Imitation but it stands for INNOVATION.

My perfect 10 for this book .

Context, Job to be done and different ways of doing it

I spent last week end at a cool place 150 kms from Mumbai at Sasawane, a coastal village near Alibagh. Beautiful seashores and lush green surroundings refreshed me ahead of a taxing week. I have a habit of taking a long walk through such villages and try & converse with the local people there and understand the way they live their life. It’s something I must say I love to do.
This time while on one such exploration, my attention was drawn to bathing beauties; don’t get excited, I am talking of bunch of buffaloes,  getting them bathed at the hands of an old man. He had a job on his hand to get them bath quickly so that he can proceed with his next tasks and RELAX. The quantity of water to wash a buffalo is at least 5-6 times more than what you & I require (if at all we are serious about taking a bath, while on such a leisure jaunt) and if you have 25 such buffaloes then you have 150 buckets to be pulled out of a well. The job the old man was trying to do was to take out water from the well in the quickest possible time. What is a better option to do it. Simple, you may say, put an electric pump. Well that’s a good option, but continuous electric supply is a distant dream in such villages and certainly not acceptable to the frugal rural mind (and rightly so, this region is resource conscious and the word ‘abundance’ is missing from their dictionary, therefore here we stand a good chance to capture many innovations , because innovation means resource minimum result maximum)
I saw an idea whether I can reverse engineer it & see whether contradiction matrix can work for this problem. (Reverse engineering is a good way to learn TRIZ application). The Contradiction here is that the old man wants to take out the water speedily, but in so doing need to put lot of hard work if he uses conventional water wheel. Let us see whether we can formulate a contradiction.
If we map this problem in a problem hierarchy explorer then the initial problem seems to be of productivity (number of buckets filled up in a unit time), what’s stopping us from achieving the productivity is the speed with which the water is removed, therefore the parameter to be improved is speed, what’s limiting him to achieve the desired speed, is the force he need to apply or can apply. Therefore the contradiction is
Improving Parameter: Speed ( 14) Worsening Parameter: Force (15)
The inventive principles used by the other inventors when faced with similar problems are
• 19 - Periodic action
• 13- The Other Way Round
• 15 – Dynamics
• 28 – Mechanical Substitution
• 29 – Pneumatics and Hydraulics
• 03 – Local Quality
• 18 – Mechanical Vibration
• 05 – Merging
• 17- The another dimension

The conventional arrangement is as shown in figure 1. Figure 2 shows the use of lever principle which uses principles like other way round (instead of pulling the bucket push the bucket, less effort required easy to do, dead weight at the other end gets the filled bucket up), Dynamics ( Fixed Part, Movable Part), the action is periodic instead of continuous ( principle 19), the return speed is fast as the dead weight ( tied at the other end) lifts the water filled bucket speedily. (Did you experience a jolt when the person at the opposite end suddenly took himself off from the sea-saw). The dead weight has natural stopper (ground) you must have yourself experienced this stopper after having landed on the ground.

One can use electric pump (Mechanical Substitution Principle 28, use of electric field, further use of solar energy to power your pump). But I am thinking of Ideality, can buffaloes bath themselves, may be Persian wheel looks to be a good option, they get themselves bathed while they rotate the wheel. . Can you think how we can make design such an arrangement? Let us help the old man & let bathing beauties help themselves. (Photo next page) 

Unconventional Brand Communication

Even movies face danger of getting commoditized, when all “MEN” SUPERMAN, SPIDERMAN, BATMAN trying to cleave to your imagination to have pie of your wallet.

How one would catch the attention then? It’s through unconventional brand communication and is shown in the picture below. I see art director using two TRIZ principles to communicate

Principle 13: The Other Way Round

You dream of being a Spiderman, now that’s normal, but can you dream Spiderman be like you. If you observe any of his traits are like yours then you associate with the brand more closely than you would normally have.

Principle 17: Another Dimension

The urinal is in a different plane after all he is a Spiderman and does not want to crowd your space.

Innovation at the Bottom of a TRUCK

Case of a TRUCK DRIVER – A day in his hectic life ……

Waiting at the OCTROI naka day & night and then in traffic jams, but still have to drive to reach the destination……Otherwise your JIT will get fired …. Away from home…. for weeks & months. Breakfast at CHAI tapari, lunch at roadside DHABA. No budget, therefore no lodging…… I take a nap when others bestow me that freedom…

My MALIK says he stays in GINGER, a Low Budget Hotel…Therefore he is cost conscious.....I cannot even afford Ginger for me it is my “SWINGER”, a zero budget hotel…… If this is innovation so be it, I only have to find out solutions to my problems, there is no one I can look up to for help…., I am not as intelligent, as educated as you all are….I have to help myself……..Pressing Necessity is the mother of all INNOVATIONS……

Are you helping yourself & Innovating…………Take small steps… but kick off……

The Road Ahead: Celebrating 75th Post

A year & half back, I made humble beginning with my own space of expression, my blog. I never imagined I would come so far. In the past I started with something and discontinued in between blaming on time scarcity owing to the so called busy schedule pledged for an (un) planned work or for upholding conjugal bliss (in other words, bad time management, wrong work prioritization or fearful respect for wife’s priorities). I had no reason this time as I was taken on by something, joy of sharing, connection may be. I kept scoring each day like JAVED MIANDAD and here I am with my 75th post.

When I started I had doubt in my ability to put forward my thoughts in seamless manner for erudite like you to appreciate or feel worth going through at the cost of your scarce & therefore precious time, today I make no claims that I am better, but I sense with your responses that I am improving by each passing day and have already started adding value.

Now, something about my future journey. My blog is devoted to ideas, it covers / will cover ideas from all human and planetary endeavors, thinking about them and decoding them. There is no categorization here, according to me every idea is important and wombs tomorrows innovation. Ideas are ubiquitous and simply jumping in front of us for our attention. Obvious is not so obvious, so if we make an attempt to observe the obvious we are getting ready for discovering unobvious.

One question always occupied my mind and I believe so also your mind; “What we mean when we say we want to innovate?” Simply put, to innovate is to solve problems not by thinking merely out of box but by looking inside several boxes (knowledge domains, ideas around us I mean), according to me, any problem is classified into two broad categories: recognized (known, today’s ) problems and unrecognized (unknown, tomorrow’s ) problems. Recognized problems are related to failures or performance gaps that we have on our hand. Most of our time is spent in solving the former, therefore fully or partially ignoring the later.

Recognized problem need to be defined in such a manner and till such time we discover an unrecognized one, we need to question everything even if it does not appear to be today’s problem. Unrecognized one can be best defined by defining ideality or Ideal Final Result and by asking questions that lead us to identifying contradictions that are stopping us reach our IDEAL (Most Desired) Goal. In other words, It is always better to be focused and chase ideality with rigor in order to innovate. As an organization, we need to ensure that we never reach equilibrium state. Only such paranoid attitude coupled with inclination to learning (new knowledge) will keep us way ahead of our competition.

A well architectured innovation road map will help us begin with our journey. I see a central role for an innovation facilitator ( navigator), who in his extended role work as a Knowledge Officer help top management create, nurture and blossom innovation & knowledge culture. To me facilitator has a role of a rocket launcher helping people attain their escape velocity so as to migrate them into higher orbit.

The road map has many destinations on its way to excellence, some of them are

• Developing innovation capability of organizational heart counts
• Building a solid foundation of Knowledge Management Systems, structures, processes & infrastructure which enable organization achieve its IDEAL KNOWLEDGE GOAL “Everyone Knows Everything”,
• Organization is able to create environment where expert and not experts are in unison and speak a common language of Innovation.
• All the above efforts will eventually turn a company into a KNOWLEDGE CREATING COMPANY that has knowledge as one of its business vertical

Theory of TRIZ will be at the epicenter of all this efforts. To me it is the only Innovation theory that subsists at present. TRIZ develops an innovation capability which helps people recognize similarity between household problems and those that are technical in nature. It helps us recognize similarity of problems faced by wine bars, ice cream parlors and news papers and further surprises us with the similarity of solutions that are used to solve them. Therefore learning of this science is a must if we are thinking of developing innovation capability and expecting a blessing of a third eye, an Innovative eye.

The challenge is how to take this innovation science to more number of people with contemporary context so that everybody participates in its exploration and contributes towards its advancement. (Not taking it SIX S (T) IGMA route) What I am fully aware today, is its capability in blossoming innovation and its ability to be an INNOVATION language. In future my blog will present my own understanding of TRIZ. You are welcome to offer your critical views.

I close this post with three wonderful quotes which best describes the journey into the future……..

“We cannot depend on our eyes, if our imagination is out of focus”
“In a time of drastic change, the future belongs to paranoids and learners”
“Knowledge is a baobab tree; therefore no single individual can embrace it”

Tie knot with Innovation Nukkad & stay put.

Faraday's Lines of Forces and Problem Visualisation in TRIZ

The post you are reading is energized by Faraday’s theory of electromagnetism. The five senses, which are instruments of our desire, follow theory of electromagnetism. (Unless, you are practicing equanimity, as elucidated, by the GREAT GAUTAMA BUDDHA). 

The key to Faraday’s greatest discoveries was the “force fields”, if one places iron filings over a magnet, one finds that the iron filings create a spider web like pattern that fills up all the space. Empty space to Faraday was not at all empty but was filled up with lines of force that could move distance object. (Invisible field are just like future solutions which are invisible when we begin solving a problem) Because of Faraday’s poverty stricken youth, he was illiterate in mathematics, and as a consequence his notebooks were not full of equations but hand drawn diagrams of these lines of force. Ironically, his lack of mathematical training led him to create the beautiful diagrams that now can be found in any physics textbook.

In science a physical picture is often more important than the mathematics used to describe it. The science is thus best explained by figures. Also it has been said that picture is worth thousand words and equations (later one is my own addition)
.
The point I am trying to make here is not only to convey the way the FARADAY did his work with force fields but to gravitate your attention towards importance of representing a system and thus hidden & unhidden problem associated with it in a diagrammatic form.

In Systematic Innovation (TRIZ - an Innovation Science), system is broken into individual component level describing their functional relationship & along with their individual attributes. This way the complex system is outspread into visual form. Functions are then classified into useful, harmful, excessive, inadequate & missing. Mind works better in search of an Innovative solution with such a diagrammatic representation many times washing away cobwebs of description.

While solving personal problems common man like us prefer to have a picture of GOD in front, isn’t it sensible then to have a picture of a problem we are trying to solve.

To conclude it is better to first represent the system in its visual form than in mathematical form. (Mathematician will later explain it, just as Maxwell explained FARADAY’s work) Qualitative thinking needs to precede quantitative one. (If you have lot of time then spend it data collection & analysis). At least using the former you will not dose off while sitting in that much hyped reactive brain storming sessions.