Category Archives: Ideation

Global Innovation Tournament at RU

Posted on November 25, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

The entrepreneurship area at Stanford sponsors the GIT annually. Radford decided to participate this year. I was on the committee to run the event and it was the best “service” function I am involved in — beats the daylights out … Continue reading →

Posted in Ideation | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

UIC Innovation Center: NPD Education

Posted on August 25, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

A cross-discipline approach to innovation education A week ago Friday the UIC Innovation center held an open house and reception for academics attending the AMA Summer conference in Chicago. Al Page, professor of Marketing at the University of Illinois at … Continue reading →

Posted in communication, Ideation, Innovation education | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Brainstorming groups still kill ideas

Posted on July 23, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

I was surprised to find an article in a leading innovation journal that summarized a recent research paper on brainstorming. The summary stated that in contrast to most past studies this one showed that group ideation may reduce the number of ideas … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer Research Methods, experiential innovation, Ideation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

In Search of Innovation

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

A great article on innovation in todays WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204830304574133562888635626.html Look away from the lampost I suppose a cynic might claim that “great” means that it agrees with the recurring themes and principles discussed in this blog. Specifically: Storytelling, Involving users … Continue reading →

Posted in Co-creation or User collaboration, Customer Research Methods, experiential innovation, Experiment, Ideation | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Online Communities — Replacements for Focus Groups

Posted on December 16, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

A recurring theme of postings on customer involvement methods is that traditional market research methods such as focus groups and brainstorming  kill ideas and creativity; there is a need for better ideation techniques that truly engage users. J. Scott Armstrong … Continue reading →

Posted in Co-creation or User collaboration, Customer Research Methods, Ideation | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fuzzy Front End

Posted on September 17, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

Note: a quick overview of the fuzzy front end in new product development, authored by Peter Koen and others, is available on the Steven’s web site: http://www.stevens.edu/cce/NEW/PDFs/FuzzyFrontEnd_Old.pdf

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A full section on Service Innovation at the PDMA Research Conference

Posted on September 15, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

  Students of new product development are aware of the term the “Fuzzy Front-End of NPD”, which describes the less understood process of idea generation (versus the allegedly more rational development process at the end that is better studied and … Continue reading →

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Distributed Co-creation

Posted on August 25, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

 Participatory marketing taken to the next level The July issue of the Mckinsey Quarterly has an interesting article called “the next step in open innovation.” The article is a discussion of how the examples of customer creation  of Wikipedia and … Continue reading →

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Co-creation changes the organization as well as the service

Posted on August 11, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

Deceptively simple If your customers help create new services: the results should better fit customer needs, the process should be speeded, and many ideas generated. However, a firm must find a way to deal with a cast of stakeholders, must … Continue reading →

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Co-creation at Nokia

Posted on July 13, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

from “mass” communication to one-to-one understanding We have had several postings about Nokia in this blog. We have discussed its Beta Labs, Beta Culture and use of ethnography in emerging economies. The communications director at Nokia calls co-creation a move from … Continue reading →

Posted in Co-creation or User collaboration, communication, Customer Research Methods, experiential innovation, Ideation, NSD Process | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment