One of my hobbies is photography and I daily read the Strobist Blog. It is amazing the big number of people building their own equipments by their own. A good example is this post which explains how to build a ring flash spending just a pair of euros instead of 600 euros or more buying a commercial one.

These people are considered lead users, i.e. skilled people who have got needs which are not satisfied by commercial solutions and require a solution just now. Their value is that they makes trends and foreshadow the general demand of the market.

The communication technologies are facilitating that the solution proposals offered by these users would be known all around the world in terms of seconds. That is the communication potential and the reason why user generated contents are increasingly more important for companies.

Traditionally, the way of dealing with problems has been using a trial and error approach. For problems characterized by a low level of complexity this approach is suitable. In fact, the major number of innovations has been done this way.

However, the complexity of problems is increasingly high and a different strategy is needed. That is the reason why some systematic innovation methodologies are being seriously considered nowadays.

Levels / Degree of inventiveness / % of solutions / Source of knowledge / Approximate # of trials
1 Apparent solution 68.3% Personal knowledge 10
2 Minor improvement 27.1% Knowledge within the company 100
3 Major improvement 4.3% Knowledge within the industry 1000
4 New paradigm 0.24% Knowledge outside the industry 100,000
5 Discovery 0.06% All that is knowable 1,000,000

TRIZ is one of the most important systematic innovation methodologies. It was created in 1956 by Altshuller, a patent officer in the Russian Navy, analyzing 2,500,000 patents. He discovered patterns in those patents, as those that follow:

- The evolution is not chaotic.
- Systems tend to be ideal.
- All systems have got contradictions.
- The value of an invention is a function of three parameters: time, space and interface.
- There are a limited number of inventive principles which inventors use without realizing.
- 99% of inventions reuse preexisted solutions
- Only 1% of inventions are breakthroughs.
- Creativity can be managed in a systematic way.

Then, using the experience of previous innovations we are sure that can reach the impressive number of 99% of inventions. And even more, we know how to improve them and to get systems closer to ideal.

Your question now could be: can I learn to innovate? Of course, you can. There are no magic recipes but a good training in the tools provided by these systematic innovation methodologies can make you become a better innovator helping you to educate your creativity.

The way of doing it is distinguishing different steps in the innovation process characterized by different states of the mind, i.e. reducing the psychological inertia to try to find out solutions again and again, as in the trial and error approach. The key is first to analyze and understand all dimensions of the problem; second to generate as many ideas as possible without deciding if they are good or not; third to filter ideas following business and technical criteria; fourth to make an in-depth study of the most remarkable solutions; fifth to implement a solution or a set of solutions; and finally, to launch them to the market.
And always have in mind the Thomas Edison?s motto: Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

In the first post of this blog, I would like to share with you what 'innovation' term is and why it is becoming so popular in the recent times.

Innovation can be defined as the process of providing high value novelties, i.e. understanding problems, solving them with creativity, implementing their solutions and exploiting them successfully. Or in other words: seeing what everybody sees, thinking what somebody thinks, and implementing what nobody has dared to do it so far.

In this definition there are some remarkable aspects which need consideration:

- innovation is a process not a result, i.e. a number of steps need to be done to solve problems.
- innovation implies to find out new and usually non obvious solutions to solve a problem.
- an innovation process is valuable if at least a solution is successfully implemented, and then it is accepted by the market.

These considerations show the main difference between having a good idea and making it a reality. A lot of factors influence the success of ideas but what it is really key for an innovation process is to define the suitable steps which allow you to make sure that all ideas are heard, analysed and only the most relevant ones for your business are implemented.

We are dealing with high competitive environments everyday and innovation is a must to survive. Many companies have recently perceived that due to the improved functionalities of communication technologies their products and services are not so innovative as they would like to. The reasons depend on each particular case, but in general the hot topics are to be able to have better ideas, to implement them faster and to fail quickly and cheaply.

Then innovation is the differentiating factor which can make you success in the long term.