Measuring Innovation Performance

Innovation measurement should go beyond ... the count of research projects at each stage-gate and the NPV of the portfolio ... to culture metrics that sense the breadth and depth of the spirit of innovation. ...

... "Quantitative metrics in this area may be more activity-oriented, i.e., how many people are participating in innovation efforts and what percent of employees have been trained in creative or strategic thinking disciplines ... " ...

Via Blogging Innovation: Innovation Metrics Strategy

Front End Innovation Needs a Back End

The front end of innovation needs a effective back end system to nurture ideas, manage research projects, and commercialize the best market opportunities. ...

... "Without the back end of innovation - the capacity to effectively screen ideas, align them with strategy, allocate resources to them and manage them successfully ... " ...

Via Blogging Innovation: Ideas

Data Center Efficiency Project Targets Cooling System

IBM leverages measurement tools from its Research Division to identify and implement energy savings opportunities in the cooling system of Toyota's California data center. Electricity provider, Southern California Edison, created a baseline and validated power demand decrease. ...

... "IBM also piloted an extension of MMT which includes real-time sensors that are distributed in strategic places throughout the data center. The updated version of the technology allowed IBM to constantly monitor temperature distributions throughout the project. " ...

Via IBM: Toyota Motor Sales Data Center

Proof of Concept

University proof of concept centers are seeing success from mentoring and collaborating on the commercialization of emerging technology projects. ...

... "Results thus far suggest that the proof of concept center is a good model. By early 2008, the two centers combined had given out nearly $10 million in grants, producing twenty-six spinout companies that raised an additional $159 million in private investment. And the process is useful even when it demonstrates that a research idea will not be viable. " ...

Via The Kauffman Foundation: Proof of Concept Centers

Sleep When Idle

Microsoft focuses some of its investment on energy efficiency in the data center. Reducing power consumption during server idle periods is a research topic. Microsoft Research on efficient datacenters: "selectively putting idle servers into a low-power state ... " ...

... "As of today, turning servers off and on automatically is difficult to do, but with growing interest in environmental sustainability and a need to reduce rising energy costs, more people and businesses are motivated to find and develop solutions that work. " ...

Via Microsoft: Sustainable Computing

Value of Research

Microsoft SVP of Research, Rick Rashid, offers insights into the value of basic research, which is having the capability to confront and solve future challenges. ...

... "If you go back to the writings of Vannevar Bush that really were the basis of what became the U.S. investment in the National Science Foundation and the sort of research and development infrastructure that we have today, what he wrote about wasn't the technologies that would come out of research that you invested in, it was having a basic research infrastructure so that if something went seriously wrong, you had a new war or you have famine or you had a disease, that you would have the infrastructure of smart people and the wealth of technology you built up over the years that would let you address those issues, let you deal with them, let you survive. " ...

Via Microsoft's Rick Rashid: Day 3 Keynote at Professional Developers Conference

Avatar Project Team

Invite your team members' avatars to the project status meeting this week and discuss progress, issues, barriers, and next week's plan. Let me know how it goes. ...

... "Instead of bringing users into an immersive virtual world, this project overlays avatars and visualizations on top of existing web-based meeting services or an arbitrary web page. The research team has developed a Flash-based prototype and is currently running a field study with distributed teams within IBM. " ...

Via IBM: Project Olympus

Organizing for Innovation

Here's an organizational model and mindset for innovation, which has produced results over the years. ...

... "Unbounded thinking is encouraged, failure is not punished, and thinking big is the norm, but at the same time there's an emphasis on producing a result. Program managers are selected for their technical excellence, their entrepreneurial spirit ... " ...

Via Baseline: DARPA Continue

Business Case Reference Material for Talent Projects

Having trouble making the business case for that next HR project? Here's some interesting reference material from IBM and partners for putting that funding request into tangible terms. ...

... "Organizations that apply talent management practices demonstrate higher financial performance compared to their industry peers. Those specific talent management practices that most distinguished financial outperformers from other organizations are understanding and acting upon employee engagement and aligning recognition and performance management systems. " ...

Via IBM: The ROI of Talent Management

Innovation Future at HP Labs

A look inside HP Labs ...

IBM Researches Green Computing Methods

Creative approach to cpu cooling is being explored by IBM researchers. ...

... "Michel see advantages in running them at the current level of 200F. He thinks of the chips as little furnaces from which heat can be removed and reused - by piping it off-site to warm houses or businesses. " ...

Via Business Week: Chilling Biochemistry

Next Gen Collaboration Research Supports Global Teams

IBM will invest in research to deliver solutions that enable the global collaboration of virtual project teams. The company sees collaboration, communication and visualization as capabilities to engage the next generation workforce, who are used to these advanced capabilities in their personal pursuits. ...

... "The challenges of globalization are forcing companies to become more nimble, using an increasingly geographically-dispersed and virtual workforce to remain competitive. In the world of software development, this means 24x7 collaboration with specialized teams around the globe to pick up where another left off. " ...

Via IBM: Innovations Support Global Collaboration

Too Much Methodology for Research Projects?

3M depends on new product development as its engine for growth and eases back on the throttle with Six Sigma methods for research processes. It may have over-emphasized disciplined methods in an area where structure can hinder creativity. ...

... "Under Six Sigma, the free-wheeling nature of brainstorming and the serendipitous side of discovery is stifled. Proponents contend such methodologies' rules keep researchers on track and accountable for producing. " ...

Via Design News: 3M R&D