Category Archives: Topic 7 – Evaluating emerging technologies; influential technologies and the future

Topic 7 – Evaluating emerging technologies; influential technologies and the future

Debunking Urban Legends…

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To me, innovation is just like success. Its one of those things that you know you want or need but you don’t know exactly how to get there.

What are the steps?

What is the best way to go about it?

How do you get from point A to point Z?

In Carol Rozwell and Kathy Harris’s article, Five Myths of Innovation, 2010 Update, they discuss the most common myths in business surrounding how companies can reach successful innovation. I found two of the myths to be rather interesting because I actually believed them.

“The more ideas we generate the better”

I mean, that makes sense right? The more you brainstorm and the more ideas you generate the more options you have to choose from and the more options you have to work with. While Rozwell and Harris agree that the myth is partially true, they emphasize the need for focus when it comes to idea generation. Idea generation should be focused in on a particular business problem that needs to be addressed. Additionally, once ideas have been generated there needs to be an organized idea management system that can keep the ideas focused, recognize those who submit ideas, and implement the ideas that the business will be moving forward with.

“We have lots of smart people, so innovating will be no problem”

Again, this makes a ton of sense but I guess it is a little naive to think that the smart people would even want to participate. You can’t force anyone to do anything. Roswell and Harris note that while smart people are good to have on an innovation team, not all smart people are the right fit for the team. One key to innovating is assembling a diverse team that is coherent and consists of team members that have complimentary styles of creating and working. The combined skill set of these smart people must result in the ability to “create, adapt, connect, realize, act, and drive innovation”.

Source:

Rozwell, C., & Harris, K. (2010, February 12). Five Myths of Innovation, 2010 Update. Retrieved November 11, 2017, from https://www.gartner.com/doc/1300613/myths-innovation–update

Topic 7 – Evaluating emerging technologies; influential technologies and the future

By Directly Testing Them…

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One way that a company can innovate is by investing in unique emerging technologies. Although there may not be any exclusivity in adopting the technology, the idea behind it could be that the company is the “first to market” in terms of using the technology. In order to invest in this type of innovation, companies need to justify that investment. In Betsy Burton’s article, Toolkit Best Practices:  Seven Factors to Evaluate when Justifying Investments in Emerging Technologies, she discusses considerations that need to be made when evaluating emerging tech. Having this approach for evaluating and justifying investments in emerging tech really excites me because it is easy to understand and can potentially be easy to implement. While all seven factors for justification are useful, I found the following to be rather interesting:

Evaluate IT’s Strategic Opportunities and Risks

Determining a company’s future state has often been talked about in EA. The idea of getting a company to its future state is a common topic but I cannot recall discussing a real method for determining the future state. Burton brings up a great point in that developing the future state should start with the creation of different future business scenarios. By creating multiple different versions of what the future state of the business will look like, the company can reflect and decide on the best potential direction for the evolution of the business, opportunities, and costs of the potential future state.

Evaluate the Technology’s Role in the IT Portfolio

While bringing on an emerging tech can garner buzz and excitement, it can be easy to overlook the reality of investing in the technology. Will the tech fit into all of what the company currently has going on? Additionally, Burton makes an excellent point in that if the company is going to take on the emerging tech from a small business vendor then it need to do some research. Is the vendor in the market to be acquired? If so, how does the company feel about being in partnership with this perspective new company? All valid and necessary questions that should be answered before taking the step to invest.

Source:

Burton, B. (2008, February 11). Toolkit Best Practice: Seven Factors to Evaluate When Justifying Investments in Emerging Technologies. Retrieved November 12, 2017, from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1868073/files/84120180/download?wrap=1

Topic 7 – Evaluating emerging technologies; influential technologies and the future

Addressing the Misconception…

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I would like to think of myself as a mini MacGyver inheriting my talents from my father, the real MacGyver. I’ve seen my father come up with solutions to a problem using random items and common household items. For example, this was maybe the third time we experienced flooding in the basement of my family home. The usual process for cleaning up was all hands on deck with buckets, mops, trips up and down to the basement, wet vacuums, etc. This time we were faced with the added stress of having no power but, my father said no more. He sat for a few minutes mumbling to himself and then got up and quietly went to the garage. Now the garage houses all of his countless tools and knick knacks so it wasn’t all that surprising that he came back from the garage with a fire fighter’s fire hose.

*Scratches head in confusion* I mean like…where did you even get that from?

At that point he got to work and figured out a way to fix the firehose to the generator outside which essentially would pump out most of the water in the basement directly up the stairs, through the kitchen and out the backdoor.

In Guy Raz’s show, Ted Radio Hour form NPR, he introduces us to Navi Radjou. Radjou is an innovation consultant who believes that limited resources can potentially lead to better innovation. In Raz’s interview Radjou explains how he has seen big companies waste resources and waste money on R&D thinking that it is the only way for the company to innovate. Radjou explains that coming from an upbrining where resources were limited and visiting countries where resources are limited he has seen what type of innovation can occur without tons of money. When you put a limit on the resources that you have you remove the limitations that are put on creativity. After all, “necessity is the mother of innovation”. Similar to my father’s situation, the flood water needed to be cleaned up and he creatively came up with the solution without the mother of resources, electricity.

Source:

Can Limited Resources Lead To Better Innovation? (2015, July 17). Retrieved November 12, 2017, from https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=421495817