Visualisation: Part 2

The Client Perspective

What you see depends on which direction you are looking from.

 

What do you see

How many bars?

If you count from the top, there are 10 bars. But there are only 7 bars when you count from the bottom. In this case it is an optical illusion based on how the drawing is constructed. However in real life the same sort of dilemma faces us as engineers when we are looking at Product Development from the technology perspective and the client is looking at it from the Return On Investment (ROI) perspective.

 

Roger La Salle makes the case in his book “Think New” that the problem with most new product introductions is not the technology. In general, we engineers will find a solution. The risk that usually kills the product is the business risk or market risk. So our focus as engineers is on making the client successful by getting the product to work technically through Innovation and our skill as engineers, but the client’s biggest risk remains maximised the whole time. The business risk is only dealt with when the product is finally being sold in sufficient quantities to cover the development costs and now return a profit.

 

Those are 2 very different perspectives. It is worth keeping that in mind the next time you are working on a new product.

 

The image for today’s blog post was provided courtesy of Dr Marc Dussault, The Exponential Growth Strategist who is always on the look out for examples of antimimeticisomorphism, which I am sure you’ll agree this is!

 

Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years. This post is Copyright © 2013 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd

Hour Of Power And Leadership

Ray Keefe interview with Ryan Gomez

Today I was interviewed by Ryan Gomez on Casey Radio. Ryan is an award winning motivational speaker and life coach and host of the Hour of Power and Leadership each Sunday at 1pm. I was his guest for the second half of the show where he wanted to explore the success of my business, Successful Endeavours, and my role in that.

 

Ryan Gomez

Ryan Gomez

This is my second interview on Casey Radio. The previous was for the Casey Radio Business Hour where David Wilkinson of the Casey Economic Development Department wanted to know how our win as Casey Business of the Year 2010 had impacted my business.

 

This time Ryan gave me a chance to tell some of the bigger story of my life, my faith and my business journey.

 

Ray Keefe with Ryan Gomez

Ray Keefe with Ryan Gomez

We covered a lot of ground including:

 

  • How I got into Engineering in the first place
  • Why I started Successful Endeavours
  • How my faith affects my decisions in business
  • How important a business mentor has been to our success
  • What advice I have for other small business owners

 

Ray Keefe interviewed by Ryan Gomez

Ray Keefe interviewed by Ryan Gomez

I found that Ryan and I shared a number of views including the importance of people, the need to have a purpose for what you do and the value of continuing to grow day by day. Ryan is also a big believer in the power of mistakes and learning from them. Something I strongly agree with.

 

I also had the chance to share about why Manufacturing is so important to me. Manufacturing is the largest industry sector in Victoria, the largest employer and the largest exporter. It is the at the heart of Victoria’s economy and vital to the progress of Innovation, the knowledge economy and the best way to grow employment as it generates more indirect jobs per direct job of any area of commercial activity.

 

And of course I love creating new products that make people’s lives better. That’s what Engineers do.

 

I finished off the interview with my favourite business quote and my advice to other small business owners.

 

Ray Keefe’s Business Quote

 

The purpose of the organisation is so that ordinary men and women can come together, and in cooperation with each other, do the extraordinary“. Aristotle ~380BC

 

Ray Keefe’s Business Advice

If you are a small business owner, it is likely that you will have gaps in your understanding of business and how to take the business to the next level. So my advice is to find a business mentor you can trust and work with, and let them help you. You don’t know what you don’t know.

 

Ray Keefe on Casey Radio Hour Of Power And Leadership

Ray Keefe on Casey Radio

Casey Radio Interview with Ray KeefeClick on the image on the left to download or listen to the Casey Radio Hour of Power and Leadership interview with Ray Keefe.

 

Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years. This post is Copyright © 2012 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd

Innovation

What is Innovation

The problem with innovation is that it is a word used all the time with the expectation that using the word somehow makes things better. A definition for innovation is a bit harder to nail down. Here are some examples.

 

Something new or different introduceddictionary.com

 

Change that adds value – Roger La Salle who invented Matrix Thinking and the Innovation Matrix. His latest book is called “Innovate or Perish”!

 

Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society. Wikipedia

 

The Australian Government website on Innovation lists the programs on offer but avoids a definition.

 

Innovation Matters

 

Innovate or Perish

Innovate or Perish

The graph above shows the need for Innovation on a continual basis and not just a single event. It is taken from the Matrix Thinking website.

 

Innovation matters because without it, entropy ensures we go backward. There is no standing still. The graph above shows the financial implications of this. There is only forward and backward. A very scary set of statistics for Australia come from the Australian Intellectual Property Scorecard which shows that in every significant way, Australian Innovation has gone backward over the period from 2005-2009. Now 2009 was a tough year, but the trend pre-dates this so you can’t just dismiss it as a consequence of the GFC. It was happening in the full on growth period that preceded it. Here is a brief summary of my reading of the report:

 

  • Only 10% of Patents filed in Australia are by Australians
  • Australian Patents to Australians fell 20%
  • International Patents to Australians fell 20%
  • USA Patents granted to Australians rose to 0.7% then fell back to 0.6%
  • European Patents granted to Australians rose to 0.55% then fell back to 0.45%

 

This is not the sign of a healthy Innovation Environment. The slow decline in Australian Manufacturing is certainly one of the reasons but it seems we have just become less interested in Innovating.

 

Australians granted Australian Patents

Australians granted Australian Patents

Innovation Requires Need

I read with interest The Innovation Machine on how a range of different companies ensure innovation happens. Google and 3M are famous for their Innovation strategies which includes employees having discretion over how some of their time is spent so they can pursue things that interest them. The argument in the article however is that Innovation is unnatural, and so you must create an environment that ensure Innovation occurs.

 

In a second article that touches on this point on Israeli Entepreneurs, an Israeli company Optibase has cutting edge video equipment which only exists because of the Israeli military. Staying alive is a powerful motivator and the military are keen for improvements to come from anywhere. Innovation is expected!

 

Our business creates or updates roughly 100 new products each year. So for us, new is normal. And this need makes Innovation essential. This is one of the advantages of working with an external product development consultancy. Even if you have the internal skills to do the work yourself, an external viewpoint will always be different. The ultimate aim is to be able to harness the best of both to get a better outcome than you could from either alone.

 

Innovation can also be stifled and this is not just an Australian phenomenon. I covered this is Prototypes Blunt Innovation.

 

My thanks go to Dr Marc Dussault, The Exponential Growth Strategist for the links which prompted this post.

 

Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years. This post is Copyright © 2012 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd

Prototypes Blunt Innovation

Prototyping

Prototypes are very useful. We use them all the time when developing new products. They let us try out new ideas explore how well a particular technology will work for a specific application.

 

One danger of a prototype, is that there is the temptation to think that you can then just fix it up to make it into a product. This is a common enough dilemma with software. It mostly works so a bit more polish and it will be OK to ship it. This is definitely a danger zone. Once a prototype has served it’s purpose, put it aside. Then design the product from the ground up. And then, if you can use any of the prototype design, then do so in a considered way based on the design and architecture you have determined will meet the entire needs of the project. Most prototypes do not have the exception handling and support featured needed to make them into real products that can be tested and maintained.

 

So I was interested to read about another potential problem with prototypes in the December 2011 edition of the Harvard Business Review in an article titled Early Prototypes Can Hurt A Team’s Creativity.

 

Innovation Blockage

The problem outlined is that the prototype can limit the thinking about the project. It is way easier to pick and choose features on a defined thing and critique flaws than to create something new. So the early prototype can really set the team back if they let it define the full scope of how to think about the underlying problem being solved.

 

Prototypes Can Kill Innovation

Prototypes Can Kill Innovation

I have seen the same think happen when a product needs a new model. It is obvious to look at incremental improvements and “Low Hanging Fruit” but sometimes you have to step back and think about the market and the customers and what they really need. Maybe it is time for a clean slate. And maybe there are good reasons why the old technology the product was based on is not the right choice for the next model.

 

In both cases, the prototype and the existing model act as a frame of reference that limits innovation and creativity.

 

The hard part of course, is recognising when that is the case and when it is not.

 

As an example, one project I worked on early in my career involved creating a new international product for a company entering a new market. It was for an existing category and there were 6 incumbents who had been there for a while, in some cases 30 years. The company did something very wise. They sent someone to talk to several opinion leaders and to all the local users of the equipment. The intent was to determine the best way to go about gaining market share. The story told was that none of the existing products met the customer needs really well. Over time they had converged into 2 formats, one for each market segment, and it was a price war as the products had become commodities. But when they were asked what they were trying to do, the customers gave two clear stories, one in each market segment. The marketing and product specifications were based on these two stories and we designed a single product to meet both market segments. The product entered a crowded international market at a price point 50% above the next most expensive product. The company planned to sell 300 in the first year and ramp up after that. They sold 1500 in the first year and had to move to a larger factory to satisfy the demand.

 

Leica Autostainer XL

Leica Autostainer XL

I also got a patent for one of the new technologies developed. The point is that if you meet the actual need, people will pay for that. The issue in this market was that the incumbents had let each others’ offerings define their responses and not the customers’ need. Another example of stifled innovation until a new player listened and changed the game.

 

I have never forgotten that lesson.

 

Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years. This post is Copyright © 2012 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd