Posts Tagged ‘innovation’

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Patently Obvious – Sept 2011 Update

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

A new law signed by President Obama this month could mean a speedier patent approval process for inventors across the country.

The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, regarded as the most sweeping patent law in 60 years, was passed on September 16, 2011. The law awards patents to the first person to submit an application, adopting the first-to-file over the first-to-invent system. The objective is to reduce lawsuits and streamline the patent process. “Somewhere in that stack of applications could be the next technological breakthrough, the next miracle drug, the next idea that will launch the next Fortune 500 Company,” said President Obama at the signing ceremony at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia.

While in the past, the patent process has been burdened with lawsuits that stifle innovation, the America Invents Act aims to streamline the patent process in order to foster innovation that will stimulate the economy and create new jobs as well as keep the U.S. competitive globally.

Glenn Henneberger, Partner at Hoffmann & Baron LLP, advises that under the new law, the party who files first will be granted the rights over subsequent filers regardless of who invented first. This makes it more important to file an application as soon as possible. The first to file provisions go into effect on March 16, 2013.

“You can’t wait to file,” says Henneberger, “From the time an inventor presents his information, it may take a patent attorney two to three months to prepare, review and revise the papers. A provisional application can be filed more quickly to gain an earlier filing date and allows the inventor one year to file the non-provisional application.” The best tip for inventors? File early and definitely file a provisional application.

Other implications of the American Invents Act pertain to changes that will reduce lawsuits. In false marketing lawsuits, private parties must prove damages, which should reduce the number of patent litigations. Business method patents will be looked at more closely to reduce lawsuits as well.

The new act provides a fee reduction for “Micro Entities” – small inventors who have had less than 4 patents to their name and with incomes less than 3 times the median household income.

Finally, the America Invents Act gives third parties an opportunity to participate in the examination process. Third parties may submit information to the patent office that could affect the scope of the patent process.

Thanks to Glenn Henneberger, Partner at Hoffmann & Baron, LLP for his contribution.

http://www.hoffmannbaron.com/ http://www.hbiplaw.com/

Glenn Henneberger is highly experienced in all aspects of intellectual property law with an emphasis on inter partes matters including patent and trademark litigation before the federal and appellate courts as well as the Supreme Court of the United States. He is also experienced in all phases of patent and trademark prosecution before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Practice expertise includes all phases of intellectual property law including litigation, licensing, reexaminations, foreign oppositions, product clearances, opinions, and domestic and foreign patent and trademark prosecution.

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Innovation: You Know You Want It, Now How to Implement It?

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

“Successful innovation is turning ideas into money,” as Innovation expert Nic Hunt so distinctly and accurately describes. Innovation is the ability to convert ideas into value for your company, customers and shareholders. Successful innovation is not a one time deal, but a process that delivers sustained, long term profitability. Any company can develop one or two innovations over the course of time, but having a focused vision will deliver sustainable innovation – producing profitable results for your company time and time again.

Implementing innovation depends on a disciplined strategy customized to the needs, size and culture of an organization. First determine what type of innovation you hope to achieve with your organization. Innovation can be incremental, which features a new process or way of doing business, or it can be transformative, which debuts an entirely new way to deliver value. Transformative innovations are few and far in between. These true game changers open up new businesses and markets. Organizations tend to use 80% of their resources on incremental enhancements, according to a 2003 study by the London School of Business. However, be warned that companies that focus entirely on incremental innovations have difficulty keeping up with new competitors that enter the field.

Understanding what your organization needs is very important in the New Product Development process. Know your innovation status and areas for improvement by completing a short audit at www.innovationcoach.com/solutions/short-audit based on Robert’s Rules of Innovations.

Once you solidify the goals of your organization, it’s time to assemble your NPD team and begin the innovation process. Be sure to complete a few relatively easy wins with your team earlier on in the process. This will not only build equity for your  program, but also gain attention from the high-ups in the organization right away.

Each organization must create their own clearly defined stages and steps of the NPD process. Here are some tips and insights for best practices.

  •           Do we go/no go? Set specific criteria for ideas that should be continued or dropped. Stick to the agreed upon criteria so poor projects can be sent back to the idea-hopper early on.
  •          Lean, mean and scalable. During the NPD process, keep the system nimble and use flexible discretion over which activities are executed. You may want to develop multiple versions of your road map scaled to suit different types and risk levels of projects.
  •         The rear-view mirror review. Organizations are doing launch post-mortems, with performance metrics in place, to measure project performance, establish team accountability, and build in improvements for the future. An examination of your last innovation process can gain some valuable key learnings. Foster a culture of continuous improvement in the innovation process.

For more tips and guidelines on developing the right implementation strategy, see  Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival.

 

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Should You Reward Bad Ideas?

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

Some ideas are crazy. Some are underdeveloped. Some will fail. How can you deal with them without squelching your employees’ creativity?

True or false: There’s no such thing as a bad idea.

Of course bad ideas exist. In retrospect, the AOL-Time Warner merger was not the wisest idea. Neither is photocopying your face. But ask any number of innovation experts and they’ll all give you a different answer. Of course there is such thing as a bad idea. Or:Every idea has its merit. Or: It depends…

Within the context of innovation, how to handle bad ideas is a controversial topic because statistically speaking, most ideas are bad. Ninety-three percent of successful innovations start in the wrong direction and countless more never succeed. “In entrepreneurship, most ideas fail,” explains Roy Rosin, Intuit‘s vice president of innovation. “You either scale the wrong thing or you scale in the wrong direction. And it’s hard to predict.”

With no handy algorithm to identify good ideas, innovative companies have to accept that with every great, useful, idea, there will be many more that fall away. Unused ideas are frequently off-topic, underdeveloped, or poorly timed; however, this doesn’t make them bad. So should you reject these wayward ideas, or should you reward them?

Taken literally, rewarding bad ideas sounds preposterous. In competitive climates, separating the best from the rest motivates future growth. But most entrepreneurs would agree that to foster creativity and collaboration, every voice should be listened to and every idea should be shared. If every unused idea is treated like a bad idea, don’t we run the risk of discouraging future innovation? The following six arguments for and against rewarding so-called bad ideas will help you decide what is best for your company.

Should You Reward Bad Ideas? Yes, Reward Unappealing Ideas.

Chances are, you won’t like every idea brought to the table. But hold your judgment. Successful brainstorms incorporate a diverse group of people collaborating with one another and contributing as much as possible without any arguments, debates or snap decisions on their merit.

“The worst thing you can do as a leader is to be the single determining factor of whether an idea is good or bad,” says innovation coach Robert Brands. ”If they’re good, they become the boss’s idea and if they’re bad, you lose ownership of the operation.”

Instead, Brands suggests a method where everyone (“From the maintenance man to the CEO,” he says. “Everyone!”) develop the parameters new ideas should be measured against. Common parameters include profitability, patent potential, customers service, global impact. And, if an idea doesn’t fit your parameters but your employees are passionate about it, consider rewarding their enthusiasm instead.

Read the complete article on Inc.com:

http://www.inc.com/guides/201108/how-to-reward-bad-ideas.html

 

 

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Why America’s patent system needs to be reformed, and how to do it

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

From The Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/21526370

ON AUGUST 15th Google bid $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility, a troubled American maker of mobile phones. If the purchase goes through, it will be Google’s largest ever acquisition, almost doubling the size of its workforce. The attraction for the internet giant is not the handset-maker’s 19,000 employees nor its 11% share of America’s smartphone market, but its portfolio of 17,000 patents, with another 7,500 in the pipeline. This will bolster Google’s puny arsenal of around 2,000 patents, hugely strengthening its position in current and future legal battles with its more heavily armed industry rivals. Having been defeated in a recent auction of patents belonging to Nortel, a defunct Canadian telecoms firm, Google was clearly desperate to win Motorola’s portfolio: its offer valued the company’s shares at a 63% premium over their closing price the previous Friday evening.

 

The basic idea of patents is a good one: an inventor is granted a limited monopoly (20 years, in America and elsewhere) over a technology in return for disclosing the details of its workings, so that others can build upon the invention. Advanced technologies are thus made widely available, rather than remaining trade secrets, spurring further innovation. In some industries, notably pharmaceuticals, it is doubtful that the huge investments needed to develop new products would be made without the prospect of patent protection.

In recent years, however, the patent system has been stifling innovation rather than encouraging it. A study in 2008 found that American public companies’ total profits from patents (excluding pharmaceuticals) in 1999 were about $4 billion—but that the associated litigation costs were $14 billion. Such costs are behind the Motorola bid: Google, previously sceptical about patents, is caught up in a tangle of lawsuits relating to smartphones and wants Motorola’s huge portfolio to strengthen its negotiating position (see article).

What has gone wrong? The prizing of patent quantity rather than quality—lawyers are said to compare portfolios by measuring the heights of their respective piles—is one cause for concern. A second is the rise in dubious patents, particularly in the fields of software and business methods, that should never have been awarded. This leads to the third: the growing problem of “patent trolls”, or firms that treat patents as lottery tickets and file expensive, time-consuming lawsuits against companies that have supposedly infringed them.

A blueprint to improve the machinery

A patent-reform act is about to be passed in America, but it has been so watered down that it will fail to make much difference. Three much bolder reforms are needed.

First, patents in fields where innovation moves fast and is relatively cheap—like computing—should have shorter terms than those in areas where it is slower and more expensive—like pharmaceuticals. The divergent interests of patent-holders in different industries have held up reform, but there is no reason why they should not be treated differently: such distinctions are made in other areas of intellectual-property law. Second, the bar for obtaining a patent, particularly for software or business methods, should be much higher (as it is in other countries), and the process of re-evaluating bad patents should be more open and efficient. Finally, there should be greater disclosure requirements of the ownership of patent portfolios, and patent cases should be heard by specialised courts (as happens in other areas of law), rather than non-expert juries in advantageous jurisdictions in Texas. That would make life harder for trolls. These fixes would help America’s patent system encourage innovation rather than litigation.

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Intelligence Lost: Seven Innovative Steps to Ensure Boomer Retirement Doesn’t Create Knowledge Vacuum

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

The U.S. business community is facing a war of intelligence attrition. Fortune 500s will see countless experienced knowledge workers walk out the door over the next two decades. The U.S. Armed Forces are losing millions of officers and key personnel to retirement.

For even those companies that thrive on innovation, the numbers are daunting – and demand action. Some 900,000 white collar workers from the Executive Branch of government, and another 5,400 federal executives, will be up for retirement over the next decade, according to an August 2007 study from Tandberg.

A McKinsey Quarterly survey in 2007 found that the Baby Boomer generation is “the best-educated, most highly skilled aging workforce in U.S. history.” Though they’re “only” about 40% of the workforce, they comprise more than half of all managers and almost half of all professionals, like doctors and lawyers.

Many are preparing to leave – and American leadership isn’t prepared to lose them. To paraphrase one-time presidential contender Ross Perot, that “giant sucking sound” being heard across the business landscape is the vacuum of combined knowledge locked up in the heads of millions of baby boomers heading off into retirement.

As the boomer generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) retires, executive leadership faces a daunting task: How to ensure key intelligence and know-how doesn’t walk out the door when they retire. The loss of business intelligence and corporate knowledge, especially in R&D-focused companies or organizations, could amount to billions of dollars in lost intellectual capital. Leaders must act fast.

Even those organizations with young employees must consider knowledge management. Knowledge loss also occurs as key personnel resign or are lost to illness or tragedy, taking with them a trove of irreplaceable knowledge.

The question becomes: How do leaders keep the older generation actively engaged so that process of extracting and archiving key information is interesting, challenging and rewarding?

-          Establish and share rules of and rationales for engagement. Determine how information gathering will be accomplished – for example, by questionnaire, survey, online system, etc. Will sales people drop into the contact management system such key nuggets as a client’s admin’s name, or the client’s birthday, or his preference to be called Robert, and not Bob, thus strengthening key relationships? If so, be sure to tell the entire organization to do this – and why this is should be done.

-          Scan the personnel landscape. Create a database charting individual or shared “expertise clusters” across the organization. Use relationship software or “spiders” to track knowledge by department and employee (See exhibit example). Learn, cross-reference and document where key knowledge or competencies reside. If a key term or phrase were searched by project or product, specific individuals’ names should come up.

-          Set up a database or system for collecting information. This is especially important in larger organizations. It’s not enough to do a “knowledge dump” from one person to another. Resignation or illness could strike, leaving the company in the same situation again. Create a sustainable “Knowledge Library” system to capture key data, information and processes. Databasing solutions can be as simple as a shared Excel spread sheet, or use of enterprise collaboration platforms like Confluence (http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/), Socialtext (http://www.socialtext.com/) or TWiki (http://twiki.org/). Easy to create, update and maintain, sharing knowledge across the organization becomes a simple process.

-          Create a home for – and invite – nuanced info. At my old company, we manufactured screw-on pumps that turned liquid soap into foam. Early on, clients called about “leakers” – pumps that loosened during shipment. Our president discovered the right amount of “let off torque” to keep them in place. Because how much torque varied by bottle type, such experience-borne knowledge could not be written in customer instructions. Soon after, he took ill and left the company – but not before writing this key bit of pass-along information in a reference manual used by everyone who’s come after him.

-          Build bridges early on. Like a mentor / apprentice relationship, encourage interaction between the generations. This can foster an esprit de corps and facilitate a transfer of knowledge across ranks and age groups.

-          Host events to bring people together. Monthly breakfasts, after-work happy hour “spit & whittle” chats, and other informal exchanges can create opportunities for verbal or hands-on knowledge sharing. Hold a seminar in effective knowledge-sharing principles and practices; invite the entire organization.

-          Use social media and online tools. Create a closed group on LinkedIn, subscribe to an online whiteboard or collaborative application, create a spreadsheet or chart on Google Docs, set up a blog, forum or company intranet where retirees can return online and enter insights they recall after leaving the organization. Don’t be afraid to “crowd source” new ideas from retirees by sending eblasts or messages via group tools.

-          Make knowledge sharing a continual, perpetual habit, not a one-time act. Encourage people to document and share what they know. Invite, even incentivize retirees to return to share solutions later when they may recall something they’ve done in the past.

Remember, no tidbit is too small. It’s just not about the knowledge behind what they did. Gather details regarding the work-arounds they devised and the minutia involving their otherwise undocumented experience of things that work – and things that don’t. Even informal practices – like a workflow system that has proven effective – must be put into writing for archival and sharing purposes.

Boomers are retiring. Years of hard data and soft know-how is preparing to leave your organization. Are you prepared to avoid the vacuum?

 

By Robert Brands with Jeff Zbar [www.gotwords.biz]

 

Robert F. Brands, a veteran corporate executive who now consults with companies worldwide and author of Robert’s Rules of Innovation (www.robertsrulesofinnovation.com). Brands, a senior executive for companies like GTE, Kohler and Rexam, is president and founder of InnovationCoach.com. Having gained hands-on experience in bringing innovation to market, creating and improving the necessary product development processes and needed culture, he delivered and exceeded bringing “at least one new product per year to market” resulting in double digit profitable growth and shareholder value.

 

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Innovation and How to Harness the Creative Mindset

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

Every organization has a diverse group of personalities that respond differently to particular management styles. The creatives of an organization are often the group that stands out and may be misunderstood. How are creatives perceived in your company? What is the nature of the creative type, and how can they best be managed for the purposes of achieving Innovation?

First, let’s describe what creatives are like. Highly charged creative types may act out or resist when they feel restricted by the confinement of corporate culture. Some creatives may prefer to work alone, in the refuge of their own private work space until they emerge with an “Aha!” moment or solution to a vexing problem. In meetings and NPD ideation sessions, true creatives are the ones that are not afraid to ask the most challenging, thought-provoking questions to dive head-first into a problem. They do it out of sheer intellectual curiosity and the thrill of probing a conundrum – that is where they work best. It is that kind of curiosity that leads to Innovation for a business, and in turn brings profitable growth and shareholder value for the company.

The best way to harness the creative mindset is to take away restraints in the beginning. During ideation sessions, do not kill the creativity with statements of, “That will never work,” or “We tried that before and…”  The best way to extinguish the creative flame?

  • Dominate the creative process and alienate team players.
  • Ignore or override input from the group.
  • Refute recommendations by saying, “That won’t work because…”
  • Fail to recognize creatives’ contributions.

Instead, you can apply the practical real-world filters later on in the process, but listen to what creatives have to offer first. Provide a space to share ideas without fear of failure and you may be surprised at what you’ll find. Reward those great ideas that attribute to Innovation. For creative types, money is not the only motivation – recognition for achievement is a key driving force as well.  The creative players on your team may be a willful, determined and passionate bunch, but they need to feel empowered to do their best work and it is your job as the Innovation champion to keep that flame alive.

 

For more tips, see “Robert’s Rules of Innovation” on how to bring out the best in your team members and guide them towards a path to Innovation.

 

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Defeating Devil’s Advocates to Become an Innovation Champion

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

In an organization, it’s human nature to resist change and to stick with the status quo that’s often more comfortable and safe. Some of your teammates in your company may be devil’s advocates who claim they want what’s best for the business while they oppose initiatives for Innovation. As a leader and innovator-in-chief of your company, it is critical to drive the culture of Innovation throughout the organization even in the face of opposition.

To defeat devil’s advocates, first you must examine why innovation efforts fail. A major reason is tied to an organization’s culture and its people. In a BusinessWeek survey of top-ranked companies in Innovation including Google, Apple, 3M, Toyota and Microsoft, the companies attributed their success to the avoidance of certain culture-related issues. These issues included Innovation that was only “lip service” – all talk and no support. Having isolated initiatives instead of an ongoing culture of innovation was a deterrent. Fragmented support within the company was certainly an Innovation killer, as well as resources concentrated by certain innovation blocs.

So how does one defeat the devil’s advocates to become a true innovation champion for change? I asked Nic Hunt, Director of Innovation for an international manufacturing corporation, who takes a three-step approach.

1. Define the desired culture. What does Innovation mean for your company? Quantify your goals, in terms of sales numbers and time frame, which will identify and justify the resources needed to achieve the goal. Identify who will be your key players from all departments within your organization.

2. Establish the foundation. Create an identity or brand for innovation in terms of something the business engages with, that becomes the overarching theme for programs and initiatives created over time. Then establish the framework necessary to achieve Innovation, such as quarterly idea reviews, monthly development meetings, brainstorming sessions, off-site team activities or recognition programs. Build a calendar and stick to it so these initiatives are taken seriously and do not fall off the map.

3. Engineer sustainability. Develop a system that brings the Innovation program to life such as awards, patent recognition badges and innovator lunches. Share success stories of great examples of teamwork that led to superior outcomes. Create regular activities that help build a sense of purpose and spread excitement of the new innovation program. Building morale sets the stage for organization members to want to actively participate and have their voices heard.

A successful innovation strategy is multi-faceted and involves many methods, but leads to big pay-off in the end. For the full guide on achieving innovation, see “Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival“.

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Jump Start the Idea Process for Maximum Efficiency

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Innovation begins with just one great idea – built upon, tested, retested and executed with care. It can take thousands of ideas, over the course of weeks, months or even years to reach that one great idea that will bring Innovation and profitable growth to a company. The goal of successful innovation is to get to those monumental moments quicker and more often in order to stay ahead of your competition. That innovation effort is only possible through Idea Management – by holding ideation sessions within your organization. Be sure to create and maintain an idea hopper so you don’t lose any ideas that could potentially pay off later on.

There may be naysayers of ideation sessions, who claim they do not work or that there is no room in the budget. However, it’s all about that small percentage of ideas that make it through the process and produce immense payoff for the company. We’ve all seen that one innovative idea or product that’s catapulted sales and increased shareholder value tremendously for an organization. All it takes is that one great idea among thousands.

Do not overlook the importance of ideation sessions in the process of achieving Innovation. To maximize efficiency, invite your customers and salespeople to participate. It’s a golden opportunity to hear the needs of your consumers, and salespeople can produce invaluable insights about the marketplace. Include other departments of your organization as well, even the ones labeled “not creative” because it would be a shame to miss out on a potential opportunity. Everyone is a consumer so all opinions are relevant.

A diverse group, forced to perform out of their comfort zone, produces the highest quality work. So hold your ideation sessions outside of predictable times and locations – try it at a client’s office or a third party venue. Avoid Monday mornings, Friday afternoons or right after lunchtime when energy levels drop. Most importantly, accept every single idea that comes through without objection or ridicule. By asking the right open-ended questions to unlock new insights and discoveries, to narrowing down to specific concepts, you can jump start the idea process and reach the next “Aha!” moment sooner than your competitors. A concept that doesn’t work at the moment could prove to be successful later on down the road – so store best practices. Maintain an idea database, cross fertilize and keep those ideas until the right technology or cost is possible.

Robert’s Rules of InnovationTM is focused business innovation, with Robert Brands’ goal to bring one new idea to market every year. For more tips on Idea Management and the 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival, see Robert’s Rules of InnovationTM published in March 2010 by Wiley.

 

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Greenwashing: Electric Cars and Innovation Stalled

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

Electric cars seem like the socially conscious, feel-good investment among environmentally friendly consumers. In corporate boardrooms, the innovation seemed well liked indeed.

 

What’s not to like? Cars like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt reportedly can drive for a day or more on a full electric charge. The Toyota Prius reduces a tank full of exhaust to the whir of a hybrid electric/ gas engine.

 

The numbers are astonishing. The Nissan Leaf is considered the most fuel efficient vehicle in the U.S., tallying 106 mpg on the highway, and 92 in the city. The Volt gets 95/90. The Smart fortwo electric drive gets 94/79. Compared with the 16-cylinder, eight liter Bugatti Veyron, which chugs one gallon for every eight miles, the electrics and hybrids are downright stingy.

 

Manufacturers are riding the hype to strong brand awareness. Nissan’s international brand appeal accelerated at 17% – more than that of any other automotive brand, notes Millward Brown Optimor-devised’s “BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands” . Analysis attributed the growth of Nissan’s brand awareness to the debut of the Leaf. After all, it had been named both European Car of the Year and World Car of the Year, both for 2011.

 

Turn back the leaf – or look behind the hard-to-find recharge stations – and you’ll find deeper questions about electric cars. Prices are high, charging stations remain scarce, re-charge cost is unknown, batteries are expensive to replace – and environmentally costly to dispose of.

 

The real question to ask: Is society being “greenwashed” into accepting electric cars? Like whitewashing, greenwashing is the process of covering up a questionable product’s failings in the cloak of environmental friendliness. Buying products made of recycled packaging; ethanol-enhanced gasoline or an electric car is a good first step toward environmentally friendly consumer practices.

 

Just know the whole story. Consider “range anxiety.” This new mental issue plagues owners of electric cars. Owners wonder how long their vehicles will last on a charge. In Europe, a variety of facilities have been built (or are under consideration) to charge vehicles away from home.

 

To that end, the availability of a charge remains a persistent challenge to full consumer acceptance. In Europe, charging stations are comparatively more easily available than in the U.S.

 

The key issue for any concerned consumer is: Where’s the power coming from? Most electricity in the U.S. comes from nuclear facilities or power plants that burn coal or fossil fuels. If an electric car consumes electricity from a charging station itself fueled by a power plant that uses fossil fuel, isn’t the car essentially consuming fossil fuels?

 

What are the “true green” alternatives for today’s electric cars? Solar panels on the roof of homes, feeding power directly to the charging station are one option? Another could be solar panels incorporated into the roof or body of the vehicle itself. Or wind powered recharging stations? We’d first need widespread use of wind farms to bring that solution to bear.

 

Apparently, American consumers aren’t buying it. Sales figures remain soft, leading some to surmise that these vehicles are slow to turn the corner toward broad acceptance.

 

More than innovation will be needed to charge life into the electric car. One only hopes that from the boardroom to the garage to the neighborhood charging station, solutions emerge that shift these vehicles into the next gear.

 

 

By Robert Brands with Jeff Zbar [www.gotwords.biz]

 

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$4 Per Gallon Gas = Energy Innovation

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Long lines at the gas pump weren’t the only product of the twin energy crises of the 1970s. A legislative push toward energy conservation and innovation were also born as a result.

And that’s why one expert believes the skyrocketing price of oil will do the same in 2011.

“History has proven that innovation in the energy industry has almost always been driven by high consumer prices,” said Robert Brands, a veteran corporate executive who now consults with companies worldwide and author of Robert’s Rules of Innovation. “When we had cheap and abundant oil – and low gas prices – during the 1980s, energy exploration and innovation slowed to a halt. We didn’t need it, and we didn’t see an end in sight to the steady stream of oil from the Middle East. So, investors held back funds for new technologies, oil companies stood pat and conservation became a four-letter word.”

According to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy, more than $172 billion dollars of government money was spent on new energy technology between 1961 and 2008, with the bulk of it being used during the 1970s. In the 1980s, the spending accounted for only 1 percent of all federal investment.

Brands believes that oil companies, besieged by Congress over taking huge tax breaks amid record profit reports, could earn some much needed political points by taking history’s cue and putting some of that money back into energy innovations.
“When you look at the broad spectrum of what the oil companies are making and compare it to the rate of innovation in alternative energy, it’s like comparing Mount Kilimanjaro to a grape,” Brands said. “Now, most consumers aren’t aware of that truth, because oil companies and ad agencies are very good at making it look like alternative energy is humming along when it’s not. While consumers may not connect those dots, they are very aware of the headlines that show record oil company profits combined with massive tax breaks – especially during a time when federal deficits are threatening them, their children and their children’s children. Today’s energy innovation is a fraction of the total and what should be spend. What’s more, the same old song and dance the oil companies offer with regard to touring how much of a percentage their research and development expenditures are as compared to revenue is a joke, and absolutely no guarantee of success.”

Brands wants oil companies to spark innovation not only because of the positive press it will net, but also because it’s the right thing to do.

“The truth is that many scientists are beginning to calculate an end to the fossil fuel era, because one day, we will run out,” Brands added. “Innovation in this area has been driven by high prices and it has been driven by shortages. When we begin to run out, we’ll experience both, and it will be too late to innovate. We need to do it now, when our resources to commit to it are abundant.”

About Robert Brands

Robert F. Brands, a veteran of companies like GTE, Kohler and Rexam, is president and founder of InnovationCoach.com. Having gained hands-on experience in bringing innovation to market, creating and improving the necessary product development processes and needed culture, he delivered and exceeded bringing “at least one new product per year to market” resulting in double digit profitable growth and shareholder value.

 

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