I have not yet read this book but have skimmed it.  The basis of the book is around a common tool used in ideation called "medici".  The concept is to randomly combine ideas to create new ideas that you would have never come up with.

It's all about using randomness to get us out of a rut - to explore the unknown and to look beyond the obvious.

A number of you have sent me emails/comments/questions on a recent interview that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News.  For those of you haven't seen it, you can read it here ... or click on the extended content link below.

So here are the answers to the most common questions:

Q:  Do you really have two interns living with you at your house?

A: Yes -- this is the second year I've invited a few of my summer college interns to live at the house.  One objective is to have an opportunity to provide 1:1 mentoring to college students with the hope they find it a useful experience before they graduate.  The other objective is for me to learn from them (reverse mentoring).  You have one kind of relationship with your kids (my kids are either married or about to graduate from college) and a different one with young professionals anxious to make their mark on the world. 

Q: So ... you're the "Chief Seer"!  Is that an official title?

A:  That's a tag that Stuart Sikes, the president of Parks Associates (an industry analyst firm) gave me.  I'm not even sure what it means ... does it mean I'm supposed to use a crystal ball?

Q: Why do you believe it will take so long for some of your predictions to become reality?

A: One thing I've learned over the years is that predicting the future is dangerous.  History has shown that we tend to over estimate what will happen in the next 10 years while under estimating what will happen in the next 20.  Keep in mind that the dates I used in the interview are when I believe the prediction will be mainstream - not when the they first appear.

As a final comment, I tend to not like these kinds of interviews/articles since it ignores the fact that there is an entire team involved.  Its not about me ... its about the team. 

Needless to say, I have a killer team.

There's a long running debate about the importance of patent protection in defending innovation.  Certainly speed-to-market and agility will often trump I/P protection and when it comes to launching innovation directly I fully agree that speed is the most critical component.

But when it comes to in-licensing and out-licensing of innovations and technology, patents and intellectual property become much more important.  As our I/P attorney used to tell me when I was a corporate executive looking in license in an invention or technology... "if the inventor doesn't have good protection, you're paying for something that others can have for free".  Makes sense, and in my current open innovation services company, Venture2, we definitely review the strength of patents and/or patentability as an important determinant of interest in a new idea.

But there are other ways to protect ideas beyond just patents.  Full disclaimer: I am NOT a patent attorney and the following is not to be construed as legal advice (Am I off the hook now?).  I've seen and heard several interesting things in recent weeks and months that you might want to consider as you evaluate your own technology or others'. 

For example, according to a recent release by Ron Epstein, CEO of iPotential (an I/P consulting firm)...

VC’s seek out patent expertise from companies like IPotential to avoid litigation, a threat that could cost young businesses $500,000 per claim if brought to trial and reduce the probability of receiving venture capital financing. Trade secret suits, on the other hand, cost from $300,000 to $500,000, and thus make intellectual property in the form of a trade secret more attractive to VC investors than a “weak” patent that may be open to litigation.

Here's another example of obtaining strong I/P protection in the form of a 'trademark' from none other than Apple for their iPod.  In this MIT Sloan Review article entitled The Shape of Things to Come, Apple was actually granted protection via a trademark for the 3-dimensional shape of its iPod and thumbwheel design.

Events by Eventful

Based on the request from a passionate listener, I've allowed them to create an entry for me on eventful.  I'm humbled that someone is willing to go to all of this trouble so that groups can come together and vote/ask for an event.

At eventful.com, you can make a request ("Demand") for a killer innovation event/training workshop/brainstorming session to be held in your area.

No guarantees that I will be able to come ... but if there is enough interest, I will do my best.

Let's see what happens ...

Audio

How do you improve the success rate of your innovation programs?   Everyone wants to focus on the "new/new" (new product/service with a new "go to market").  These kinds of project are high risk and hard to convince management that the project will be successful.

One way to de-risk the project is the take a "new/new" and break it down into a series of adjacent innovations ("rules of two").  Adjacent innovations keeps one area stable (e.g. Go To Market) while focusing on creating a new killer something (e.g. product or service).  The benefits of this approach is:

• Focus - By minimizing the number of "new" areas for a program, you can focus on what is truly important and leverage what already exists.
• Scale -- Adjacent innovations tend to scale faster than new/new since you are leveraging some area (channel, supply chain, customer, etc) that already exists within your organization.
• Management buy-in -- Management can get their heads around adjacent innovations.  Not to mention they will see early impact/success which ties into their typical quarterly focus.

Adjacent innovations are NOT incremental innovations.  Adjacent innovations is about focusing your "killer efforts" around one area (e.g. product or service) to ensure success. 

To learn more about how to use adjacent innovations, listen to the Sept 23rd podcast.