Reinventing Retail

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Jim Euchner, Research-Technology Management Vol. 63, Issue 3, From the Editor

One day, Amazon will fail.

—Jeff Bezos

 

I was watching You’ve Got Mail the other day, that not-so-old movie that had as its backdrop the creative destruction of the corner bookstore. The category-killer chain at the center of that movie’s plot had introduced a new business model that was simply much better than that of the mom-and-pop bookstore. One after one the independent bookstores were being driven out of business.

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The Corporate Jester

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Jim Euchner, From the Editor, Research-Technology Management Vol. 63.1

 

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

—Richard Feynman

In Shakespearean literature, the court jester is the only person who can speak truth to power. It is the jester in King Lear, for example, who provides critical insight to the king, and he is able to do so only because of his special license to speak freely, even about things the monarch does not want to hear.

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Innovation Archaeology

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Jim Euchner, From the Editor, Research-Technology Management Vol. 62.1

Change before you have to.

-Jack Welch

 

I moved recently and, as a result, had occasion to go through boxes of old papers that had been buried in my basement for many years. I have had a long career in innovation, so some of the documents were papers about the secrets of a few innovation icons: Xerox, Lucent, Kodak, and Enron. Those papers are a stark reminder of how little we yet understand about sustained corporate innovation. Each of these companies was an innovation giant in its day. But with the exception of Xerox, which is a shadow of its former self, all of them are out of business or absorbed by others.

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Breaking Boundaries

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Jim Euchner, From the Editor, Vol 61.6

“Differences of opinion should be tolerated. But not when they are too different. For then he becomes a subversive mother.”

—Miss America inWoody Allen’s Bananas

 

Early in my career, as part of a corporate culture exercise, I was introduced to the nine-dot problem. By now almost anyone connected with R&D or innovation has seen it. The challenge is to connect nine dots organized as a grid, using only four lines, without lifting your pencil. The group that I was part of for this exercise was an artificial intelligence lab, and the members seemed to be more driven to challenge the boundaries of the puzzle than to solve it. Most people solved the four-line version rather quickly. Then someone declared that he could do it with three lines (taking advantage of the large dimensions of the dots on the puzzle to skew lines through their edges); someone else claimed he could solve the puzzle with one line and did so by making a cylinder of the playing board and using a slightly askew line circling many times around the cylinder to hit all the dots; finally, someone said he could solve it with zero lines (one point) and folded the paper so that all the dots aligned, one above the other. He stabbed the stack of dots. Done!

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The Internet of Things

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Jim Euchner, From the Editor, Vol 61.5

Give ordinary people the right tools, and they will design and build the most extraordinary things.

—Neil Gershenfeld

The Internet of Things (IoT) has taken on many meanings. In manufacturing, it means instrumenting and informating factories so that data can be used to improve quality and productivity. In logistics, it means a unique identifier for individual items so that supply chains can be made more intelligent. In new product development, it means the development of smart, connected products that provide information about their state so that information can be used to improve the operations the products support. It can also mean the use of information to broaden the traditional design space for a product. Finally, for manufacturers, IoT means the proliferation of data-based business models, especially those that sell products as services.

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The Parable of the Soil

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Jim Euchner, From the Editor, 61.4

“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled, and the birds of the sky ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew, it withered for lack of moisture. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew, it produced fruit a hundredfold.”

—Luke 8:5–8, New American Bible

 

An innovative culture is one in which radically new things can happen with some consistency. That culture is rare, and it requires nurturing. Like the seeds in Luke’s version of the parable of the soil, innovation requires the right conditions to thrive and produce fruit. Without those conditions, innovative impulses may crop up, but like seeds scattered in the wrong place, they won’t grow to maturity. The parable of the seeds offers a useful analogy for the factors in the corporate environment that can stifle innovation—or allow it to thrive.

 

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The Emergence of Innovation in China

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Jim Euchner,  From the Editor, RTM 61.3

“Let me speak frankly: the advantage of innovation for multinational companies has shrunk substantially since the early 2000s.”

—Professor Hengyuan Zhu, Tsinghua University

 

I was invited to visit China for the first time in 1989, to speak about expert systems, then at the forefront of practical AI. At that time, technology transfer from the West to China was a one-way street, and it was expected to be so for some time. My visit was canceled by the tragic events at Tiananmen Square in June of that year. The emergence of a vibrant culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in China seemed very far away.

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Innovation Succession

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Jim Euchner,  From the Editor, RTM 61.1

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

—Ecclesiastes 3:1

I have always been intrigued by the notion of forest succession. Following the burnout of a forest, the trees that grow are not (at first) the ones that were burned. The soil and the light are not proper for these trees. Instead, first-generation vegetation—mostly mosses and grasses—begins to grow, almost as soon as the ashes cool. Over time, as these plants grow, they change the composition of the soil, making the conditions right for a second-generation forest composed of bushes and small trees. Next, fast-growing evergreen trees take over. These trees love the sun and quickly become the dominant species. Soon, trees that thrive in the shade—the large, deciduous trees that will be the dominant species in the mature forest—begin to grow in their understory. The canopy they produce creates an environment in which the shade-intolerant pines cannot thrive; the climax forest is primarily composed of large, long-lived, shade-producing trees.

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A New IRI for the Future of Innovation

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by Edward Bernstein, IRI president; published in RTM, Vol 60, 6

Five years ago, IRI celebrated its 75th anniversary by looking back over the accomplishments of the Institute and its members and envisioning what the next 75 years will bring. While much has changed in the field of innovation management over IRI’s lifespan, these shifts are modest compared to those that are coming. IRI is no stranger to change; in fact, we champion it by facilitating the incredible innovation endeavors of our members and by making smart pivots as an organization.

Through the decades, our organization has kept a steadfast focus on creating value that keeps pace with the continuously evolving needs of our members. The IRI of the 20th century focused on the leader of the central R&D laboratory; while the company was the unit of membership, our programs and services were geared toward providing value to the Chief Technology Officer. This value centered on the relationships developed at semiannual meetings held at top-tier venues. As R&D has become more distributed, IRI has evolved along with it, creating new ways to serve the new value creation units emerging in member companies. These new avenues included our networks, more open online content, and an increase in the number of complimentary registrations included with organizational memberships, to encourage broader participation in our network and ROR programs.

Now, our brand and the experience we offer need to catch up with that evolution, to communicate a cohesive vision that is relevant to the times and strategically mapped to how companies will realize growth into the 21st century. As we prepare to lead into the future, we know that the functions we support are more often referred to as innovation than as R&D—a permanent change that is more than semantic. Furthermore, the term industrial research, the core of our name, is anachronistic, belying our forward-thinking approach and creating a barrier to the organization’s adoption by “new economy” industries. For these reasons, the Industrial Research Institute is repositioning itself in the market with a new name: the Innovation Research Interchange. This change reflects our new value proposition, better defines the unique collaborative experiences we foster, and aligns with how our members achieve growth.

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Navigating the Digitalization of R&D

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By Jim Euchner, VP, Global Innovation, Goodyear; Editor-in-Chief, Research-Technology Management (RTM)

“Well something’s lost, but something’s gained In living every day.”

—Joni Mitchell, “Both Sides Now”

This is an optimistic issue. In it, you will read about a wide variety of ways in which digitalization will improve the practice of R&D. Ted Farrington, in his summary article, “On the Impact of Digitalization on R&D,” gives a broad view of the changes we will see. He looks at the three major trends discussed in this issue—virtual experimentation and simulation, digital collaboration, and big data—through the lens of the four scenarios for the future explored in the IRI2038 program. His introduction to the issue makes clear not only that much is possible, but also that there are many harbingers of the future in what we see happening today.

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