What is Innovation? Part 3: An Internet look at Innovation at Intel

by Jay Rao and Jim Watkinson

Introduction

In this, our last in the series of three looks at what the internet can tell us about how some well-known companies define and pursue innovation, we’ll take a close look at Intel and the internet-based material and support they provide to foster the development of enhanced solutions for the digital world.

It is rightly said that at the core of innovation is willingness to change and the story of Intel itself would make a good case study, not just in product innovation, but also in continuous organizational change. Starting out as a memory chip maker, the Company later moved on to microprocessors and a regular stream of related product improvements, while also developing the Universal Serial Bus, the Bluetooth wireless application and architecture for multiprocessor servers.

What’s next for Intel? What is its innovation culture like? How will it pursue future innovations? Let’s see what the company has to say.

Intel

In a world built on silicon over the last 30+ years, silicon based chips that is, Intel has grown its business by finding new ways to pack more power with greater efficiency into the tiny digital devices that make many things work today (we began our exploration of Intel at http://www.intel.com/technology/index.htm). It’s no surprise to learn that Intel’s innovation efforts are completely focused on maintaining the constant momentum of Moore’s law (founder Roger Moore’s belief that the number of transistors on a chip would continue doubling every two years) and applying the resulting computing power to more mobile and wider applications. Yet despite all the success derived from silicon, the material has its limits, and in order to maintain its goal of constant momentum, the company made the hard decision to leave its core knowledge in silicon behind and move on to build its next chips, the Penryn, using an oxide based on hafnium. Innovation of course often means turning away from our very successful past and even the change begun with Penryn is now being replaced by other improvements.

Among the companies we looked at, Intel’s approach to innovation certainly had the most solitary focus, exclusively pursuing enhanced computing power to benefit the many uses and processes in which it is employed. But what processes do they use to foster these innovations? Here, Intel seems very much like the other large companies in our sample, with a great deal of energy being applied to generate communication and collaboration across their business ecosystem. We can see a glimpse of this approach through the on-line support they provide to their internal communities, an example of this can be seen at: http://communities.intel.com/index.jspa?iid=subhdr+communities . At this digital community you’ll find an amazing array of support features dedicated to specific regions of the world and different applications, such as mobility, graphics and open sources, as well as wikis for user knowledge sharing, video briefings and many blog communities, including one dedicated to stories from people inside Intel

Here are just a few links to start you off on your Intel innovation discovery process:

Blog on Technology (for the nuts and bolts types out there): http://blogs.intel.com/technology/

Blog on R&D driven innovation: http://blogs.intel.com/research/

Scoops – stories from inside Intel: http://scoop.intel.com/innovation/

For a wide ranging look at the future of processor and digital innovation try: http://www.facebook.com/IntelLabs

Try ChannelIntel for a long list of company prepared videos on the future of digital technology and Intel’s role:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG6DiBzSgKM&feature=channel

Our hats are off to Intel after reviewing the effort and investment they make in on-line support to energize idea creation, discovery and knowledge sharing. Over the last ten weeks we have read through dozens of company’s digital innovation support programs and none comes close to the depth, community involvement, knowledge sharing and company support as that found with Intel.

Underlying all this effort is a culture driven by a very distinct motive and mantra. Although many companies feel the pressure to continuously innovate, none has a timing imperative like Intel. All of their innovation efforts are tied to the concept that their technology must advance on a reliable clock-like and predictable timetable (of course, to meet Moore’s law, right) and all things are measured against this benchmark. None of the other companies in our sample had a specific imperative like this, but Intel goes so far as to describe its innovation method as a process called tick-tock. With tick-tock, the Company runs dual efforts to deliver significantly improved performance in both its process and micro-architecture in alternating years. We can see how this works at:
http://www.intel.com/technology/tick-tock/index.htm?iid=tech_as+rhc_ticktock

Observations on Innovation at Intel

With each of the companies we looked at, and there were many more than just the three noted in our articles, we saw some things we had expected, but also learned some things unexpected. At Intel, while their program to pursue innovation in many ways resembled those of other companies, their values, focus and pace seem quite different. Regardless of where we looked, all of the Company’s materials showed they are driven most strongly by an underlying principle (again, Moore’s law) that approaches spiritual belief at the Company. This belief in a 2 year cycle created an overriding requirement for constant pace in their product innovation work. And although many other companies push to maximize speed in their innovations, none measures itself in a way aimed at staying true to an external principle.

The companies noted in this 3-part series were just a small sample of those we reviewed and readers interested in learning more about the way some innovative companies find ideas and turn them into new solutions can continue the journey we started here by looking more closely at the companies and links below.

Nokia
This company is constantly reaching out to its stakeholders to generate new ideas for innovations and toward that end it has many sites to serve that community. Start your journey among these links:
http://www.nokia.com/technology/upcoming-innovations .
http://research.nokia.com/innovationcenter/index.html
http://conversations.nokia.com/tag/innovation/
http://ideasproject.com/index.webui .

Qualcomm
For a technology company, you’ll find a good deal of information about what it sees for the future and how it pursues innovation. Start your discoveries about this company here:
http://www.qualcomm.com/innovation/stories/
http://www.qualcomm.com/innovation/stories/corporate_culture.html

Siemens
Many non-US technology companies tend to avoid talking about themselves, but you may be surprised by the amount of information that Siemens provides. Start exploring innovation at Siemens by looking at:
http://w1.siemens.com/innovation/en/publications/index.htm

A book on innovators at Siemens: http://w1.siemens.com/innovation/en/publications/booktip.htm

HP
HP did not give us any real information that would indicate its innovation views and internal culture. But for a view of the innovations they have in their pipeline go to: http://www.hp.com/idealab/us/en/index.html

GE
Here is a giant in the world of innovation going back about 100 years. Because of its size there is no real way to learn or discuss innovation at GE in any single article, book or set of conversations. But it is a very innovative company and some of the things they are working on now will surely change the world around us. For a summary look at the many areas they are working in go to: http://www.ge.com/innovation/index.html .
To reach more deeply into the thinking and internal discussions around their innovation topics, go to the GE research blog at: http://www.grcblog.com/

WL Gore
This Company offers one of our favorite approaches to innovation, having taken a simple, but effective fabric knowledge (think Gore-tex) and turned it into many effective applications across a wide range of uses and industries. They don’t provide much information about their innovation process (more on this later), but their many applications are nonetheless a fascinating example of innovating beyond one original core idea. Have a look at http://www.gore.com/en_xx/

Bose
Similar to WL Gore, Bose has taken a core knowledge in the field of sound and extended it to new applications and on to new product ideas. They also provide only a small look at their views and approach to innovation, but the ideas are tantalizing to innovation addicts like us. Have a look at http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/learning/index.jsp

Concluding Thoughts

Following the steps of most good innovators, we looked back at our work here to see what we’ve learned and if you’ve ever worked in a large organization, you won’t be surprised to hear that we all agreed it is very hard to understand innovation in a large, diverse company. Even where the overall goals and methods are the same, the focus, approach and outcomes can be very different across individual business units.

It’s also always interesting to discuss not just what we saw, but also the possible meaning of things we didn’t see. Toward that end, we have observed that many of the most innovative companies don’t really approach innovation as a distinct function at all. The whole idea of turning ideas into new solutions and experiences for others is so much a part of their natural values that they don’t see it as a discrete process. For that reason they often don’t have formal roles and procedures for innovation.

You know these companies as soon as you walk in; their people are constantly talking about ideas with excitement in their tone, they hurry after each other in the corridor, they skip the fancy lunches so they can use their latest idea to help someone other than themselves succeed. It’s the idea and the good it can do that is the driver, not the money, nor one’s title. Who are these companies? Some of the names you may know: Pixar, Amazon, and WL Gore to mention a few, but there are many more and we’ll talk more about these in the future. For these people and their companies innovation is not a crafted process, it was part of who they were at the beginning and is who they are as individuals.

All this begs the question: if these companies started out innovative and now have it deeply embedded, how can I begin to move my company to become organically innovative? The answer is all in your organizational culture and we’ll be exploring this idea in depth in an upcoming book and over the coming year.

Coming up for fall 2009 at Innovation at Work

What is blogging if you’re not talking about what’s on your mind?

There are many things we are working on and a great deal we’re planning to talk about over the coming months. Here’s a brief look at what we have coming up.

Upcoming Interviews

As part of our ongoing work to bring the real process of successful innovation to life for our readers we are working to develop a regular series of interviews with innovation leaders from many types of organizations. Instead of the often seen CEO style interview, where questions and answers focus on very general issues, we try to speak with people that have had hands-on experience with the real problems faced in creating innovative products and services, making discoveries, and building environments where innovation can flourish.

For the fall season we’re working to develop potential interviews with leaders at Intuit, Pixar and IBM, as well as innovative non-business organizations. It’s always hard to predict if and when an interview will be agreed to, so we can’t be sure when we may have an article available. But as things develop, we’ll send a news release to all our RSS subscribers letting you know who we’ll be interviewing and when we expect to release the resulting article.

Exploring the Keys to Innovation

From our many years of studying, working with and speaking to great innovators, we have drawn a number of conclusions about the practices and environments that contribute to successful innovation. We’ve been working to distill these principles into a number of core concepts that we’ll be writing about throughout the coming year. Some of the concepts we’ll be touching upon include:

a. Understanding how innovation happens

b. Learning how innovation fits into a life cycle with each stage fostering different types of innovation

c. Reviewing the practice and principles of innovation

i. Innovation is a discipline, not an art and not a science

ii. Like the practice of Management and Quality, it comes about because of practice and practice leads to discipline

iii. All disciplines have principles (in science you have rules and laws)

d. The six Principles of Innovation that lead to the Culture of Innovation are: Environment, Values, Resources, Processes, Behaviors and Success

There are new innovations in the world every hour of every day and we’re also always on the lookout for organizations that have recently been successful with new ideas, discoveries, products, services or processes. Examining these success stories allows us to understand innovation in the context of today’s economy and business conditions. We have several organizations we’re looking at and plan to have several new articles and cases for you this fall, including one we’re working on now that examines the innovation success at WL Gore.

Lastly, if it’s true that you are what you read, then it might be interesting to occasionally share a list of the books we’ve recently enjoyed and found valuable.

What is Innovation? Part 2: A Web View of How IBM Approaches Innovation.

By Jay Rao, James Wilson and Jim Watkinson

This month we’re continuing our exploration of the meaning and approach to innovation found among a variety of some of the world’s most innovative companies. Researching innovation usually involves a combination of interviews, case studies, reviewing past writings and more. We certainly do all that, but since we’re writing for a blog article, we decided to examine what the web would tell us about how selected companies view and pursue innovation.

In our first article on this topic we looked at Cisco and found they viewed innovation largely in terms of their existing customers and new market needs (http://innovationatwork.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/what-is-innovation-2/
). They followed a very extensive approach on-line and off to involve customers and independent third parties to generate and explore ideas, as well as engaging the collective capability of their own staff world-wide through digital conferences and continuing internet dialogue.

In this second article on the subject we’ll take a web-based look at what we can learn about how innovation is defined and approached by the experts at IBM.

IBM

Unlike Cisco, IBM does put an emphasis on presenting some of its innovation thinking and process on its home website, but you’ll have to do some digging to find it. Once you do find the starting point at http://www.ibm.com/ibm/us/en/ ,
you will find yourself moving along to a rich collection of other pages and websites, like IBM’s Global Innovation Outlook at http://www.ibm.com/ibm/gio/
and its ThinkPlace at a remote site: http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/www_innovate.nsf/pages/ourselves.thinkplace.html

IBM calls itself the “Innovation Company” and the range of material it presents on this subject certainly confirms its importance to the company. As we began to explore the many pages of material we found there were some similarities with Cisco, such as a view towards innovation as a definable process that should be an open collaboration, both internally and externally. At IBM this includes not only customers and partners, but has also been expanded beyond its stakeholders to include in its own words: “an ecosystem of innovators”.

Underlying IBM’s approach to innovation is a belief that innovation itself has changed here in the last decade. On one of its web pages they state: “. . . the very nature of innovation has changed in the early days of the 21st century. It is increasingly open, collaborative, multi-disciplinary and global. This shift means that the truly revolutionary innovations of our time — the ones that will create new markets, redefine old ones, and maybe even change the world for the better — require participation and investment across multiple constituencies”

As we dug deeper into the company’s various related support sites it became clear that they really do walk their talk on these beliefs. To enable their collaborative approach, they operate a variety of community-type platforms that reach out both internally and externally. You can see an example of this at http://www.ibm.com/ibm/gio/, where you’ll find a serious effort to reach out and learn of world needs and ideas for innovation. This Global Innovation Outlook, as it is called, is supported with a rich and diverse set of community events and related materials, such as periodic real-world and virtual conferences, along with reports, videos and podcasts, as well as a blog at http://gio.typepad.com/, which regularly discusses the innovation ideas being considered.

Perhaps because the IBM GIO activities involve so many non-IBMers, the company has sought to put some definition around this idea generation work by providing a set of criteria for the characteristics they are seeking for the innovation ideas. These include: 1. they must represent trillions of dollars in economic activity, 2. have far-reaching societal impact, and 3. involve an area of enterprise that is ripe for innovation.

As any one that has ever worked for a large company can attest, it’s one thing to have a great new idea; it’s something else entirely to gain adoption and success. Recognizing that much of innovation is driven by the workplace culture, IBM has another support site called ThinkPlace at:

http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/www_innovate.nsf/pages/ourselves.html.

One of the main goals of ThinkPlace is to serve as an enabler, a cultural change agent within the company. The web site provides a repository where staff and collaborators can contribute a new idea, provide input on existing ideas, or search for potential solutions. This is further supported by an annual on-line jam session called Innovationjam at http://www.ibm.com/ibm/jam/, where an open forum approach is used to draw in and converse with thousands of IBMers and collaborators. The latest innovation jam was during a five day period in October 2008, when 50,000 employees participated, offering 32,000+ posts, plus people at more than 1,000 companies serving 20 different industries.

Supporting these various sites is a collection of peripheral activities and materials such as Podcasts that help IBM widen their innovation visibility, while also extend the life of the various ideas produced.

Once a new idea is uncovered, IBM has a process for evaluating and eventually commercializing it. You can see details of how they go about this in their software group at

http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/www_innovate.nsf/pages/ourselves.alphaworks.html

Observations & Conclusions

As with our earlier look at Cisco (or any single view of a company), we can’t draw deep conclusions about innovation at IBM from just a look at their related websites. But the materials and platforms we saw do give us a good sense of the company’s innovation culture, including the way they seek to build engagement with their staff and stakeholders and the early stages in their innovation process.

1. Similarities

Much like what we saw at Cisco, IBM sees innovation as a very market-centric process. Through a variety of platforms and tools, the Company is continually reaching out and drawing in customers to gain their views and discuss their problems, with the aim of producing new solutions.

2. What is Innovation to IBM

Among the larger companies we looked at, IBM gives us perhaps the clearest sense of what it believes innovation is, at least for its business. From the web pages reviewed, they provide us with a variety of examples suggesting specific areas of consideration for future work. They also explain their belief that the nature of innovation itself has changed and summarize their approach to innovation by saying:

“In over 170 countries we’re also creating an environment where our employees can bring innovation to bear on every aspect of their jobs. We’re also working with our clients to help them create new business processes and models to help them differentiate themselves from the competition. And we’re setting our sights beyond the borders of our company, industry — even those of our clients — by exploring new ways of working with an ‘ecosystem of innovators’ to solve societal challenges.” You can see the full discussion of this at http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/www_innovate.nsf/pages/ourselves.innovation.html .

True to the spirit of innovation, the Company is regularly changing and enhancing its web-based innovation tools, so everything we’ve seen in their innovation web presence is a continuing work in progress. We particularly like this approach, because in our own modest view, innovation is an everyday job to be done in a fluid and every changing environment.

3. Innovation Culture

Underlying all the innovation efforts described in IBM’s web materials is an understanding that innovation is not simply a bolt out of the blue delivered from the insightful mind of a single gifted individual, but rather the outcome of a defined process of inclusion that is nurtured specifically for the purpose of enabling many. We see this in all our work today and even looking back to the past at the efforts of many historically successful innovative organizations. IBM has consciously pursued this culture and invested a great deal to continually develop it, even creating roles for people whose primary job it is to foster innovation and the culture that supports it.

4. Again a Discipline

All of this effort requires a serious investment of people, tools and money to support the community building and continuous communication required for success. But all of this can happen only when IBM (and others also seeking continuous innovation) understand innovation is more than just inventions and the pursuit of technology. If we were able to set all the pieces of IBM innovation culture on the table we would see that taken together, all of the roles, tools and support platforms that make it all work are a carefully created process, involving many developed skills; this is why we call the process for continuous innovation a discipline.

5. Size and Fit

One of the things that struck us from our review was the fact that IBM has set a minimum value criteria (innovations for trillion dollar markets) to filter out ideas that may not have large enough economic potential. Innovation is of course different from company to company, and should be. The opportunities a company pursues should of course fit its goals. But the issue of initial size does beg a discussion point: what big ideas can be missed if the initial hurdle is very high, or when you truly can’t know the market potential? And might little opportunities, if followed, lead to much bigger ones?

We offer this observation not as a judgment, but rather solely for comparison. Think about how this size filter can affect the focus and opportunities pursued on the way to innovations by smaller companies and it’s no surprise to learn that smaller companies were at the heart of many famous products and solutions that started small and required years to reach significance. Think of tiny Pixar’s pioneering work in digitally animated movies (an industry thought dead at the time), or Southwest Airlines low-cost, hubless style of operation (starting out by creating $29 flights to compete with driving; that must be crazy!) and Sam Walton’s Walmart (with its initial focus on small, rural markets). But IBM is not a tiny company and if you’re a manager needing to drive a certain percentage growth each year, nascent ideas that may eventually be revolutionary and hugely significant, won’t move the needle any time soon at a giant like IBM.

The point of course in this is that innovation focus must fit the size, capability and market maturity of the company. This is a big subject and some companies, even large ones, have a novel solution to this conundrum, so we’ll save a deeper look at that issue for another time.

6. Evolution or Revolution

Like our earlier look at Cisco, IBM’s innovation program clearly has a very sharp focus on the current and foreseeable needs of its existing customers and stakeholders. But to its credit, if we look at some of the innovation concepts being explored with ecosystem partners, such as water systems in less developed parts of the globe, the Company is reaching out way beyond its original IT business base.

Inherent in the market and customer-oriented innovation that we saw at many companies is a boundary line defined by what is visible or predictable today. This begs a question for any organization considering its innovation future: What should we be creating beyond the current needs and knowledge of our customers? Pondering this, I’m reminded of a remark Henry Ford once made when asked how he considered what his buyers would want when designing his first successful car (the Model T, introduced in 1908), he responded: “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”

Coming Up Next

We’ll be continuing with our series exploring innovation through the lense of what noteworthy companies have to say in a few weeks with a look at Intel. Some of the other companies we’ll discuss over the next few months include: Nokia, W.L. Gore, Pixar, Qualcomm, Siemens and others.