Innovate to Thrive –The Importance of Inspiration

This is the first in a series of articles that take the need of Innovation under the loop and share some of the imperatives, must have’s if you will, to create and sustain “NEW” in business or organizations. The material is based on 25 years of hands on experience in the innovation space and the recently published book “Robert’s rule of innovation”.

by Robert Brands

Innovation is the key to your company’s survival. It is an imperative and it must be an integral part of your organization. Innovation — it must be encoded in your corporate DNA.

This is true no matter the size of your organization. No matter what business you’re in or what product or service you provide. More so today than ever before, Innovation must be the holistic strategy that savvy leaders create, that flourishes in the right atmosphere (and founders in the wrong environment).

With all this innovation taking place – from new widgets to new insurance products to new processes – it has become more important than ever for business leaders to institute Innovation programs, and MANAGE them effectively.

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Innovation in the Fast Lane

by Michael A. Dalton

It’s exhilarating when your innovation process is working and cranking out the new products you need to grow your business. But the reality is that over half of the companies out there are dissatisfied with their innovation.

Often, the response is to install new product development processes hoping to see big gains. But the result is usually just bureaucracy, more overhead, and frustration leading to a process that your teams are constantly searching for a way around. Unfortunately, traditional formal innovation processes are based on outdated command and control models that just don’t lend themselves to today’s fast moving markets.

Don’t get the wrong idea – we’re not advocating chaos or abdication of management responsibility. Just the opposite. But these formal processes include numerous stages and gates where product development teams must stop and formally review the project with management. The problem isn’t the review or assessment, but the fact that stage gate builds in delays and can become an innovation bottleneck itself. It also requires added bureaucracy to manage the process which also adds more overhead burden. This all ends up creating distractions and bad multitasking2 that pulls constrained team members away from the primary goal of developing successful new products.

But there is a simpler approach ……

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4 Factors in Ergonomic Hand Tool Design

Each year, workers in the US injured by “repetitive use of tools” miss an average of 6.7 days of work (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010). Since OSHA holds each employer “responsible for the safe condition of tools and equipment used by employees, including tools and equipment which may be furnished by employees” (2010), workers and their employers have a vested interest in hand tool safety. As designers and manufacturers of hand tools, we can capitalize on this ever-present concern by developing more ergonomic tools.

So, what makes a hand tool ergonomic? The Canadian Center for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) denotes four major concerns in ergonomic hand tool design.

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