http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/ Articles at Business Articles Directory | Small Business Articles en-us http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/open-innovation-defined.html http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/open-innovation-defined.html Sun, 09 May 2010 09:28:56 -0500
The most probable response is a quick "surely you are mad" as leaders look at you with that slight unnerving expression you get when you've committed a bad social faux-paux.

There is, however, an emerging movement in the innovation space called Open Innovation which suggests you do just this.

The thinking is that if there is unused intellectual property or other uniqueness in your organization, the best economic results are obtained by licensing it to competitors who might make use of it, instead of letting it sit idle, and unprofitable. And, conversely, by actively seeking out competitors that have something valuable to your business and reaching accommodations with them to get you access.

Open Innovation is one of the ramifications of the Innovation Economy which is based on the premise that competitive advantage derives from how well you use know-how, not what know-how you have. The understanding of the ability to use know-how well in a particular problem space is a hard to copy advantage that requires investment, development, and in most cases, sustained effort over a long period of time. This is why it is a source of competitive advantage.

Open Innovation is the current de-rigor fashionable business model amongst innovators in many industries. This is especially true in industries where the products aren't very differentiated like fast moving consumer goods. It is equally true for industries where the products are very differentiated, like aerospace.

On the other hand, companies that have chosen not to pursue Open Innovation are tending to lag competitors. This is because they are forced to rely only on their own R&D efforts, rather than taking what's best from industry around them. Failing to share is turning out to be a significant competitive dis-advantage. ]]> http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/there-is-only-one-full-proof-teeth-whitening-system.html http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/there-is-only-one-full-proof-teeth-whitening-system.html Sat, 08 May 2010 06:11:10 -0500
1. Toothpaste

Toothpaste comes in all types of flavors and make many claims as to their whitening ability. Most of this is just marketing and has nothing to do with the actual effectiveness as a primary whitening system. Predominantly, these whitening toothpastes contain abrasive material that is both harsh on your teeth and destroys the enamel. Other whitening toothpastes contain peroxide, which can be nauseating and harmful to your teeth. This teeth whitening system gets a low rating and only shows very slight positive results. This is best used a form of maintenance after you have used a whitening system that will actually get your teeth looking as white as possible.

Two brands of toothpaste, which you will be able to use in your overall whitening systems are Aquafresh and Colgate. Each producer appears to have different toothpastes for every ailment known to man. Just find the one that claims to handle discolored teeth and you will in all likelihood be all right.

My favorite whitening system that uses toothpaste is one that includes grapefruit seed extract as a primary ingredient. Grapefruit seed extract is a natural product and is far superior to the chemically produced whitening agents. With a bit of searching you should be able to find this toothpaste. You may have to go to a health food store to locate this toothpaste.

2. Teeth Whitening Strips

Your Teeth Whitening Systems should include some form of teeth whitening strip. The trouble with this whitening system is that for those of you with sensitive gums it can be very irritating. If you are willing to put up with the pain then by all means this is an effective way to help whiten your teeth. Crest and Maxdodent make up the top two lines of whitening strips. Each of these can be easily found in most pharmacies and are relatively competitive in terms of price. Try both of them to see which one is less painful and works better for you.

To read the rest of the article please see the resource box below. ]]> http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/buying-a-hybrid-car-to-save-on-gas.html http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/buying-a-hybrid-car-to-save-on-gas.html Sun, 25 Apr 2010 07:24:39 -0500
There are many options now that include everything from staying home to purchasing a hybrid car, but you have to find out what's right for you. You can only do that by asking yourself the following questions.

Maybe you should drive less mileage?

For sure, you could spend the rest of your life at home watching films, but how would you eat then? I know what you're thinking! You will walk more and so get more exercise. That could be true, but what will happen when you get bored with walking and riding your bike? How are you going to be able to get to the gym then? And, have you forgotten about work? You know you love listening to your books on tape while you are sitting in traffic at the end of the workday. Should you drive less? Probably not then. But what should you do? Well, have you ever considered buying a hybrid vehicle?

Should I buy a car that gets more miles for less gas?

Yes, you could do this, but what about when the vehicle starts to depreciate and it's not as fuel-efficient as you thought it would be? And subconsciously, because you know you have a car that gets more mileage out of fuel, you are going to start traveling more miles than you traveled before.

How about getting up earlier each morning to look for the cheapest gas prices in the area?

Really, who has the time to do all that? If you really think about it, you could probably spend your time better finding the right answer to the real question. Do you really want to spend extra time looking for a cheap fuel station? What would your boss think if you arrive late for work and tell him you were trying to save money on fuel? And anyway, how long do you think you'll keep doing that?

Should I find a way to run my car on batteries?

Well, let's see now, you certainly don't want to have to recharge your car's batteries every day before you go to work because that might make you late as well. However, with a hybrid car, you wouldn't have to worry about that. Therefore, the next question should be quite obvious.

How about purchasing a hybrid car?

Perhaps you should. It's possible that buying a hybrid car would be a wise way to avoid paying higher petrol costs. Will your car depreciate right after you drive it off the forecourt? A hybrid won't do that so quickly because it brings the buyer in more and more money as they save on petrol. A hybrid car just might be a good solution here. However, it is always a good idea to conduct further research before buying a hybrid car. ]]> http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/for-success-here-is-the-new-must-have-feature.html http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/for-success-here-is-the-new-must-have-feature.html Sun, 25 Apr 2010 06:48:43 -0500
Beauty may be the new feature, but it is hardly the technological high-ground in the design stakes. That honor goes to Apple, who have gone from Usability, to Beautiful, to Magical. Apparently, when you have something that is "magical", you've really just trumped all competition. Magical implies things that mere beauty doesn't even attempt. Magical is unexplainable, an enigma that amazes just by being. Even for Apple, that's a pretty big jump. The rest of us, still doing Usability, can only aspire to Beauty, I suspect, and most of us won't have even a chance of that. Not everyone can be the prettiest person in the room.

The point of all this is this: in large IT organizations, we always find whatever feature the consumer has now, they will expect and demand in the workplace within two years. As a result, I predict that we'll start to see additional requirements added to systems from now on: make the experience beautiful. It is unlikely we'll be especially good at doing this, and will furthermore be surprised when it happens. Every time technology makes the leap from consumer to enterprise, we never learn.

So, in two years time, we're going to have a dilemma. Is it the right thing to design "beautiful experiences" for staff, when this will obviously add cost to systems? I mean, its not like large organizations have service designers just sitting around idle, nor do they generally have a design mentality when they build technology. This is all stuff which will cost more, at least at the start.

It will be far too easy for us all to say "that's not essentially, we should cut it".

This leads somewhere difficult though: the comparison between what people have at home and what they have at work is only going to get more odious the more the "beauty-feature" becomes a main differentiator. It won't matter if our systems are "magical' in terms of functionality when everyone looks at the interfaces and scrunches up their faces.

My prediction is that there will be further deterioration in the perception of users of their IT suppliers, namely that they can't deliver to save themselves. ]]> http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/solar-panels-installation-for-your-residence.html http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/solar-panels-installation-for-your-residence.html Thu, 22 Apr 2010 06:34:27 -0500
It is thought that the normal solar powered household saves around $250 a month. There are many of persons who take too lightly the potential of solar electric power. A lot of people reckon that solar electric power is not good enough for powering electrical appliances in the household, by way of example in the electronic kitchen. The reality is, you may make use of solar electric power solely whenever you remodel your household for solar architecture. This will mean that your household needs to be developed with solutions that capitalize on the capability of solar electric power.

The expense of adding residential solar panels for your household goes from roughly $20,000 and over.Fine, some consumers can reckon that this is too much dough.Right, as start-up investment the money is really significant, nonetheless you have to imagine your household solar challenge as an investment project. The fantastic thing is you practically never have to shell out money for your power debts again from the city electricity board.

Individuals who depend on main electrical power from the electricity board will keep on settling bills each month since they do not own the electrical power. They are really leasing the electrical power. As the proprietor of a house driven by solar panels, you possess your personal electrical power source so you need not pay anybody. This is the great thing about a solar powered house.

The money necessary for solar power is about $10 and $20 a watt. This is more affordable than the council electricity. After you construct a solar powered household or mount a solar unit, you need to keep track of your consumption. When you review your solar panel electric power consumption alongside your electric power bills, you will note what you are reducing every 4 weeks. A solar powered household is built to get the highest possible amount of electric power as possible from the solar panel products. High priced devices yield a lot of solar electric power while elementary devices employ modest rates of energy.

Think of putting in solar panel systems for your residence. It could be a vacation cabin, private accommodation, holiday apartment, duplex residence or condo. The price tag on installation depends on the form of structure and its measurement. Installing for a vacation cabin will cost less than a flat or guesthouse.

You are not required to recreate your residence so as to put in solar electric power. Solar electric power may be incorporated in your household by professionals in this industry.

You might determine the percentage change you desire to your household. You may to a degree employ solar electricity jointly with major electricity from the city authority or you might transform your household into a 100% solar powered household. ]]> http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/the-age-of-workers-and-innovation-management.html http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/the-age-of-workers-and-innovation-management.html Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:00:04 -0500
The first group we'll consider are the Traditionalists, those who were born some time before 1965. They are likely, at this stage of their careers, to be extremely influential and senior in their organizations.

The name Traditionalists, though, is applied because this is a group which embodies the sets of values one most often sees amongst the "old school. They will, most likely, prefer to communicate through structured and rigid hierarchies, and will certainly prefer command-and-control mechanisms in the way they distribute tasks between themselves.

As innovators, this group will normally prefer to solve problems they've been directed to examine, and will usually come up with solutions along trajectories which are well established by their organizations. This, naturally, makes them ideally suited to innovation teams which have elected to follow a Play-Not-2-Lose strategy, and whose primary focus is on incremental innovation.

The second major generation in organizations is known as "X', and can be considered to include all individuals born between 1965 and 1983.

X-ers are quite comfortable in command-and-control environments, but would much rather work in more flexible styles. They believe that individuals should be given a degree of liberty in the kinds of problems and challenges they'll solve.

When faced with innovation challenges, X-ers will typically look at other industries who have faced similar situations. Their goal will be to find solutions which have worked elsewhere and which can be applied in their own contexts.

The defining factor in self-perception of an X-er is what they know and where they learned what they know. They use their broadness of experience to drive status in their organizations, in contrast to the Traditionalist group, for whom status is a consequence of tenure.

In most workplaces, the last generation to consider are the "Y-ers". Generation-Y is normally thought to consist of anyone born after 1984, and has a very different approach to work than either of the two generations that preceded it.

Y-ers are a generation which have grown up with digital tools and online collaboration, and they find technology indispensable in any task they undertake. There is very little about command-and-control or hierarchy in a typical Gen-Y organization.

Gen-Y has the very great gift of teaming naturally. Leadership roles switch amongst members of a group depending on the skills available and the task at hand. Moreover their digital connections provide them with superior insight into the way the world works outside their organizations, and they will often have much deeper insight into these exterior factors than either of the previous generations.

The broad grasp of the way the world works makes Gen-Y a very powerful force when what's needed is a radical solution to a particular innovation problem. The broadness of understanding leads to out-of-the-box ideas, and the lack of command-and-control means it is extremely probable that Gen-Y will see opportunities X-ers will write off as "too risky" and Traditionalists as "Impossible".

Conversely, Generation-Y will usually not be all that interested in incremental innovation, and when they are forced into it regardless, will tend to dream up very radical approaches when the tried and true way is better. They work well in either Play-2-Win or Play-Not-2-Lose situations, but will prefer the former to the latter. ]]> http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/animal-research-through-the-years.html http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/animal-research-through-the-years.html Sat, 17 Apr 2010 04:37:09 -0500
Once this practice was made public, it happened at a time when animals had gained a new respect with the general public. Non-profits popped up all over, with a single purpose on their agenda: stop needless animal testing which usually included unnecessary pain and mutilation and ultimately death. These organizations were quick to find photos taken in these labs depicting tortured bunnies and puppies, and these photos soon showed up in local newspapers, shocking animal lovers all over.

Even well into the 70s, a practice known as vivisection was widely used under the auspices of medical research. Vivisection showed a total disregard for the care and comfort of these animals used in research, and operations and all sorts of tests were performed without anesthesia. For animals who even managed to survive, they ended up back in their tiny cases and waited for their next procedure.

Although organizations and legislation have made many successful advances in controlling what amounted to needless torture, animal research does exist, but research facilities have been forced to move to areas where they can't be monitored on a daily basis. There is still a belief that some animal research does require the occasional sacrifice of a few animals as further advances are made.

However, groups like PETA make it their business to keep track of who is doing what, to the point that some actually believe that PETA does more harm than good and has turned from animal protection to pure activism. Many people don't see the difference and back all actions by these groups in the advance of animal protection laws.

Facilities and full fledged labs have all but disappeared from their usual places of businesses, and have been forced to move far away from civilization to take refuge in secure out of the way buildings, away from prying eyes and social activists.

Medical science has finally reached the point where animal deaths are not necessarily routinely necessary as part of their success. Many vaccines, serums and prescription drugs have been invented without the need to perform any type of testing or procedure that could be considered inhumane, although some organizations still feel that simply keeping these animals in cages for the sole purpose of testing is inhumane in and of itself.

One of the latest and most successful advances in medical and animal research is a form of genetic engineering. A type of cloning now allows an animal host to grow tissue, such as new ears or even skin, and have it successful transplanted onto its intended human recipient. Results are well received by patients and the mainstream medical profession; however, once the artifact is harvested from the host, the host (usually a mouse) must be euthanized. Once again, there are some patients who refuse this opportunity because of the necessary death of the host animal. ]]> http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/make-an-innovation-portfolio-grow-like-apple.html http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/make-an-innovation-portfolio-grow-like-apple.html Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:08:36 -0500
Before it released the iPad, it had a product called Newton, a digital assistant that promised the world and bombed badly. Prior to Mac, there was Lisa which was technically superior, but performed so poorly that Apple dumped its excess stock in landfill to get a tax break.

A product that's still on sale now - Apple TV - is a more recent example. It doesn't radically change anything very much, and Steve Jobs has been heard to say the product is a "hobby".

Granted, it is still early days for the iPad, which could fail to live up to its transformational expectations as well.

The point of all this is Apple has taken some big risks, and the result is it has had its share of product failures.

But those who look at companies like Apple with their string of hits almost always conveniently forget the failures still occur, and they happen with a regularity that makes focusing on big hits a very risky business.

In between big hit products, however, Apple spends its time investing in traditional product development using incremental innovations. It has, for example, a backup device called Time Machine. It builds Airport Express, making it simple to set up wireless networks. They are both boring products that pay the bills reliably.

Apple's success comes not from hit products, but a carefully constructed innovation portfolio. It doesn't put all its eggs in the transformational product basket, as it knows this results in a sub-optimal concentration of risk. Creating its innovation portfolio with care, however, has resulted in a company that's come back from the dead to challenge powerful players in three key product categories at least.

In less than 10 years, Apple has become the leading consumer electronics products company in the world. Innovation portfolios work, and they are one of the only ways to drive reliable growth. ]]> http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/a-definition-of-innovation-trauma.html http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/a-definition-of-innovation-trauma.html Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:14:59 -0500
Innovation trauma happens in the situation when an organization has tried to do something unique and unusual and failed badly at it. Employees decide that they are not able to do new things successfully, and that the only course possible is to return to the safety of business-as-usual. The result is their organizations stagnate because everyone is so scared they'll have another costly mistake.

Signs of innovation trauma include unwillingness to invest outside existing business lines, disbelief that a company can be innovative, and skepticism that delivery capability is up to the task of doing new things.

Sun Micrososystems are an excellent example of a company that has suffered innovation trauma. Sun created an innovative new product it called "SunRay". Essentially, it was a network computer that promised to reduce significantly the costs of big corporate IT. It would be simpler, easier to use, and much more flexible than any available alternative.

When the product finally arrived, it did very few of these things. Customers who had planned their operations around the product turned on the company's salespeople. Feeling the pain in their wallets, the sales force directed their ire towards many of the other products the company was trying to sell, and insisted on decent evidence of performance before they would risk embarrassment in front of their customers again. Sun had troubles with its innovation efforts for years afterward.

Whether a company shows signs of innovation trauma or not, however, one thing is very certain. Generally, employees will not believe that innovation can create decent returns predictably unless they are shown how to do so. ]]> http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/bathroom-renovations.html http://businessarticlesdirectory.com/self-improvement/innovation/bathroom-renovations.html Sat, 27 Mar 2010 10:41:11 -0500
It is not always possible to have enough money for the best layout for the bathroom. Depending upon what you can afford, decide whether you would like to do a simple alteration of the surface, change the complete lay-out or remodel the whole structure. Surface alteration includes minor altering of details in your bathroom while all the existing structures and accessories are left untouched.

If you imagine a minor change in the plan and design of your bathroom such as replacing the ordinary bathtub with a modern massage bathtub or new cabinets of your choice, choose a layout change. You can also make a great improvement in your bathroom just by adding a window, if that is not possible try adding another light. If you want a complete makeover for your bathroom's seeping walls, worn out parts, old accessories and rusty piping, remodeling is the only solution.

Try to repair the existing accessories if they are in acceptable condition. However, if they are cracked or damaged beyond repair, tub liners or pre-fabricated acrylics will help to some extent. Going ahead, if you can afford to spend a few dollars on your bathroom, plan the renovation in such a way that you do not have to make any compromises. One of the best options is to install tiles over the existing ones. Choose a pre-fabricated acrylic or fiberglass shower or tub which is less fussy. They are available in various sizes too. They are completed in the factory and require no on-site assembling.

Chromotherapy- This is the latest invention in spa technology. The system suits all moods and temperatures. The cabinet has a controlled environment to suit the outside pressure and temperature. It offers complete relaxation and rest to weary bodies. A few companies offer a complete package of modular bathrooms designed for movable purposes. All of the accessories are computer controlled and have remotes. Get an appropriate contractor to fit the accessories and enjoy the latest in bathroom luxury. So what are you waiting for? Get these accessories now and show off the latest bathroom vanities to your friends and guests. ]]>