Sustainable Innovation

On February 2, 2015 there was an article in the Spanish newspaper “La Vanguardia” with the title “Proposals from Can Ruti’s personnel reduce the waiting list” (“Can Ruti shortens the waiting list with proposals of their staff”). Can Ruti is one of the big reference hospitals in Barcelona. Whereas long waiting lists are a big problem in the Spanish public health care system, Can Ruti has managed to eliminate the waiting list of patients with programmed surgery in 2014.

Big public institutions seem to protect themselves under the current crisis to justify all kind of budget cuts and the problems they suffer. This is why the example of Can Ruti is a positive and comforting surprise. After confirming at the top of the front newspaper’s page that it was not April Fool’s Day, we wondered what happened in Can Ruti?, how did they manage to do it?, what kind of exorcism did they apply to their internal processes?

The article describes “The trick is that the employees, all their employees, were involved in bringing ideas to organize things differently, in every type of problem they found”. We continue thinking these are tricks, a sudden act of magic, an unexpected insight or illumination. As the ribbon in the parcel, the article adds: “The objective … was met without a negative cost impact.”

Our most sincere congratulations to all personnel from Can Ruti, especially to their Management to be so humble – and right – to count on all the employees to find solutions to the problems that, of course, they all suffer.

We are happy to share this as an example of innovation being not only launching new products or market proposals, but affecting internal processes as well. Silent innovation, the one unsettling the inner guts of an organization, is perhaps the most effective one, the one bringing bigger benefits in the long term. It is the sustainable innovation.

Minimal Risk

Reviewing my notes I discovered a delightful article by Fernando Trias de Bes from December 8, 2013 in the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. With his sharp pen, he points out the interesting way that multiple choice tests are frequently scored. I quote the opening paragraph: «Test exam. The teacher hands out the paper and tells the students: Remember, the wrong answers lower your scores«.

Of course there is a trend to make less mistakes when they cost points. And one of the most effective alternatives is to take less risk.

Summer: Beer and Innovation

A beer brand innovates and «reinvents» in several fronts.

It is taken for granted that a beer brand must do well basically two things:

• have all the necessary elements to make a good beer,
• have good marketing and sales channels to get the beer in the consumer «mouths».

Few minds would think that in order to sell more beer they could innovate in:

• the world of music,
• the world of tourism.

However, this is what the creative people from Spanish Damm’s «Estrella» have been doing lately.

In 2009 they launched a summer advertising campaign with a 3’40» video clip that was really a fresh and dynamic love story. The song ranked to the top of the music playlists. The video clip achieved 4 million views and similar amount of legal downloads (the group made it available on their web page as a promotion). We will never know if that would have happened without the campaign add.

Verano: Cerveza e Innovación

Una marca de cerveza innova y “reinventa” en varios frentes.

Se supone que una marca de cerveza debe hacer bien básicamente dos cosas:

• Disponer de todos los elementos necesarios para hacer una buena cerveza.
• Disponer de buenos canales de venta y de marketing para que su cerveza se venda.

En la imaginación de pocos cabe que para vender más cerveza deba innovarse en:

• En el mundo de la música.
• En el mundo del turismo.

Y sin embargo esto es lo que han hecho de manera ininterrumpida los ideólogos de la marca de cerveza Estrella de la empresa Damm.

En el año 2009 lanzaron su campaña de promoción veraniega con un video clip de 3,40 minutos que era en sí una historia de amor, fresco y dinámico. Todo ello acompañado con una canción que no sabremos nunca si –de no haber mediado el anuncio- hubiera escalado los rankings musicales. Pero en este caso el video superó 4 millones de visualizaciones y las descargas legales de la canción (el grupo la puso a disposición en su web como promoción) rondaron números similares.

THE “LEAN STARTUP” MOVEMENT – by Jay Rao

THE BIG-BANG VS. START-SMALL APPROACHES TO GOING INTO THE FUTURE.

These days, the Lean Startup Movement is in full swing, largely thanks to the momentum of important books such as The Startup Owner’s Manual by Steve Blank and The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. The tomes popularize useful and powerful concepts that have been successfully practiced by select firms for decades.

However, to get started understanding and teaching these concepts, it’s important to distinguish “Lean” and “Lean Startup.” The concepts, tools, and principles of Lean (quality, tqm and six-sigma) and Kaizen are very important for “incremental innovation.” The methods and techniques of Lean are as applicable on the revenue and customer side as they are for the cost and efficiency side. This approach is structured, analytical, and step by step.

EL GRAFENO COMO MODELO DE CULTURA DE INNOVACIÓN DE LA ORGANIZACIÓN.

Imagina una organización donde la información y los sentimientos fluyen sin obstáculo alguno.

Es una organización resistente y dura contra los ataques malignos del entorno, a la vez flexible para adaptarse a los cambios necesarios, integrando nuevas influencias que mejoran su rendimiento de forma innovadora.

A CULTURE OF INNOVATION IN A GRAPHENE-LIKE ORGANIZATION

Imagine an organization where information and feelings flow without obstacles.

Hard and resistant against environmental attacks, yet flexible to adapt to needed changes, integrating new influences to improve performance in an innovative way.

¿Maximizar u optimizar?

Transcripción de una conversación entre varios directivos de una misma empresa en una sesión grupal con un equipo de dirección que dinamizamos hace algunos meses.

Maximizing or optimizing?

Transcript of a conversation between several executives of the same company in a group session we managed with a management team a few months ago.

Innovation or miracles?

Too many times we are faced with demands from our clients who want to develop innovative initiatives with direct impact on the business results as fast as possible.