Author Archives: Deborah Mills-Scofield
Suffice it to say I was honored my friend Chris Thoen would agree to talk about P&G’s Open Innovation history at the 3rd Open Innovation (OI) Summit at Baldwin Wallace College’s Center for Innovation & Growth: Practical Challenges of Global Open Innovation. Chris has been interviewed, quoted, written about extensively as a leader in OI, including on these pages, and for good reason. Some of you may know P&G’s history, some may not. 175 years ago, two brother-in-laws, William Procter (candle maker) and James Gamble (soap maker), using the same raw material, fats, were encouraged by their father-in-law to collaborate to get better ‘fat’ pricing! This was the start of P&G. They grew the company with their own innovations and through (un-named at the time) open innovation with other technology makers and companies. These partnerships were the foundation of P&G’s growth into 300 brands in over 180 countries, 24 billion dollar brands and most … Continue reading
(This post continues the summary of fabulous stories and interactions at the 3rd Open Innovation Summit at Baldwin Wallace College’s (BW) Center for Innovation & Growth: Practical Challenges of Global Open Innovation featuring P&G on April 21st.) Craig Vogel, President of Live Well Collaborative (LWC), talked about being an Open Innovation partner of P&G, focusing on the over 50 population. Craig, a design guru, is also Assoc. Dean of Research & Innovation at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) and an Industrial Design professor in the UC’s School of Design. LWC’s purpose is, through discovery and sharing of insights, to create innovative products & services enhancing the quality of life for over 50 year old consumers. They do this through a unique model of working with UC’s schools of DAAP, Medicine, Nursing, Business and Engineering and companies like P&G, General Mills, Hill-Rom, Boeing, Citi, … Continue reading
Being involved in Open Innovation (OI), one of the most cited stumbling blocks is, yes, lawyers – Intellectual Property (IP) attorneys specifically. To most business and R&D folks, IP counsel are viewed as deal killers. So I was anxious to hear Kelly McDow, Associate General Counsel for P&G’s Connect+Develop, speak at the 3rd Open Innovation Summit at BW’s Center for Innovation & Growth*. Kelly started out as a chemist, giving her a unique non-traditional-lawyer perspective of invention and innovation. Her experience exemplifies what is needed in a good Open Innovation IP attorney – the ability to understand and see many sides. Kelly posed two questions to the audience: How can IP attorneys help foster an OI mindset? How can you help both sides’ IP attorneys get there? Great questions that turned the tables from just usually ‘blaming’ the IP folks for ‘not getting it’ to how do you help them get there. We usually view … Continue reading
When I was a child, my parents always answered a question with an answer that led to another question. So early on, I learned to just keep asking questions. It drove my teachers nuts (don’t get me started on education!) and drives my husband nuts (like that’s the only reason!). Just to bug my husband further, I’ve taught our kids to do the same thing! Despite this annoying habit, it’s served me pretty well in my career, learning a lot (much of which I can’t remember) along the way. This leads me to propose that the transformation of the 20th century into the 21st be the Age of Answers to the Age of Questions. While answers are important, it’s more important to know what questions to ask to get to the answers. The lack of questioning is part of what got us into the mess of the last three years (or more). We learn by asking and … Continue reading
One of the central tenets of 20th Century business has been ‘best practices’. Let’s dissect this veritable oxymoron: Best: highest quality, standing (at a point in time, place and context) Practice: a habit or custom (noun) or to do repeatedly to acquire proficiency Admittedly, and importantly, there are things to learn from others successes and failures. But, one of the big mistakes companies make is adopting “best practices” instead of adapting them (to their own culture). Companies will succeed in the 21st Century by out [best] practicing their competition to exceed their customers’ and employees’ needs – by turning practice into a verb instead of a noun. Those who develop a core competency in experimenting, prototyping, learning, applying, iterating – from success AND failure, will be the ones who provide the most meaningful, valuable offerings to customers and employees. That’s what I call practicing! And that’s not an oxymoron. What can you start being the best at … Continue reading
Humans are one of the few mammals whose babies are not fully developed at birth. Unlike horses, whales, etc., human babies can’t stand, walk, or forage on their own at birth. They are totally dependent upon adult humans for constant, continual support just to live. We are used to this, we accept it, we don’t expect anything different. Yet, when we discuss the birth and development of innovations and companies, it’s totally different. We expect an accelerated path from birth to adolescence to adulthood. It doesn’t need to as long as human development, but it’s rarely warp-speed. We know innovation and entrepreneurs need nurturing and support, but usually just pay lip service. The similarities, and therefore lessons learned, between newborn babies and innovations/ideas are seldom applied. Within companies, many innovations aren’t given the time or support (e.g., prototyping, experimenting, testing) to ‘prove’ their worth – they are subjected to processes (e.g., stage-gate) and reviews prematurely and are not given … Continue reading
Invention without Commercialization = Extinction, not Innovation by Deborah Mills-Scofield My job at Bell Labs was to invent and create. We dreamed up all sorts of wonderful solutions to problems that did and didn’t exist. But how did we learn about these problems? Some we just thought up. Some came from AT&T corporate product management & marketing. But few came from seeing customers firsthand, so we ended up using ourselves as ‘examples’ – not good. AT&T corporate product managers and marketers were supposed to commercialize our inventions; to decide if it met the market needs or if there even was a need. See a disconnect? Since (us) Labroids were rarely allowed to go talk to real live customers, our ability to create solutions was stymied to a (large) degree. Why were we kept in the lab (we did shower and could get dressed up after all)? Because Corporate didn’t understand we needed to see for ourselves. They were … Continue reading
