The Process of Technological
Innovation
Successful commercialization &
continuous improvement
Eight stages of technological
innovation
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Basic research (for general nature laws)
Applied research (for specific problems)
Development (design for prototyping)
Engineering (design for assembly)
Manufacturing (design for efficiency & quality)
Marketing (design for acceptance & affordability)
Promotion (design for diffusion)
Improvement & enhancement (design for
sustainability)
Corporate innovation process
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Concept formation
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Product concept definition
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Market research & analysis
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Technical analysis
Industry analysis—SWOT & business strategy
Commitment & support from strategic apex
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Development
Market testing
Manufacturing & marketing
Promotion & selling
Chain-reaction of successful
innovation
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Scientific invention ←→
Engineering development ←→
Entrepreneurship ←→
Management/strategy ←→
Social demand ←→
Fit environment
Innovation trajectories
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Border crossings
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Emergence of complex technologies
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Inter-disciplines, -parties, -nations, -sectors
Fit to and cause from diverse demands, perspectives,
approaches, contexts
Age of knowledge and distributed intelligence, KDI
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Network of knowledge—Building and extending the
invisible college
Learning and intelligent system—exploring the human
behavior
Computing challenge—exploit the numeric barrier
Innovation System
Concurrent Integration (Bordogna, 1999)
Analysis
Reduction
Discovery of
New Knowledge
& Basic Laws
Societal Needs
The Public Good
Natural Capital
Synthesis
Integration
Innovation
Wealth Creation
Sustainable Development
T
e
c
h
Devices
n Ideas
Processes o
l Information
Systems
o
g
y
Design
Manufacture
Maintenance
Capital Formation
& Investment
Creative transformation
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Searching for innovation requirement & change
demand
Monitoring technological change &
organizational change
Transformation for sustaining performance
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On internal structure of R&D, manufacturing
On external market of customer, interested parties
Successful process of innovation fulfillment
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Project management & management renew
The Process of Creative
Destruction
Business leaders usually visualize a market
economy in the context of how capitalism
administers existing structures, whereas the
wiser approach is to understand how it
creates and destroys them.
Paraphrased from J. Schumpeter
Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy
Chapter VII, page 84
Creative Transformations
The Schumpeterian Factor
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The interaction of technological innovation
with the competitive marketplace is the
fundamental driving force in capitalist
industrial progress. (Schumpeter, 1942)
The normally healthy economy was not one
in equilibrium, but one that was constantly
being disrupted by technological innovation
(The Economist, Schumpeter, 1999)
History of Xerography
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Market dissatisfaction
for document reproduction even so cheap
and easy
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Scientific information
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Entrepreneur
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Electrostatics, photoconductivity & photoreceptor, sensitization of Se
element
Carlson, Battelle, Wilson of Haloid
Novelty—industry creation & user education
Branding for new product—Xeros & graphein
Xerography and registered trademark “Xerox”
History of Xerography (ii)
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1949, the pioneering copy machine, Xerox A
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Enhancement & Market switching
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User unfriendly, manually performed by the high-skilled
operators
Unstable performance
Target the lead user—lithographic plate printing
Lease rather than sale—reduce the novelty risk of durable
goods
1955, automatic version, CopyFlo
1958, Xerox 914 for office users
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the two-part tariff leasing mechanism a successful
incentive for copying usage
Nationwide retailing & service network
History of Xerography (iii)
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Scientific improvement
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New material for cheap and sensitive
photoreceptor: carbonic/organic polymer
Evolution with laser & IC technology
Integrated into computer industry
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Laser printer
Lessons from Xerography
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Innovation success was determined by markets
eventually
Breakthrough the diffusion constraints including
designing, technological, economic, political, societal,
and even religious factors
Visionary enabler—entrepreneur & entrepreneurship
Systemic improvement process—monitor the gap
and retest for objective
Inter-disciplines—evolution with the sources of
innovation
Luck blessed the risk lover and opportunity seizer
A technological innovation
model
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The case of biomedical devices
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Concept formation—market pull or technological push
Feasibility analysis—technological, economic, operational
Product design and prototype development & testing
Engineering & Manufacturing design—user interface, P/P
ratio, extensible/upgrade capability
Meet the FDA requisites—the min. quality standard
Production & quality control
Marketing promotion—pricing strategy, technology cycle,
market structure, channel selection
Customer satisfaction, post/disposal service
Entrepreneur &
Entrepreneurship
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A technologist or marketer possessed with
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Vision, courage, initiative, concentration,
unbendingness, autonomy, ambition
Appreciation, motivate himself and others, leadership
The good sense of market rather than much more
invention
Entrepreneur  enterprise
Intre-preneurship incorporation
The management renew cycle
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Entrepreneurship style of management for the startups or in the emerging stage of industry
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Professional management for institutionalization or
after the mature stage of industry
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Organic system for flexibility, effectiveness, and growth
Bureaucratic system for cost-benefit consideration &
efficiency criteria
Renewing demand after structural rigidity and
industry decline
Venture team
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Intrepreneurship
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Imagine the future product concept
The gatekeeper of technology & market
Plan enabler
Project manager
A stand alone research center
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Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
Keep flexible and innovative
Lessons from Xerox’s PARC
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Vision
To be the future information architect and a documentation corporation
 Acquire SDS data processing
 Integrate xerography into computer office automation PC and WYSIWYG
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interface, the Alto series
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Failure
Asynchronous development between PARC and Xerox’s bureaucratic
structure
 Location dispersion & communication gap: New York state (E) vs. California
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state (w)
Too few product lines to fill market demand
 Competition from Japanese firm’s high quality copy machines—Canon,
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Sharp, Minolta, etc. and the friendly innovation of add-on carbon cartridge
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Too concentrated on short-term financial performance to seize the industry
dynamics and growth opportunities
Recovery of Xerox’s PARC
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Research on working process as well as new product
Innovating anywhere and learning through
Innovation transfer to the counterparts in the
organization beyond endeavoring to research
Promote linkage between technology and market
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To be a responsible profit center
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The always partner of research—customers
Share and broker information for entrepreneurship & new
start-ups
Motivation incentive by being the Xerox shareholder
The macro view of
technological innovation
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Appropriate context for innovation survival
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Creative society
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Enjoy freedom without constraints
Personal interest/survival rather than public new order
Formal & informal club for information sharing
Industrial cluster
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Complements, reformers & rebels
Specialization & cooperative linkage for production,
marketing, and international free trading
Knowledge exploring & training
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Education & university
Lessons from Silicon Valley
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Vision of technology & life
Knowledge center/window
Facilitating context/infrastructure
Venture capital
Free mobility of job
Weak-tie information network
Continuous learning
Lessons from British Midlands
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Freedom facilitates entrepreneurship
Lunar society in the Birmingham of
England vs. the Home brew computer club
in the Silicon Valle
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Diversity ignites the spark of innovation
Club dialogue promotes the role playing at
the other’s position
Championship drives competition, cooperation,
and benchmarking
Factors influencing
technological innovation
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Scientific capability & repository
Technology life cycle
Investment scale & level
Political facilitator
Complementary technologies
Diffusion mode & rate
Factors impeded/facilitated
technological innovation
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World politic/economic dynamics
Communication channel/speed
Multiple research centers—competition or
cooperation relay
Launch timing
Education/diffusion system
Visible/invisible committee
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Industry policy
Mobility barriers
Public/private organizational transformation
The innovative Skill Set of 2010
(Bordogna, 1999)
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Handle projects from initial conception of an idea through to
product realization
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Understand, nurture, and capitalize sustainably on nature
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Be alpha-numeric literate
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Articulate team goals, influence others to invest in them,
evince trust at all levels
Envision rational solution scenarios to open-ended challenges
Act as catalyst and master integrator in multifaceted,
multidisciplinary projects
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Understand and practice quality issues
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Manifest a strategic intent in design
The innovative Skill Set of 2010
(Bordogna, 1999)
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Enable comfort in interpersonal relations
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Pursue standards-based practice
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Practice creative transformation
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Focus on innovation
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Sense the coupling among seemingly disparate issues
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Make sense of complexity
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Contribute to, extract from, participate in the world of collective
intelligence base
Be an astute observer of strategic inflection points and
anticipate their consequences at the moment of inflection
Extended readings
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Rogers, Everett M., and Judith, K. Larsen (1984),
Silicon Valley Fever: The Growth of HighTechnology Culture, Basic Books.
Howard, R. (1992), “The CEO as organizational
Architect: An Interview with Xerox CEO Paul
Allaire,” Harvard Business Review, Sept.-Oct.,
pp.107-119.
Saxenian, Annalee, (1996), Regional Advantage:
Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and
Route 128, Harvard University Press.