This panel discussion took a look at innovative models for creating new products and services that work. Participants included Gwen Ishmael, SVP and leader of the Decision Analyst Innovation Group; Paul Zarookian, COO of AIG Credit Corp., Tony Ulwick, founder and CEO of Strategyn; and David Sutherland, a teacher at the Georgia Institute of Technology and founder and managing director of the Launch Institute.
Doug Rushkoff, author of Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out, was scheduled to participate in the panel but did not. A shout out, regardless.
Organizations of Note
Competitive companies
These are the groups and firms represented by the panelists
- AIG
- The parent company for AIG Credit Corp.
- Decision Analyst
- Custom marketing research and consulting
- Strategyn
- A pioneer and leader in outcome-driven innovation
- Launch Institute
- A consultancy that balances management and design to launch new products and services
Reading Material
Additional resources
The following articles and tools resonate with the topics that arose during the panel discussion.
- Primer on Open Innovation: Principles and Practice
- Michael Docherty contributed this piece to the Product Development and Management Association's magazine, PDMA Vision. It touches on the remarks Gwen made about customer-led innovation.
- Unmet Human Needs
- Tony talked about the importance of meeting customers' unmet needs. This resource takes that up a notch but still begs the question: How human are the needs that your products and services meet?
- NLP Business Applications: Marketing
- Gwen also commented on the use of neurolinguistic programming in marketing. Regardless of how you feel about NLP, there's some food for thought here.
Innovation in Sight
Video on the topic
Let's see what YouTube has that's related to innovation
Tom Peters: Innovation is Actu...
Innovation at Google
The Myths of Innovation
On the Myth of Unarticulated Needs
Some context and clarification
While there very well may unmet human needs, there's no such thing as an unarticulated need, Tony says. Instead, there's an unarticulated solution. People can tell you what their problem is, but they cannot express what they need to address that problem. That's your job. When Ideas Escape
A quote of note
Two speakers so far today have brought up the storied quote by Lou Gerstner, who was struck by how strong IBM's R&D efforts were, but how little innovation actually made it to the marketplace. Supposedly, Gerstner said, "At IBM, technology isn't released. It escapes."Does anyone know if that's an apocryphal quote, or if not, what the exact quotation is?
The One Book to Read
Buy Doug's book today
While other books may have been mentioned during the session, I highly recommend Rushkoff's most recent book.
Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out
Amazon Price: $20.36 (as of 01/09/2009) 
Used Price: $3.00
Core Corante Content
The best of the best
Corante offers a wide range of material. Here are the top-level sections
- Marketing Hub
- Your starting point for keeping abreast of the best writing and thinking on marketing
- Media Hub
- The field's most insightful observers and commentators track and report on its latest developments as well as weighing in on its future
- Innovation Hub
- Contributors Renee Hopkins Callahan and Paul Williams weigh in on new developments in creativity and innovation
