1. Idealog + AUT
MSI
BNZ
HGM
IRL
DNA
SKM
= Guide (to)
INNOVATION
WITH COMPLIMENTS

4. The Idealog
Innovation Guide
CONTENTS
01 INTRODUCTION
THE MOTHER OF INVENTION
Rather than focusing on getting a single idea
04 EARLY STAGE
INVESTMENT
GET CAPE. WEAR CAPE. FLY
out in the marketplace, the aim is to transform “When I was young I thought money was
companies into innovation machines ready to the most important thing in life; now I am
hoon our nation up the OECD rankings. old I know that it is.”
Plus: “If you haven’t figured out how to get the Plus: Mo money, mo problems
government to help you, you are an idiot.”
02 LEADERSHIP AND
INNOVATION
05 INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY
PROTECTION
CREATING A CULTURE I AM THE LAW
OF INNOVATION If you are serious about being a business
Leadership is not just a label others stick on you, operating on the bleeding edge, you need a
it is a vital skillset for the successful innovator. quality professional specialist in IP protection.
Crucially, it means listening to other people’s They will set the attack dogs on your thinking.
ideas at least as much as they listen to yours. Plus: The life cycle of an idea, Reinventing the
Plus: Greed ain’t good. wheel, and Defining intellectual property.
03 GENERATING IDEAS 06 BRAND
INSIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT
WHAT THEY WANT, WHAT THEY NEED BRAND, NOT BULLSHIT
Ironically, the easiest person to lose sight of Too many business people still think of
during commercial innovation processes is the a commercial brand as something you slap on
most important person of all: the customer. at the end: the label, the packaging, the logo.
Plus: The Watering Hole, Murderboarding, Plus: Brand basics for dummies.
Nutshelling, and You can’t be mad to work here,
it would screw everything up.

5. 07 PROTOTYPING
AND TESTING
SURPRISE! IT
10 SUSTAINABLE
INNOVATION
IS THERE ANY OTHER KIND?
WORKS/DOESN’T WORK! Unless you work in a business that uses
What you thought was your prototype roller desks and cartridge pens, you will
is just an elaborate paperweight have noticed that sustainability is more
Plus: Crafty corner and Bag a boffin than just a fad
Plus: Not being green is getting harder,
Lohas and Resources
08 LAUNCH AND SALES:
COMMERCIALISATION
GETTING INTO THE MARKET
Now comes the biggest reality check of them all:
convincing some customers
11 CONCLUSION
INNOVATE OR LEARN
MANDARIN. IT’S YOUR
Plus: Mind the Gap and Two of our favourite CHOICE
launches Innovation is pretty much the only
thing that can prevent New Zealand
from becoming a second-class
09 KEEPING THE
CASH FLOWING
WITHOUT PASSING THE BUCK
plantation nation
Completely obvious thing business people
somehow still manage to forget #92: Cash
is the lifeblood of innovation
Proudly brought to you by

6. Innovation Guide
L
ast year Idealog
The Idealog
published Cash
for Ideas – The
Idealog Guide to
Commercialising
Your Ideas. In its
pages we brought together an expert
panel from six of the top innovation
support firms in the country. We
enjoyed it so much, and learnt so
much, that we’re doing it again.
This time, rather than focusing
on getting a single idea out in the
marketplace, the aim is to transform
companies into innovation machines
The Idealog ready to help our nation hoon up
Innovation Guide the OECD rankings. A tall order?
Grenville Main, owner and managing
director of research, digital and
CHAPTER 1
branding agency DNA, says he’s
heard the story before.
“All my voting life we have heard
governments talking about the fact
THE MOTHER OF that we can’t just rely on primary
products, because if commodity
INVENTION
prices tumble we are in real trouble –
there is no backup.
“But nobody has really pulled
it off. The problem can be when
nobody really gets that innovation
is designed and engineered, it’s
invested in over time. It’s no longer
down to luck and it’s not always fast.
We need to create an environment
where visionary CEOs can get the
support they need to build a second
string to New Zealand’s bow.”
Hamish Campbell, manager of
investment services at the brand
spanking new Ministry of Science
and Innovation, is one of the key
people charged with making it
happen this time.
“The government, from the
prime minister down, is signalling
that innovation is a key driver of
the future economic growth of New
Zealand,” he says. “We are talking
about matching Australia’s GDP
and we are not going to do that
with business as usual. We need to
encourage our companies and the
next generation of entrepreneurs to
invest in innovation and R&D.
“We have to go beyond making our
existing businesses more efficient.
We need to out-think our competitors
and innovation is key to doing this.”

7. Innovation Guide
“The government, from the prime minister down,
is signalling that innovation is a key driver of the
future economic growth of New Zealand”
Hamish Campbell
MANAGER INVESTMENT SERVICES, MSI
Campbell believes it can be done. one, the Chinese can’t be paying all that direction, so the rest of the world
Look at Denmark and Sweden. money just for our cows, sheep and wants more of what we’ve got.
Back in the 80s and 90s they were grass. So they must also be after the What all our experts agree on is
running neck and neck with New intellectual property – what it is that that innovation is a Very Good Thing,
Zealand in the ‘will farm for cash’ makes our dairy and meat taste and sell but it can be bloody difficult. Their
stakes, but they’re now light years better than other countries’. job, and ours with this guide, is to
ahead. And mobile phone monster And two, a lot of the really make it a bit less bloody difficult.
Nokia somehow emerged out of a important innovation is not the “We aim to minimise the luck
sawmill in the backwoods of Finland. weird and wonderful prototypes and involved, good and bad,” says
These countries took their natural inventions, but rather the less showy Pryor. “There is always going to be
advantages and built a platform with business of just doing the simple things some good luck involved in getting
them, which is what we need to do now better. It’s not just the startlingly something off the ground, but you
if we’re going to catch up. new and Earth-shattering, it is also don’t want to be relying on it.
The message from the the stripping of things back to their “There are the right connections,
Scandinavians is that the next big essential core, or re-presenting them, the right meetings and the right
thing could come from anywhere. that is innovative business. deals. Our experience helps us see the
“If you had sat down at a The challenge is to make things landscape when there are times when
whiteboard 10 years ago and asked better, more efficient and a little bit you can’t.
what sort of New Zealand companies different. It can’t just be about finding “It’s about having foresight,
or industries should excel, cyber things that work overseas and trying understanding the commercialisation
security or digital animation may not them here, like with TradeMe. We process and then being deliberate
have come up on the list,” Campbell have to start pushing in the other about how you go about it.”
says. “But we now have world-class
companies in each of those areas.”
Kevin Pryor, chief executive AUT
Enterprises, is similarly optimistic. In our Cash for Ideas supplement (January/February 2010), the disgustingly
“I don’t think we are bad at successful Derek Handley of Hyperfactory said: “If you haven’t figured out
commercialisation at all,” he says. how to get the government to help you, you are an idiot.”
“Other countries have more critical The Ministry of Science and Innovation has just been created with the
mass, and much more money to expressed intention of helping Kiwi innovators in established businesses
throw around. Critical mass is to become world-beaters. It’s particularly keen to support three stages
important in getting high densities of development: emerging technology, companies that are active in
of people. Big swathes of Asia are research and development, and the highest achievers with sophisticated
not innovative; they just copy R&D that also mentor and help other businesses.
other people’s ideas. I think we just Manager of investment services Hamish Campbell describes the basics
suffer from all the things that small of the strategy: “I think as much as anything we are less about picking
populations and geography bring us. winners than backing winners. We have just made an investment of $92
“We’re an innovative nation. million over three years in 26 companies with proven track records, such
There are Kiwi innovators doing as Fisher and Paykel Healthcare. This is about taking companies that are
things all over the place, especially already successful and helping them to accelerate their investment in
within those primary industries.” innovation and that will drive future growth.”
This seems right on two counts:

8. CHEERS TO A NEW BREW
Home enthusiasts, companies and clubs can now make the
freshest draft beer on the planet, thanks to Nanobrewing Ltd
D
rinking beer is possibly the most popular male “BRINGING THIS PROJECT TOGETHER HAS BEEN INCREDIBLY
pastime in the world. Global annual beer sales
exceed US$330 billion and the market is highly
STRESSFUL. ALTHOUGH WE’VE HAD INVESTMENT FROM TWO
competitive. But a group of Kiwi guys have just OUTSIDE SOURCES, WHEN MSI CAME ALONG IT WAS A BIG
upped the ante with a revolutionary brewing system. ENDORSEMENT ANOTHER LEVEL OF BELIEF IN WHAT WE
B
Master brewer Ian Williams, food technologist Anders WERE DOING FROM AN OUTSIDE PARTY ”
OM
Warn and engineer Sam Wood have joined forces to create
The WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery – a product that they
believe is the first all-in-one brewing appliance available.
With a successful career and impressive resume, Williams
wasn’t looking for innovation; it found him in 2004. While
lamenting the poor quality of his own homebrew one
Christmas, Williams’ uncle remarked that whoever could solve
the problems with homebrewing would become a millionaire.
The seed had been planted and over the next six and half
years, Williams invested his time, money and passion into the
project. He convinced his friend Anders Warn to come on board
and together they set up Nanobrewing Ltd in 2006.
With the help of Sam Wood from ATI Engineering, Danish
angel investor Michael Hansen and the design skills of Murray
Pilcher and Shane Inder, they set about developing The
WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery.
Homebrewed beer is invariably overcarbonated, cloudy,
smells of yeast and tastes bitter. The homebrewing process
is fraught: the carbonation, fermentation and clarification
processes take too long, there’s no way to remove sediment,
microbial contamination is common, as is oxidation of the beer.
“Thirty-two percent of Kiwi guys have tried and abandoned
homebrewing,” says Williams. “We’re the number one country
in the world for ex-homebrewers.”
Now after years of research, R&D, prototype development,
patent applications, planning, and financial worries, the team
believe they’ve found the homebrewing holy grail.
“We finally got there: 90 minutes work and then cold, clear,
perfectly carbonated, commercial-quality draft beer made in
seven days,” he says.
Williams has poured all his money into the project, and Hansen
and Wood are also major investors. But a lack of funds is a major “It was obvious from the start that Nanobrewing had a great
stumbling block for many entrepreneurs, so the company applied business opportunity and that we could support them with
for and was awarded R&D project funding through the Ministry of their R&D,” says Brown. “They’d clearly done their research.
Science and Innovation’s (MSI) TechNZ programme. I was drowning in information!”
Having secured previous TechNZ funding for his business Brown liked the blend of beer industry, engineering, design
ATI Engineering, Sam Wood approached MSI regional business and commercialisation skills offered by the Nanobrewing
partner Jenny Brown at the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council. She shareholders. “These guys knew what they were doing,” she says.
invited Sean Sharman from MSI to meet with them and view For Williams especially, being awarded $200,000 of
Nanobrewing Ltd’s new product. Brown and Sharman liked TechNZ funding in mid-2010 has had a significant impact on
what they saw. the venture. The money has been used to develop and test

9. prototype units, and carry out research into beer ingredients admits it’s been a steep learning curve. Ian Williams and Anders Warn
and the brewing industry. “I found the innovation process very difficult, particularly have created what they say
“More than anything, it’s been important psychologically. having spent all my money on it at the start. But the Henry is the first all-in-one brewing
Bringing this project together has been incredibly stressful. Fords, Ralph Laurens and Bill Gates who start big companies appliance available.
Although we’ve had investment from two outside sources, aren’t any different to anyone else. It’s about having an idea
when MSI came along it was a big endorsement – another level and going with it – you don’t need an MBA to do it.
of belief in what we were doing from an outside party. To me, “The whole process takes four times longer and involves
that support was worth 10 times more than the actual money. four times the expense that you’d imagine, so you need to be
It’s taken the pressure off all the investors.” ready for that. But we knew we’d get there eventually. You just
While the guys have big dreams for their product, Williams have to believe in yourself and never, ever give up.”

10. Innovation Guide
the moment you turn your back.
The Idealog
The Idealog
Innovation Guide The corrosive effects of this kind
of atmosphere will stifle progress
and cost you a fortune. And even if
you have the money, chucking people
CHAPTER 2 a bonus is no substitute for giving
them meaning and excitement as
a part of their everyday working
lives. Numerous studies have shown
LEADERSHIP AND
that once people have enough cash
to pay the bills, non-monetary
INNOVATION
considerations become much more
important in keeping them motivated.
Ask yourself these
questions:
What are you doing yourself
that is not giving you the space
to think creatively?
Are you doing that to the people
you are leading?
Are you putting things onto
them that they can’t manage?
Are you hanging onto things
that you should be giving to
other people to deal with?
The higher up you get in
leadership the more people
Fostering guide, Cash for Ideas, you
notice and the less they tell
you. How much are you really
a culture of would have got the message that
commercialising ideas is always a
talking to them?
innovation team sport. This is especially true
if you work in a large organisation.
You may have become accustomed
to doing most of the work yourself.
Here, successful leadership is about AUT’s approach is to build your
Chances are, if you’re in the habit creating and maintaining a world- leadership on your strengths so you
of coming up with innovative ideas, beating team that comes up with don’t end up a jack of all trades and
you’re accustomed to leading people fresh ideas regularly. master of none.
through unfamiliar territory. Being MSI’s Hamish Campbell says one “It’s really important in
the ideas person can make you a thing really stuck with him recently leadership to know what you can
leader by default. when he visited the Massachusetts and can’t do. You need to bring
But leadership is not just a label Institute of Technology (MIT) in people in to cover your blind spots,
others stick on you, it’s a vital Boston: “If you have the choice of and to watch you so they can learn,”
skillset for the successful innovator. backing the A-grade idea with the says Drain.
Crucially, it means listening to other B-grade team or the B idea with the The challenge is to let aspects of
people’s ideas at least as much as A team, you back the A team every that work go and let others develop
they listen to yours. time. Ideas are a dime a dozen. The with their individual talents, while
It is through leadership, above best idea in the world without a great at the same time maintaining the
everything, that you will create and team around it is next to worthless. all-important overview and vision.
maintain a culture of innovation Investing in innovation is about You can get it badly wrong if you
within your organisation. investing in people.” either fail to let go of things, or if
Stephen Drain, director of Your staff will be looking to the you abandon effective management
the AUT Centre for Innovative top dogs to see how they sniff each and leadership by going back to the
Leadership, warns of complacency other, and how they behave if there’s knitting of your own specialism.
on this. a bone of contention. If you slam If you feel you’re not up to this
“Not all innovators are leaders, your office door and summon folks challenge you may also find yourself
and not all leaders are innovators.” inside like a headmaster, expect reverting to micromanagement and an
If you read our last innovation your staff to act like schoolchildren overemphasis on deadlines and detail.

11. Innovation Guide
As Bruce Lee said: “Concentrate authentic leader, if you meet them at
on the finger pointing and you will them movies or when you’re out at
miss all the heavenly glory.” a social event, you won’t find them
particularly different than the way
Creative spaces they are at work.”
How many great ideas have
suffocated in unread notebooks
and files in your office?
Why do our children’s daycare Not knowing exactly what you want
centres look heaps more creative than provides the space for your team
where we spend most of our time? to innovate and create. Tom Peters
Why do we expect people to come put it this way: “Reward spectacular
up with exciting products for vibrant failure. Punish mediocre success.”
living while in solitary confinement
surrounded by machines?
It’s time to take ‘open plan’ “If your team are happy and you are
literally – do all your planning in happy,” says Drain, “you are going to
the open, where everyone can get achieve a lot more.”
involved. Here are some interior Trust is the magic ingredient that
design tips to get your ideas out in the
open where they can grow.
underpins all of these. According to
the Deloitte 2010 Ethics & Workplace
“Not all innovators
Get away from the norm. Survey, 46 percent of workers say are leaders and not all
Newsflash: a lot of creative a lack of transparent leadership
people do not just sit at a communication will drive them to leaders are innovators”
grey plastic desk, staring at a seek new employment opportunities.
screen. Have portable seating
and whiteboards so that
If you find yourself snooping on
your team’s email or checking when
– Stephen Drain
breakout teams can create an they clock in and out, you are either
environment that suits their terminally paranoid, have hired the
needs. Think about using outside wrong people, or are in the wrong job.
spaces, too.
Personal space. As long as it Say goodbye to This just in – greed
doesn’t create a health and Mr Know-It-All
safety hazard, encourage people Business hierarchy used to be all about ain’t good
to decorate their desks any way information control. The boss knew
they like. It’s free to you, it’s fun, stuff the shop floor folks didn’t and Just like Dr Evil in Austin Powers, if
and it will improve the team’s would decide how much of this to pass your idea of innovation is finding
creativity. on to his underlings. Meanwhile, the new and imaginative ways to kill
Get it up on the wall: Idea shop floor folks knew what was really people and destroy the world, then
banks – pictures, models, flow going on where the rubber hit the you might struggle for quality sta .
charts – should all go up on a road. The success of your structure
wall wherever possible, and staff used to be measured by how well the A STUDY BY THE LRN
should be encouraged to spend information flowed up and down. CONSULTANCY FOUND:
some time checking them out Well, you can forget about all
to stay in contact with other that. Information technology means it was ‘critical’ or ‘important’
projects. They will be inspired information is now flowing all over that the company they work
and feel able to contribute. the place. There are probably plenty for is ethical
of people inside your organisation,
Components of the not to mention the odd one outside, prefer to be paid less and
innovation culture who know as much as you do about work for a company with
what you do. ethical business practices
Today, the job of a leader is not to than receive higher pay but
attempt to control information; that work at a company with
Have the courage to be yourself, says horse has bolted. Your job is to lead questionable ethics
Drain. “When somebody reveals a conversation with your people that
something about themselves that identifies what information is really Americans have left a job
is slightly surprising and deep, relevant and important, and how you for ethical reasons
you start to trust them. A good should move on it.

12. BRIGHT
FORECAST
A smart AUT invention
is predicting the future
A
s the architects of New Zealand’s future prosperity
PHOTOGRAPHY: ALYSON YOUNG
eye agricultural technology as a key export
opportunity, an AUT University research group is
well down the development track with a device that
perfectly fits the bill.
Horticulturalists in nine countries are using a sensing system
that tracks more than a dozen climatic and environmental
measurements, which is the product of the university’s
Geoinformatics Research Centre.
The device is a second-generation prototype whose origins auspices of AUT Enterprises. Photos, clockwise from left:
go back to work begun by research leader Professor Philip Geosense will act as a broker between system users and three
Sallis in 2007. equipment makers the company has partnered with. A robot equipped with a
microclimate wireless sensor
Professor Sallis, an expert in mathematical modeling and “The research effort will continue through the Geoinformatics node collecting data while
numerical computing, had his interest in collection of microclimate Research Centre and the company will essentially broker navigating through canopies
variables – and forecasts that could be made from arrangements between the commercial providers and the in the Kumeu vineyard.
their analysis – piqued by Chilean researchers whom he met in his end-users,” Sallis says.
Stationary agro-monitoring
former role of AUT deputy vice-chancellor. What that means for AUT in terms of clipping the ticket or a
station and on-robot mobile
Sallis was in the process of signing a research collaboration consulting fee is unknown. Sallis wants any income to come back microclimate station logging
agreement with a university in South America when he met up to Geosense and thereby back to the university. data in field testing.
with people doing similar work to his in geocomputation. “This is about trying to maximise the return to the university
Interested in the kind of variables that could be used to do for the investment made through the operations of the centre.” The Mark II prototype
of solar-power enabled
prediction work, he talked to them about vineyard applications. The system’s secret is the algorithm that analyses the matrix wireless sensor node
“It seemed to me that if you could somehow correlate a lot of environmental data and makes sense of it. It’s so cutting edge for the microclimate
of factors around climate, atmosphere, plant conditions, soil that Professor Sallis has had the work reviewed internationally monitoring system, designed
conditions and so on, we could build up a matrix of data that could and accepted for presentation and publication. Where to next? and assembled in the
Geoinformatics Research
be useful for predicting various events in nature.” “My interest is in how can we get into the area of precision
Centre’s Instrumentation
He reasoned that such fine-grained information would be agronomy, what tools and techniques we have that could assist. Laboratory.
a valuable supplement to the macro data supplied by weather “Just to get a little lofty for a minute, the reality is we’re facing
forecasters. Indeed, that’s what users of the sensing system at a major challenge for the planet in terms of food for the world. A researcher configuring
27 trial locations around the world are telling him. Dealing with wine and things sounds all very grand but the a robot’s auto navigation
and communication
“The people on the ground – in the vineyards and orchards bottom line is if we can use these methods for growing corn and setting of the wireless
that are using it – are reporting that it is very useful, that the rice, we can bring something to the party.” sensor node for collecting
information is so much more precise than they are getting from To that end, AUT has signed a memorandum of understanding environmental data.
the weather forecast,” Sallis says. with India’s largest IT company, Tata Consultancy Services
The information can help with frost protection, preparing for (TCS), under which TCS will use the AUT researchers’ application
dry or wet periods and helping decide when to use pesticides. programming interface to the sensor data.
The Mark II prototype of the Microclimate Monitoring System, The Mumbai-based head of TCS Innovation Labs, Dr Arun
assembled in the Geoinformatics Research Lab, has 17 sensors Pande, says micro-region weather forecasting is “the need of the
that upload data in real time to servers at AUT. hour” for farmers, especially in India, where agriculture is heavily
There it’s analysed and turned into meaningful information, dependent on the seasonal monsoons.
and made available to the growers via the internet. “Professor Sallis’ approach of using technology for capturing
The next step is commercialisation. With the cost of system the local weather data and building a micro-region weather
manufacture beyond the resources of Professor Sallis’ research forecasting model is a step in the right direction to improve
group, spinoff company Geosense has been set up under the agricultural productivity.”

13. The Paper Clip
c. 1871
By, er, someone
The paperclip is famously clever. Yet nobody
knows who created it. We won’t let this be you.
If you’ve created a novel product, solved a
complex problem or generated a breakthrough
idea, then this is your moment to shine.
The New Zealand Innovators Awards.
Celebrating genius.
www.innovators.org.nz
info@innovators.org.nz

14. The Idealog casualty’s eye view of the experience.
Innovation Guide If you are looking at kitchen utensils,
you could shadow a top chef, or spend
a day with someone with arthritis, to
CHAPTER 3
really get a handle on what they need.
The problem is actually
the solution
GENERATING The purpose of gaining insight is to
identify a problem, either out in the
world or within your own business.
INSIGHTS AND
And according to Main, things
IDEAS
usually really get going when the
problem affects both.
“Ideas that stick are usually driven
by need and opportunity,” he says. “A
lot of people have discussions around
the notion of innovation and where
they could benefit from it. But if
you’re not in real pain, that can be as
far as it goes. Even if you feel you will
be in pain soon, the urgency is not
quite there for many businesses.”
The pain usually comes in the
form of dwindling sales, low morale
and/or an inability to hold onto
research, digital and branding agency top staff. Once it strikes, there is
What they DNA Grenville Main says you have a temptation to shut it off quickly
want, what to work out what really matters to
people. “There is nothing new, there is
by rushing to a solution without
exploring the territory. This is as
they need only better, stronger or more vital. If
you can improve your importance to
risky as charging into battle without
sending out scouts beforehand.
a customer, you can sell more. Innovation is all about scouting,
Ironically, the easiest person to “If you can improve the service exploring choices and opportunities.
lose sight of during commercial experience you provide them, you’ll Getting too focused on a specific
innovation processes is the most also keep them longer.” application early on is a surefire way
important person of all – the To find out about people’s to limit what you come up with. New
customer. needs and desires, get up close applications for something are found
Bill Wilmot of SRI International is and personal. Stefan Preston, along the way, or bits of an idea can
emeritus professor at the University entrepreneur and advisor to the be used for something other than
of Montana, director of the Better by Design programme at New what was originally intended.
Collaboration Institute, and author Zealand Trade and Enterprise, knows Bad ideas fail to solve a problem, or
of Innovation – Five Disciplines for all about this. He is a former CEO of solve it by means that are too complex,
Creating What Customers Want. Bendon lingerie, and you don’t get expensive or uncool for anybody to be
He believes most people don’t do much more up close and personal bothered with. It is vital to understand
a good job of identifying customer than that. that it doesn’t matter at all that you
needs. “They tend to just ask “You can’t learn it intellectually,” have solved a problem if nobody
customers what they want, but he explains. “The way you learn how actually wants your solution. There
customers cannot always tell them. to ride a bike is to ride a bike.” may be easier or cheaper solutions to
They think they do a focus group and You are not selling a product, you the problem already around that people
that answers the question. You can’t are selling an experience. So your are satisfied with, even if they are not
really see what people need unless ideas have to be all about experiences, necessarily better. Or it may be that
you shadow them and follow them.” not gadgets, features and technical people simply don’t care enough about
A lot of great ideas start with a stuff. If you want to improve, say, the problem you chose to address.
simple insight, and those insights someone’s experience of arriving at an It seems obvious that if nobody
are nearly always first and foremost accident and emergency unit, maybe needs or wants your idea, even it’s
about people. you need to put a camera on a trolley the most ingenious thing in the
Owner and managing director of in the emergency department to get a world, it won’t sell. But you would be

15. Want to grow
your business?
on www.irl.cri.nz
0508 CALL IRL (0508 225 5475).
Working in partnership with business

17. Innovation Guide
surprised how many businesses are Approach. Define the ‘golden
wasting huge amounts of money and nugget’ or the unique advantage
time clinging to a clever new piece of of your approach
technology that nobody wants. Maybe Benefits. Outline the benefits to
they’ll get lucky and a market will the customer, your partners in
emerge before they submerge, but it’s the market ecosystem
much more likely that they won’t. Competition. Pinpoint the
Great ideas – the ones you stake competition and systematically
your future on – solve a problem in compare your approach with
such a neat way that it changes the competitive products or services
whole experience. Or it solves an
even bigger problem that may be A Watering Hole session runs like this:
different to the one you started out
with. Preferably it will also solve other The person putting forward the
problems we never even knew we had. idea does a one-minute pitch.
Sometimes the problem can be the
entire sector you are in; what next for They get 20 minutes of feedback
the DVD rental business in the era of from the group during which
the download? Or they can change the they are not allowed to speak. Overly
world; what is the future of the car if negative people are given green hats,
oil becomes scarce? and told they can only say something
It is no coincidence that some of positive; the relentlessly positive get
the biggest companies in the world red hats and can only be negative.
sell food, fuel and medicine. One way Some people are given big plastic
to make big money is to generate spectacles called the Eyes of the
ideas for things people really feel Customer, so they must give
they need. Another is to create non-technical feedback from
products or services that people a customer point of view.
want very badly indeed.
Using the feedback, the idea’s
How to get ideas going advocate is coached to produce
Obviously, you are not going to get far if a new, improved, four-minute pitch.
everyone is sitting in silence scratching
their chins and going “erm …” Repeat the process until THE DYSON
Idea generation is seldom a something really good comes out AIRBLADE
completely linear process. You can’t of it, or you put a duff idea out of its INSIGHT Most hand dryers
just work through a to-do list and misery and save everybody a lot of don’t actually dry hands,
have an innovative idea pop out at the time, money and effort. making them almost
end. Ideas turn, like clay on a potter’s completely pointless.
wheel, responding to the controlled
pressures placed on them. This was designed by Nilofer SOLUTION The Dyson
There are as many ways to get Merchant, author of The New How – AirBlade forces unheated
things turning as there are unread Creating Business Solutions through air through an aperture
business innovation books in your Collaborative Strategy, as a way to the width of an eyelash at
average corporation, but here are combat the tendency for brainstorms
some of the most effective out there. to create more ideas than any one high-velocity blade of air
The best approach is to use lots of organisation can pursue. that wipes hands dry in
different approaches to get the best It essentially works through four just 10 seconds.
out of your team. stages:
CHANGED EXPERIENCE
Decide what matters. This You walk out of Britomart
This process was developed by Bill involves setting out the criteria station toilets, start to
Wilmot. The key is to work through by which decisions will be evaluated, wipe your hands on your
the following mnemonic: NABC. and what problems or issues you jeans and realise you
This means: intend to deal with. These criteria don’t need to. Genius.
Need. Identify your product or are then displayed so that they can be
service’s marketplace need referred to in discussions.

18. Sort. This looks at all the
available options and sorts them, THE BLUNT
based on the ‘decide what matters’ UMBRELLA
criteria you have chosen. Ideas that
are weak when compared with the INSIGHT
criteria are dropped. There is also Most umbrellas
an option to add to the criteria if flap madly, turn
necessary. inside and/or
break at the merest
Testing. To what extent are any hint of wind. Wind
of the remaining ideas viable and rain often
for the organisation? Getting the go together.
answer may mean looking beyond the SOLUTION
participants in the original process. The Blunt Umbrella
uses a patented
Choose. Ruthlessly and tensioning system
dispassionately decide which and is tested to
ideas warrant further work. function at wind
speeds of up to
100km/h.
The more complex an idea becomes, EXPERIENCE
the harder it is to tell if it will work, Next time it gets
and the greater the chances that it Identify the ‘ifs’ in your idea and strong proposition. It gets at least wet and windy,
won’t. So there is enormous value in eliminate as many as possible. one ‘if’ weaker if your sunscreen only you can actually
simplifying your thoughts to see if The fewer the number of ‘ifs’ in an works for children under eight. stay dry. You find
the core is sound. idea, the greater the market for it yourself taking
This can be done in a number is likely to be. For example, ‘If you Attempt to explain your ideas your umbrella
of ways: don’t want skin cancer, and if you using concepts a three-year- out in stormy
don’t want to wear clothes that cover old would understand. Preferably, conditions even
Try to sum up the idea in the your whole body whenever you are actually try to explain it to a three- when you don’t
fewest words possible. Then see outside, and if you have about $15, year-old. You will be amazed at how need to.
if it is still new and makes sense. you should get sunscreen’ is a fairly little bullshit survives this process.
You can’t be mad to work here, because it would screw everything up
As companies get bigger the sheer weight of the bureaucracy unless they are highly creative types too.
needed to keep the behemoth going tends to create rigid This requires a high level of trust on the part of the boss, and
structures that squeeze out people’s creativity. a high-quality team to get results. You can’t paper over the cracks
AUT’s Kevin Pryor, explains: “By definition you are asking with a really tight brief and more milestones than a marathon, as
them to behave counter-culturally.” that defeats the very freedom you are looking to engender.
This means if you are in a big corporate you need to think The other option is to get out your chequebook and buy your
outside of your cubicle to get the ideas flowing, probably with creativity from outside, which creates opportunities for smaller
some kind of spin-o project team or department. innovators to get paid.
Ideally, you want to get this outside the building and away For example, Google may be seen as a powerhouse of
from the normal hierarchy. innovation, but according to Wikipedia, it has acquired no less
Creativity often means acting weird and ignoring the rules, than 93 smaller businesses since 2001 and incorporated their
so you probably don’t want to do it right under the boss’ nose, innovations into its own service o erings.

19. Innovation Guide
people, their time is worth a lot more
money than yours and they are not
The Idealog
going to waste it listening to your
Innovation Guide elaborate vision for a brighter future.
All they want or need to know is
what the new idea is, exactly how
CHAPTER 4
much money you need to make it
work, a pretty accurate estimate how
much money it will make and when
EARLY STAGE
they can take their share of it and run.
“One of the big questions investors
have is who is the team that is
running the business?” says Stephen
INVESTMENT
Drain, director of the AUT Centre for
Innovative Leadership.
“Who are they, do they have the
goods? If not, who are you going to
get in on the board of advisors, who
can take on a leadership role?”
Your one-line answers to these
questions are what they are going to
be saying to themselves over and over
as they try to decide whether to trust
you with their money.
Then once they do sign, they
When I was young But the rest of the time you will
be lucky if you can think about
or their people will follow up on
the detail and all the paperwork in
I thought money was anything else. painstaking detail, often including
the most important The first customers for your idea
are going to be the people holding
patents and insurances you don’t
think you need.
thing in life; now I am the money that can make it happen But you want to have this nice
old I know that it is for everybody else, whether they are
external investors or your bosses.
comfortable bed of paper ready to
nestle their money into. It is vital
– Oscar Wilde
You may be a salaried part of a big to get professional help in looking
organisation. But unless you are in at budgets and contracts to avoid
Get cape. Wear cape. Fly one of the flabbiest big corporates in nightmares later on.
In his book Rules of Thumb, Alan M New Zealand (in which case you are But remember, initially you are
Webber, founder of Fast Company going to have other problems trying selling a dream by convincing people
magazine, puts it this way: “Nothing to be innovative) the same principles it can be a reality.
is real until somebody hands you a for getting money into your idea
cheque. Until then you could have a apply as they would for a first-time No such thing as
great idea or a mediocre one, an idea entrepreneurial startup. a free launch
that will reshape an entire industry DNA’s Grenville Main puts it like In case you hadn’t noticed, New
or disappear without a trace. this: “Access to capital comes down to Zealand does not have as much
“You’ll never know until money how smart you and your idea are, and money in it as, say, the US. For
changes hands. Then you get to how well connected you are.” example, as well as sheer scale and
find out.” To get this right, there are two population density, US innovation
Stating the bleeding obvious? important things to remember: benefits from a vast military
It’s amazing how often it can be the people with the money need industrial research and development
overlooked. If you are lucky enough to believe in your idea, but not complex. The Defence Advanced
to come up with innovative ideas necessarily the way you do. Research Projects Agency alone has
there will be moments when money is Keep It Simple Stupid, at least to a staff of about 250 and a budget of
the last thing on your mind. You can begin with. If you haven’t nutshelled US$3.2 billion to spend on emerging
get caught up in the buzz of the new your idea (and you should have), now technologies with a military
and the thrill of providing something is the time to do it. You may not have application. Of course, companies
people love. This can be a particular the classic ‘elevator pitch’ moment, benefitting from DARPA largesse are
risk if you are a salaried part of a big but if you are lucky enough to land free to commercialise the products
organisation. a proper meeting with the right produced in other ways, too.

20. Innovation Guide
Similarly, there is money washing
The Idealog
around all over the world for the
right idea. Unfortunately, it is really Mo money, mo problems
hard enticing that money over here Believe it or not, it is also possible to have too much
to New Zealand where we can play money – just look at Charlie Sheen.
with it. “People talk about capital not If you strike on something that really gets people
travelling,” says AUT’s Kevin Pryor. excited, everybody is going to want a piece. That’s
“It can travel, but it usually doesn’t
travel very far or in great quantities.” number of things can go very badly wrong – even worse
Pryor says he recently attended than taking porn stars home to meet the wife.
a conference in America where the This is another particular risk of attempting to
speakers were talking about the innovate in large organisations with decent-sized
difficulties in getting investment research and development budgets.
funding out of the Silicon Valley for
technologies developed on the east Stay hungry
coast, let alone out of the country. Too much cash too soon can take the edge o your
And even the investment money original idea. If you already feel like you have the gold,
that is here can be a bit risk-averse human nature says you won’t do the extra yards to get
says Mike Aitken, incubation things spot on. Pick your least favourite movie sequel
manager at AUT’s Business as an example of this one.
Innovation Centre. “Entrepreneurs need to be kept hungry,” says AUT’s
“It’s a bit of a catch-22 – investors Kevin Pryor. “Sometimes quite literally!”
are required to help fund startup
development and generate early Uncomfortably numb
revenue, but investors want to see Not getting any cash is the surest sign there is
clients and customers on board something wrong with your idea. Running out of cash
before they invest.” is the surest sign there is something wrong with the
The money also often comes with business model you have attached to it. Wallowing in
significant strings attached. investment dough can be like putting masking tape over
“You almost never get all the the warning lights on your dashboard – it won’t stop you
money you need,” says Wayne from crashing or blowing up if you are careless.
Hudson, partner at specialist
intellectual property lawyers Hudson Too many cooks
Gavin Martin. “It’s more often that The more stakeholders you end up with, the more
they will give you half, so you have to people you have to answer to. You can end up spending
go to them for some more. And then so much time talking to them and lose sight of all the
they’ll put all sorts of extra clauses other work you need to do.
in their agreements so you end up
with an underfunded project where, You want buy-in, not a sellout
at best, its success has to be deferred Nobody hands over investment cash for nothing. Each
while you find extra funding.” time you land a new investment you should expect to
lose a slice of ownership and control of your company.
And the rest If you get carried away you can end up selling the goose
You want people to invest more than that lays the golden eggs.
money. In getting the right people on It is also not unheard of for people to get booted
your board, you are also looking for: out of the business they founded. Steve Jobs was
out of a job for a while there, and Je rey Hollender
founded innovative cleaning product company Seventh
Can you piggyback on other firms
2009.
“Being fired from the company you founded is
get and keep this sort of money hard for any entrepreneur/founder to deal with,” says
without knowing a thing or two Hollender. “If I had a piece of advice for entrepreneurs,
I’d say, ‘Don’t give up control. And if you do, do it in
a thoughtful, methodical fashion.’”

21. Innovation Guide
beyond the very early stages. It is all
The Idealog too easy to overlook things and all
Innovation Guide too hard to overcome your vested
interest in your own ideas in order
to make a proper assessment of how
CHAPTER 5
innovative they may or may not be.
Your IP person will do a ‘landscape
search’, covering any existing patents
and trade marks, scour trade journals
INTELLECTUAL
and scientific literature, root through
Google and more. What they are
PROPERTY
looking for is prior art: any material
in the public domain that shows
someone else has published this idea,
or anything like it, before.
PROTECTION
They will also think laterally. What
if somebody used similar technology
or thinking in a completely different
industry, to solve a completely
different problem? This process
helps you establish whether you are
trying to eat someone else’s lunch,
and how much effort they will put
into defending it. It can also be
an invaluable way of discovering
applications for your idea that you may
not have thought of otherwise.
Forgive us our
I am the law
ton of cash developing a bad idea
or spending the worst years of your trespasses
life fighting with someone else’s IP Let’s assume you find some evidence
lawyers. that, shock horror, somebody,
What has been will Here’s the first thing someone
should do if they think they have a
somewhere, sometime, miraculously
thought of something similar to
be again, what has good idea, says HGM partner Wayne ‘your’ idea. And, taking into account
been done will be Hudson. “Check that it is really new.
People are spending way too much
that patents are country-specific, you
believe their patent may be active and
done again; there is money on the protection without valid in a country where you want to
nothing new under spending on researching whether they
actually have something to protect.”
do business.
There is encouraging news from
the sun What this comes down to most of fellow HGM partner Jason Rudkin-
– Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV the time is checking to see how old Binks. “Just because something isn’t
your ‘new’ idea is and if anybody else novel doesn’t mean you can’t make
It’s an odd quotation to open any is really using it in any country you money out of it,” he says.
chapter on business innovation. want to trade in. A popular next step among high
But one of the best approaches to rollers with plenty of lawyer-lolly
intellectual property protection is to Making sure the coast knocking around is to use these same
believe this statement with religious is clear research techniques to challenge
intensity, because the best way to If you are serious about being a the blocking patent in the courts,
waste a lot of time and money on an business operating on the bleeding essentially by trying to prove that
idea is to believe you have something edge, you need a quality professional somebody else got there before the
new when you don’t. And you specialist in IP protection. They patent holder.
probably don’t. will set the attack dogs on your HGM partner Simon Martin puts
That’s the sort of wake-up and thinking, specifically by attempting it this way: “The only way to protect
shape-up call you get from running to establish whether the ideas you intellectual property is to enforce your
your ideas past specialist intellectual come up with have already been rights. The ability to do that comes
property lawyers like Hudson Gavin commercially exploited. down to how well you are funded.”
Martin. It can save you wasting a You should not do this yourself Rudkin-Binks agrees. “The real

22. Innovation Guide
The Idealog
“People are spending way too deal with them later. This is also a
popular tactic employed by some big
much money on the protection players, especially those who see no
particular reason to play nice.
without spending on researching “There are lots of ways to protect
IP,” says AUT’s Kevin Pryor says. “But
whether they actually have sometimes you just don’t bother. You
something to protect” just go to market. One of the reasons
we spend so much time on it is
because investors want to see it.”
Wayne Hudson If someone is trading on an idea
similar to yours and doesn’t appear
to be making money from it, it may
simply be a bad idea. It is also worth
remembering that big companies
big movers have massive spend an offer – just like when someone can afford to spend millions on some
on IP protection. They will use owns but isn’t using a internet pretty wacky concepts in order to
a sledgehammer to crack a nut.” domain name you want. develop new technologies and test
Of course, if your entire Even if somebody is trading on an potential new markets.
proposition is based on a specific idea and making money, you could If you get past all these hurdles
technical fix, then you need to protect try to buy a licence from them for it. and still reckon its worth a trip to the
this in order to sell it. This is why, for This may cover a particular process patent office, timing your visit may
example, Apple has teams of lawyers you want to use, or a particular be very important. Ironically, the
ready to slap a perfectly crafted writ market. If they agree it’s possible for public disclosure to secure a patent
on anybody infringing its rights to everybody to win, you get to go to might be what gives the game away if
the particular finger-scrolling system work and they get money for their you file it before you are ready to take
is has on its computers. idea without having to. This is the advantage of your chosen market.
But if you don’t have something way a lot of very big companies do “The important thing is the result,
unique it can often be cheaper and a lot of very big business. not the process that gets you there,”
easier to be businesslike, to put your Alternatively, if you think there says Hudson. “So there is a risk that
pride back in its box where it belongs, is money to be made, you can people will see your patent and use it
and try to do a deal. If the other party ignore the opposition and hope you to find a different way to get the same
isn’t actually trading with the idea generate enough money and market result. For example, I had a client who
this may be as simple as making them presence to fight it out or do a better had created a unique product. The
The life cycle of an idea
When not peddling IP advice, Wayne Hudson of IP those dates.”
law firm Hudson Gavin Martin is often pedalling his Game over, then?
bicycle. So I am not surprised when he illustrates the “Because of all those expired patents, you can pretty
IP-checking process with a couple of examples from much discount any patents granted in the past 20 years,
the world of two wheels: because they should never have been granted in the
first place.”
“I had an idea about putting an indicator light on my Ah ha! So you are on! Being an IP lawyer you can exploit
gloves for when I was cycling.” this forgotten ground!
It sounds great to me. It’s one of those ‘why hasn’t “But you have to ask yourself, why don’t we then see
anybody thought of it before?’ ideas.
“I checked and found an existing patent for that good idea. The lights from a car will obscure your light.
Oh. Somebody had thought of it before.
“Then another one going back to 1915.” Apart from the obvious one of not making any money,
A long time before. another definite sign of a bad idea is that nobody is
“With about 30 other similar patents between trying to copy it.

23. Innovation Guide
REINVENTING
Defining intellectual THE WHEEL
property It’s worth remembering
that some ideas may
already be out there,
patents – these are defined by but only become
law and your ability to enforce commercially viable
them when the technology
or economics are right.
other people don’t For example,
you make sure other people Sinclair launched
don’t take your know-how the Sinclair C5
electric tricycle to
in you, who have resources popular ridicule and
that can help your business. commercial disaster.
Whatever you have in your In 1992, he hit
product line that is unique. back with the folding
Early on in the creation of electric Zike Bike,
an idea, this may be all you which sold even less
than the C5, and is
plug into the manufacturing soon to launch the
and distribution system you X-1. Now here in New
create to get your idea into Zealand we have the
the market. And as Bill Gates Yike Bike, a three-
pointed out, “Intellectual wheel electric folding
property has the shelf life of tricycle and, well …
a banana,” so you had better we’ll have to wait
move fast. and see.
In the meantime
Honda, representing
the big boys, has also
just created its U3-X
process by which it was made was not Personal Mobility
evident just by looking at the product Prototype that is
itself, but in lodging a patent it had essentially a moving
to be disclosed, so other businesses electric barstool that
could take a look at the patent, you stow in your car
see how it was done, and change it door.
sufficiently and get round the patent.” In a future where
Pryor is a touch more scathing. everyone in the
“Some entrepreneurs don’t industrialised world
understand the nature of competition. can’t a ord petrol and
Your competitor is the person who is is too obese or lazy to
chasing the same dollar. It is not about walk anywhere, things
how similar your product is. A horse like this may sell like
and a car are very different but if the the hot cakes that
customer is using them for the same helped incapacitate
thing, they are in competition. us in the first place.
“There’s no point saying, ‘But mine
has four wheels and theirs has four
legs.’ The customer doesn’t care.”
In the intellectual property
battle of wits, you need to have your
strategy ready, and the team to
implement it, because you can bet Top: Honda’s U3-X Personal Mobility Prototype
the opposition will. Bottom: New Zealand’s Yike Bike