How to Breed an Innovative Business Idea — #12 of 31 Proven Skills [Research]
Skill #12: Extend a Resource to Do More Than It Normally Does
All innovative behavior commences with the selection of an Initiating Resource. This is then ‘tapped’ for its unconsumed value utilizing one or more of seven skills. The first skill is to focus on an attribute that is central to the primary purpose of the selected Initiating Resource and seek to extend it so that it simply does more than it has to date
Two key messages permeate the previous 11 skills that have been unpacked.
· Resources containing unused value are everywhere; and
· if they are manipulated skillfully, innovative value far exceeding the effort employed is released to solve a problem.
The opening image illustrates these two messages and introduces a new insight about resources: they are not an amorphous lump. Rather, they split into three elements, can adopt different roles and, in these roles, they combine and amplify each other to create an innovative idea.
A quick summary of the Resource Elements:
Research I have completed into thousands of well-solved business problems reveals there are 31 discrete innovative skills that can be employed to innovate. Among these, there are seven skills that can be applied to Initiating Resources.
In this article, we will address Skill #12: Extend a Resource to Do More Than It Normally Does. Although its description is self-explanatory, we can put it slightly differently: if we innovatively extend an Initiating Resource, it not only operates in accordance with its primary purpose but, with the investment of minimal additional effort, it can deliver more of that same end result.
All Initiating Resources have attributes or properties and, once an Initiating Resource has been selected, one or more of these can be pursued for the unrealized value it contains. Skill #12 demonstrates how we can extend a selected attribute or property to release that value innovatively.
A quick example to clarify at this point, because the word “extend” does not necessarily excite interest.
Let’s say I own machinery and operate it to manufacture metal components for eight hours per day. If I urgently need to increase volume output, I can produce additional components by operating it for, say, another hour — by extending it. Critically however, although we have extended an Initiating Resource to release more value, we have not done so innovatively, because proportionate costs are still being incurred in operating the machine during the extra hour.
What would make an extension of the machine innovative?
An increase in the output of metal components with zero increase, or better a negative increase, in ongoing costs is what we are looking for.
So then, let us assume that my machinery that produces the metal components needs to be stopped and serviced daily to remove a build-up of metal waste. The machinery is our Initiating Resource and its configuration is the attribute we will focus on. If we re-install the machinery upside down, gravity will cause the metal waste to fall to the floor, thus eliminating the need for daily stoppages to deal with the waste. This extension of the machinery would certainly boost output and the cost of the once-off inversion is offset by a permanent boost to the ability of the machinery to produce significantly more output without extra ongoing cost.
Other Examples of Extending an Initiating Resource to Innovate More*
The originators of Trivial Pursuit faced the problem of general unawareness of their new board game. People did not know about it and that did not look like changing any time soon. They focused on the board game itself as an Initiating Resource and, more specifically, on its central attribute which was the Questions & Answers (Q&A) that were integral to the game. They extended the thousands of questions to include questions and answers about famous people (e.g. Hollywood celebrities and other high-public-profile individuals) and sent them to such well-known people. The latter seemed to welcome the attention and began to talk about the board game while talking about themselves, generating valuable social chatter that lifted awareness of the board game. A simple extension of the Q&A feature of the board game (Initiating Resource) innovatively delivered very effective word-of-mouth advertising.
A common problem faced by airlines and other public transportation enterprises is that passengers do not pay attention to the pre-travel safety video, often ignoring it altogether. One airline, taking its safety video as an Initiating Resource, concentrated on its content attribute and extended it by integrating interesting and light-hearted lifestyle stories into the safety narrative. This secured the desired attention of travelers. The extension of video content — which must be produced anyway — innovatively got an important safety message across to those who needed to hear it.
An operator of car parking facilities in a major city faced the problem of the prohibitive cost of establishing new car parking capacity to meet demand that had outstripped supply. Taking as an Initiating Resource all car parking owned by CBD residents in the vicinity, the operator negotiated with them and provided a smartphone app through which the residents could rent car parking spaces that were not used during the day, making these available to daytime visitors to the CBD area. An extension of the normal use of private, but available, parking spaces innovatively delivered additional car parking capacity.
Extending the primary purpose of an Initiating Resource by means of one of its attributes, where the value it contributes has been enjoyed in the normal fashion but not exhausted, is the essence of Skill #12: Extend a Resource to Do More Than It Normally Does.
Takeaway
*Thousands of categorized innovative business ideas can be discovered at Sebir.com
