[MUSIC] Welcome back to our course, Quantitative Customer Insight Techniques. I'm James Lenz with the University of Illinois and I'm the Instructor here of this Module 1. In Module 1, we're going to be working on Idea Generation. So in this first module, you'll gain an ability to create your own idea, and introduce this idea to the marketplace. Again, the whole concept of a new product development, it begins with an idea. Invention is needed and commercialization. An invention begins with an idea, an innovation begins with an invention. So you want to experience your own ideas. As part of this module, there'll be a quiz or two, as well as a case study of you creating your own new product idea, documenting it, and then commenting on other people's new product ideas. So what is invention? So I said invention starts with an idea. I mean, the most famous invention that we keep thinking about is the invention of the light bulb. And in fact today, there's still inventing going on, and still new ideas about light bulbs. Certainly, recently, with the new LED technology, there's all sort of new methodologies and structures and configurations that can be done with LEDs to make a new light bulb. And in fact, people are just reinventing light bulbs all the time. It's kind of a fascinating thing. It used to be the joke. When you're doing inventing in our research laboratories, we'd say, you've just reinvented the light bulb, meaning that you've invented something that's old, that's been around for a long time. But I still find, there's still ideas about light bulbs and it's still fascinating to me what you can do. Of course, other areas that are fascinating today, when you look at ideas, where do ideas come from? They come from new technologies. Sometimes there's new breakthroughs in technologies. One of them is the new electric motor technologies. So now there's availability to do all sorts of new electric drives, electric systems. So as we know with hybrid automobiles, we have electric driven mowing machines for cutting grass. So you don't have hydraulic oil leaking out on your golf course greens. Always music and entertainment are always a big part of new ideas. How do I deliver this type of content to people differently, in smaller sizes, more power, different formats, and so on. And there will be newer and more and more ideas always coming in these areas of communications. Another area again is just communications. How do I get the Internet to be faster for me? I'm using fiber. I'm using twisted pair wire. What is the methodology? What are the ideas? And so there's always improvements in many of these needs. There's needs here for light, for motor generation, for energy, for communications, as well as for entertainment. So there's all these market needs for these. So ideas come that lead to inventions, that lead to new products. And there's a constant effort in these four areas that keep bringing up new ideas and new products. And they will continue to throughout your entire career. And in fact, mathematicians I think are the greatest people at formulating ideas. They basically don't do anything else. They still work on blackboards or chalkboards, whatever you want to call them. And their whole world is creating ideas that can solve problems. And once they've got the idea figured out, more or less the problem is solved. Then they go on to the next idea. And so I want you to hear from a famous mathematician. And it's filmed here in Paris at what's called Paris-Saclay, which is one of the greatest mathematician research centers in the world. And he is there and I've asked him to talk about how do you formulate ideas. >> Definitely, if you want to investigate about formation of ideas, this is the right place. This is essentially what we do. [LAUGH] Come up with ideas and then turn them into actual work, and if possible, papers. But of course, the whole process is quite complicated. It's not one thing, it's a lot of things. I think it's like 99% of hard work and 1% of luck. I think it starts with being acquainted with what other people are doing, right, with what's going on. So it's very difficult because things pops out all the time. There's this ePrint archive on which about, I don't know, maybe every day, 20 papers should be of interest to me. It's impossible to read 20 papers a day. So that's why it's very useful if somebody just picks out one paper he really likes and he really understands and comes to explain it to you. That's the legal way. And of course you do that yourself as well but- >> And so that's the advantage of being with a number of different people and- >> Absolutely, and that's the advantage of having this [INAUDIBLE] right there. I will call it interaction. >> Interaction. >> It's really coming in contact with other people who thought about perhaps not exactly the same problem but some related problems. And they share something with you. And suddenly, you realize that this thing is crucial for you. >> Yeah. >> So you're going to sort of appropriate something somebody else came up with, and transform it to adapt it to your own problem. I think this is a very, very important fact. Let me tell you my own experience. >> Yeah. >> I can work for months around something and not get it. I think I'm close but just not get it, so- >> But you know an idea when you get it, when you do it somehow. >> It's kind of depressing, and then you find somehow, I'm not sure how, but I mean in one night, it's done. So this is a kind of timeline. I would say a very long process of waiting, and then zoom. >> [LAUGH] >> Suddenly it comes. But it looks more like that. [LAUGH] >> And what is that? What is that? This is as unconscious or is it? Someone says the right word to you or what? >> No, what happens here. >> Yeah. >> I think here happens the fact that you have tried all these things and maybe several times. You see, there's a question of memory fades. >> Yeah. >> When you're here, you already forget what you tried to guess. So we're trying it again. And then you feel, I've seen that somewhere already. But then it's not always exactly quite the same way in which you approach the thing. >> Yeah. >> So it's like you have your hammer and you dig and you dig and you dig. And eventually, when you reach that point here, there's a little thing that you never thought about all this time. >> Yeah. >> Right, which suddenly pops up. And then it's your job is to realize that this is the thing, right? And once you realize, it's very quick. >> What do you think if you would have been asked to move in to industry and got an idea- >> Well, actually in my complicated training as a mining engineer [LAUGH] at some point, I had to work for industry. Well, it was a small company, but still, for a year, and I could see why I wouldn't like it. But it was good to try. >> Yeah. >> And so this kind of comforted me the idea that this was my turf. [LAUGH] >> You really really more contacts. [CROSSTALK] >> So we had, for instance, just quick, an example, contacts with clients, right? So I was kind of a software-oriented person and we were developing systems for ticketing in various situations. So I remember, we went to Venice for the ticketing of the [FOREIGN], these small boats. And so where you would have machines that would take your tickets and analyze them and spit them out. And so we had this meeting and then, and it was torture for me. These other people, you had to convince them of something. You knew exactly what you could do with your software, and the mountain to climb seemed higher than Everest, right? [LAUGH] So I thought, this is huge waste of my time. >> Yeah. >> Meanwhile, I could do this, and do that, and do that. >> You come up with ideas. >> Yeah. >> Which you're good at, yes. >> So this I know, that's not funny. Of course, it was very small. >> Yeah. >> It's very bit of experience. I could have had a much better experience. >> So I think this is what business gets challenged a little bit with is how you get people that are really good at ideas to want to work on their problems this day because there's a lot of frustration in commercializing those ideas. >> Absolutely. >> And they expect the idea generator to be able to do that as well. >> So I think one of the solutions is not to mix up those people to actually write. because I was really inserted in a marketing team somehow, right? And clearly, it wasn't my place somehow. >> Yeah. >> So I think here, we have this thing but we're kind of even away from the experiments. So people have a right, of course, to go towards experiments and to work with experiment tests. But our very essence is that we are away from that, right? >> Yeah. >> As you can see, we are even away from the main center, right? We're kind of in the corner of the woods. [LAUGH] So this is meaningful. >> I hope you spend some time listening carefully, maybe you replayed it. You should replay it and catch all of his ideas and thoughts. He talks quite fast, he draws pictures on the board to try to illustrate his points. But his major three points were that there's three major facets to coming up with an idea. One is the background knowledge, and this certainly is what you're doing with this course. You're developing a background knowledge, a capability in something that you haven't been familiar with. And in fact, through this course, I'm going to try to bring you different product ideas, different examples of products that maybe you're not completely familiar with that'll broaden your understanding of products and ideas. The second thing is it's important to define the problem. Where is there a need? In a business school, we'd call this a need, not the problem, what is the need? Define that need, be able to verbalize that need. And the third thing which he says is the most important is interactions. And certainly in business, the main approach to dealing with these interactions, we call it market research and surveys. Which again is the major element of this course is developing this type of market research. In his case, it's interactions. And his interactions are meeting with more people and discussing things with people and learning from people, learning what they know, and building on that knowledge and that capability to help really formulate an idea. Especially in the video where he says, there's this point that you know you've got the idea. It's up to you to know this, since no one else tells you this. But you know when you have an idea. And I'm hoping each one of you in this module here will come to that point, will experience this point of when you feel like you have an idea. Then we'll keep working on that idea. But now you're going to at least have this feeling that you yourself have been able to realize when you have an idea. So again, I want to come back this innovation, this thinking, everything starts with, what does it start with? It starts with an idea. So again, we're working through these two courses in the Quantitative Customer Insight course, which addresses this what to start with? What is the major barriers? And I'll give some statistics later on about different companies and how many ideas they start with to create one product. Not every idea in the world leads to products. Certainly in my case, it's something like 10 to 1, 20 to 1, the number of ideas I have that lead to products. I want you think and spend some time here thinking about what is your idea? And what problem did you have this week? Is there a problem you had this week? Well, if you have a problem, maybe other people experienced this problem. And we'll come up with how many people will maybe experience this same problem to create a market. But that's one place to start with where is there an idea. Maybe what could work better? Maybe your idea's about what things could work better? Or did something unusual happen this past month? Typically, you'll hear a story about a friend of mine that something very unusual happened to him. And that led to a $20 billion a year business, one unusual thing happened. It's these kinds of things that you can watch for as you're going around doing your daily activities that will lead to ideas and you have just to be perceptive of them. The last thing is to think about passion. Steve Ballmer was the CEO of Microsoft. He came to visit our town, while I was living in Fargo, North Dakota at the time. Somebody asked him, what does it take to be successful? And he said it takes three things, one knowledge, an intimate understanding of your customer, and the third thing is passion. And I never heard a CEO use this word passion before. But I was really interested and I felt, this is what I had been doing. It's what has helped me develop new activities as well as showing a lot of passion, a lot of interest in solving problems and coming up with new ideas. So you'll find this passion where it is and your idea will come from this passion. Whether it's in music, whether it's in cooking, what activity you have your passion, build your idea around where that passion is. So let me tell you one story here about a friend of mine, Ichiro Endo with Canon. He's the inventor of the bubble jet printer. And maybe many of you still know what the bubble jet printer is. It's now old technology. I'll tell you a little bit of the history of that. And we'll do it in two parts. In this first module we'll talk about the first part before he really did a lot of market research, and how he drove his idea into the marketplace. And then in module two, we'll talk about when he started doing more market research, how that changed to what that product became. So in 1975, my friend Endo, Endo-san, he's working in his laboratory for Canon, he drops a soldering iron on a syringe of ink. And the ink squirts across the room. Now most people would have said, this is a mess, I gotta clean this up. What is the problem? He started thinking about this like what did just happen? Why did this happen? How did this happened? And first of all, you might wonder why is there a soldering iron and a syringe near each other in a syringe of ink in a laboratory? Well, he couldn't explain that, and [COUGH] how that came to be. But anyway, he recognized this as an interesting idea. He kept working on it. And by 1978, he had filed a patent on what's called the bubble jet principle. This concept of using bursts of heat to create little bubbles of ink and be able to squirt them out of a fine nozzle. It wasn't till 1985 that he got his first contract to actually build a product. So I said what precedes the S-curve? So in 1985, he starts that S-curve to actually do a new part of development. He had a contract to build 100 printers for a company called Schlumberger to take out in the field when you're doing oil exploration. So where you need a printer, some way to collect the data and look at the seismic data and the data that's being done as part of the drilling process to be able to look at it and make decisions about what's going on. And every other printer technology they had at the time was not durable enough to work out in this kind of harsh environment. So his bubble jet printer, because it was lightweight, and because it didn't have any really moving parts, mechanical activity with the paper, it was able to be made very durable. So he had a first little business. It wasn't very big business, again, even if you have all the business in the world for printers for an oil exploration system, it's still is a very small market. But anyway this is what he got started with and where they first got this. But the question you should ask is what went on? I asked him, what went on for seven years between, 78 and 85? And he tells an interesting set of ideas how he kept reinventing the technology, looking for a market. And slowly and slowly he became a marketing person. He started understanding market research and how to get customer insights, how to quantify those customer insights. So he learned what's in this course but he did it through the school of hard knocks, as we say. And you're having the chance here to learn some of these stories through an education process. You'll see this form over and over throughout this module. It's the form I'd like you to use. And you'll be able to download it later on in the course. I want you just to be able to create three areas. One is name that idea. Write a sentence or two describing that idea, and then coming up with a drawing about that idea. And of course, a drawing, draw it on any piece of paper and then we can take a photograph. Take a photograph of it and you can post it as part of this work process. So if I were Endo-san and I was a technologist, first, as I said, when he first started out, he was a technologist. He wasn't really a businessman. So if he described his idea, he would write down a bubble jet ink generator, is the product idea. And as a simple description, it's a miniature device that uses rapid heat bursts to create and then jet spray minute bubbles of ink onto paper. And so then there's a picture here illustrating very crudely. But I think it gives you an idea that the ink nozzle needs to move one direction and the paper move the other direction. And now you can make patterns of ink, which would then form letters, or pictures, or whatever you're trying to do. And you need to connect it up to a digital computer. So there's electronics needed in this. There's some mechanical motion needed in this. So you start to get a feeling of what this idea involves and what the uniqueness of it is. So if you're a technologist, and I think everyone should play the role of being a technologist, it's fine to generate your idea in this format. Think about it as a technology, and describe it as a technology. If my friend Endo-san was a businessman, he would write this idea up in a different way. He would write it up in the way of, [COUGH] as a durable, portable printer. So he's not so enamored with the technology itself, but more about the application of the technology. And again, now he's starting to think more about the marketplace. What if the market doesn't need a bubble jet ink generator, it needs printers. So I'm starting to think about addressing this idea towards [COUGH] a business or a market need. And so his description now becomes, based on fast heated ink dots. He has to get his idea in there because that's the uniqueness of it. A high speed rugged printer can be made for high quality printing. And of course that realization is what led to his first contract with Schlumberger to build these types of printers. And now his drawing would be more showing this concept of paper, and somehow printing on paper, and having paper come flying out of this type of machine. And now his invention is just this little box called some ink bubbles that gets created. So as you write up your idea, [COUGH] it's free to think about both these different techniques. Think about a business market pull, think about it from a technology push methodology. So in summary for this module, [COUGH] again, invention begins with an idea, and you keep hammering on this point. Innovation begins with an invention. You need some type of an invention in order to have an innovation. [COUGH] An innovation is this combination of invention plus commercialization. And I want you to experience your own idea, developing your own idea and experience this yourself. So the bottom line is, what is your idea? Please document it. So thanks for listening and we'll move on to the next module. >> [MUSIC]
