The importance of creative problem solving skills to corporations.

1. The Value of
CREATIVITY
to
Corporations
Maria Thompson
Director, Innovation Strategy
Motorola Solutions, Inc
May 5, 2012

2. Who Am I?
Maria B. Thompson
• Director, Innovation Strategy
• Masters in Mathematics & Computer Science
• Passions
– tools, technology, patents, creative problem solving and inventing
– 2 issued patents; 8 filed
– Equestrian sports – jumping, falling off, and getting back on…
– Wife and Mother of two
– Proud to be a GEEK!

3. ―Chance favors only the prepared mind.‖
Louis Pasteur (1822-1892)

4. SKILLS

5. ―Imagination is more important than
knowledge. Knowledge is limited.
Imagination encircles the world.‖
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

6. CREATIVITY

7. CREATIVITY
Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative:
 need for novel, varied, and complex stimulation
 need to communicate ideas and values
 need to solve problems
Roger von Oech – ―Creative thinking involves imagining
familiar things in a new light, digging below the surface to
find previously undetected patterns, and finding
connections among unrelated phenomena.‖

8. "The mere formulation of a problem is far
more often essential than its solution, which
may be merely a matter of mathematical or
experimental skill. To raise new questions,
new possibilities, to regard old problems from
a new angle requires creative imagination
and marks real advances in science."
Albert Einstein

9. Intellectual Property & Innovation
INVENTION:
Solution or fix to a problem
Conversion of cash into ideas
INNOVATION:
Commercially successful use of inventions
Conversion of ideas into cash
Innovation is codified and protected through
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY:
PATENTS, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets,
Know-how
9

10. Patents & Intellectual Property Rights
“Next came the patent laws. These began in England in 1624, and in this country with the
adoption of our Constitution. Before then, any man might instantly use what another man
had invented, so that the inventor had no special advantage from his invention. The patent
system changed this; it secured to the inventor for a limited time the exclusive use of his
invention, and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius in discovery and
production of new and useful things."
- Abraham Lincoln
Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of
America‘s Greatest Inventor
by Michael Gelb, Sarah Miller Caldicott

11. ―Nothing is more important than to
see the sources of invention
which are, in my opinion, more
interesting than the inventions
themselves.‖
Gottfried Leibniz, German Mathematician and Philosopher (1646-1716)

12. PROBLEM
IDENTIFICATION
&
SOLVING

13. What is so great about PATENTS?
1. Novel solution to problem
2. Teach others to advance science
"The patent system is nothing more than a way to encourage people to
innovate... to take risks... to make the world a better place.”
-- Dean Kamen, Spotlight On: The U.S. Patent System
3. Prevent others from using, copying or
selling your solution (invention)

14. Why you and your employer might need patents
Considerations
 Costs – 1 patent filing (US) ~ $15,000;
– 3 additional maintenance payments to keep for ~20 yrs.
 What is your market differentiator, core competencies or “crown
jewels?”
 What (novel aspects of your work) do you want or need to exclude
others from replicating?
 Who is in a position to easily practice your art or copy your idea?
 Who are your competitors? Do they already have
patents, trademarks, copyrights?
• Check out http://www.google.com/patents
 Freedom of Action
– In what countries do you plan to ship product or provide services?

15. The power of patents - continued
Cost Avoidance / Loss of Market Share
√ RIM paid NTP $612M in litigation settlement
√ RIM had to stop selling Blackberry’s in US for period of time
until settled
Detectability & Enforceability
√ Will you be able to identify whether someone is copying
(“infringing”) your product or service?
√ If not, better to pursue trade secrets, copyrights, etc.
NEED TO USE CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS
EVERY BUSINESS DAY!

16. RESILIENCY

17. RESILIENCY
rebounding from adversity
Self-efficacy: belief in one's agency and the ability to be a catalyst for
Change - Shapes key human behaviors*:
 Courses of action people choose to pursue
 How much effort they put forth
 How long they will persevere in the face of obstacles and
failures
 Their resilience to adversity
 Whether their thought patterns are self-hindering or self-
aiding
 How much stress and depression they experience in coping
with taxing environmental demands
 The level of accomplishments they realize
*Based upon research of Albert Bandura

18. “Don’t worry about other people stealing your
ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have
to ram them down people’s throats.‖
– Howard Aiken, IBM Engineer

19. ALBERT EINSTEIN
―In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.‖
• ‗below average‘ student at school
• could not speak until he was three
• weak in Math
• Aspergers? Autistic?
“Anyone who has never made a mistake
has never tried anything NEW.”

20. ALBERT EINSTEIN
• 20th century creative genius, scientist, and philosopher
• Started career as a patent office clerk
• Studied other people‘s ideas
• learned how to analyze creative ideas and examine them in
his mind - no laboratory to test the ideas
• > 20 patents produced with very prolific inventors (1928–
1936)
• Patents: refrigerators, electromagnetic pumps, sound
reproduction apparatus and light intensity self-adjusting
cameras
• Einstein‘s theories continue to be exceptionally valuable
source of patentable ideas (solutions!)

21. Thomas Edison
• very curious child who asked a lot of questions
• teacher whipped students who asked questions
• Did not like math
• Deaf due to injury
• difficulty in reading until he was twelve
• difficulty writing, even after 12 years of age
• Parents didn‘t force him to learn things he didn't enjoy;
only learned about things that interested him

22. Thomas Edison
finding ways to make lives better, instead of
learning how something works
• "Genius is hard work, stick-to-itiveness, and common
sense"
• More patents issued to Edison than issued to any other
single person in U.S. history: 1,093.
• Mother home-schooled him
• Read every book in public library

23. Thomas Edison
Edison demonstrated positive attitude, perseverance, resiliency.
"Results! Why man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know
several thousand things that won't work."
"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how
close they were to success when they gave up."
"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain
way to succeed is always to try just one more time."
"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to
do doesn't mean it's useless."
So the next time you make a mistake, or feel discouraged,
ADOPT Mr. Edison's attitude on mistakes!

24. John Vincent Atanasoff
The Man Who Invented the Computer
• A physicist and mathematician who invented the computer
largely out of frustration and laziness!
- designed a machine to do what his own mind could not
- Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) hardly became known at all
because he didn’t PATENT it!
• Mauchly, patented Eniac computer, not a better scientist
than Atanasoff, but more ambitious
- In his Eniac patent application, claimed responsibility for >100
innovations
- judge invalidated the Eniac patents, ruling Mauchly’s invention
was based on the ABC

25. Robert Morris
- cryptographer who helped develop the Unix computer operating system;
- chief scientist of the National Security Agency‘s National Computer
Security Center
Son: Robert Tappan Morris
- Comp Sci grad student at Cornell University, wrote computer
worm in 1988 -virus- able to propel itself through the Internet;
intended to hide in the network, but due to design error,
spread wildly out of control, jamming more than 10 percent of
50,000 internet computers
- convicted under an early federal computer crime law,
sentenced to probation; ordered to pay a $10,000 fine;
performed community service
- later PHd CS from Harvard; now teaches CS @ MIT

26. The Obvious Corporation Founders
The Obvious Corporation makes systems that help people work together to
improve the world. … relaunching the company that originally incubated Twitter
with a high level of commitment to making a difference and developing products
that matter…Also, there‘s room for innovation in how Businesses measure success
and more meaningful definitions of ambition.
Biz Stone
GQ named him ‗Nerd of the Year‘ but Biz is better known as a
progenitor of social networking, blogging, co-founder of
Twitter, and a philanthropist. There's more about Biz on his
foundation site.
Evan Williams
One of Inc. Magazine‘s Entrepreneurs of the Decade, Ev‘s the co-founder and
former CEO of two of the biggest sites on the web — Blogger and Twitter. (He‘s also
done some stuff that‘s gone awry.)
Jason Goldman
Jason is a failed astrophysicist with over a decade of
experience in product management. He led product for
Blogger at Google and was VP of Product for Twitter Inc.

27. Easy as…Sliced Bread
SLICED BREAD
Invented: 1912
Toaster invented: 1926
Patent: 1,867,377 (US) issued July 12, 1932

28. ICE CREAM and PIZZA

29. POST-IT NOTES and SONY WALKMAN

30. Motorola RAZR and Apple iPod->iPhone

31. ―I saw the angel in the marble and
carved until I set him free.‖
Michelangelo (1475-1564)

32. Many Techniques to Think Creatively

33. Our mind tends to automatically organize new
information with our current knowledge.
33

34. ―Even though one was correct at each stage,
the situation may still have to be restructured
to proceed.‖ Ed deBono
Key Insight:
Be willing to rearrange
what you know
34
contradictions

35. “Millions saw the apple
fall, but Newton was the
one who asked
why.”
Bernard Baruch

36. How Questions Help
Creative Problem Solving
Clarifies problems
Engages minds
Increases brain flow
Cultivates curiosity
Improves Listening
Promotes analogous thinking
Enhances quality thinking
Accelerates innovation
Improves idea management
3

37. What is the Question Banking Methodology?
1. IDENTIFY Sources of Questions
2. COLLECT Questions
3. ORGANIZE Questions
4. IMPROVE Questions
5. APPLY Questions (Questionate to Ideate)
3

38. Questions to Ask When Collecting Questions
1. What are ALL the questions that people
might answer in order to address the
goal(s), challenge(s) or problem(s)?
2. What are all the obstacles or challenges
that might relate to the goal(s)?
3. What are the 3-5 MOST IMPORTANT
questions that should be asked to address
the goal(s)?

39. 3

40. 4

41. Question Banking TIPS & Checklist
 Search the internet for existing solutions and
reframe as questions
 Wordsmith and polish questions
Use www.thesaurus.com
Increase “open-ended” questions
Eliminate “closed” questions that can be answered “yes” or “no”
Replace “can” and “could/should” with “might” and “may”
Genericise so non-experts can engage and invent
Tease out conflicts, contradictions and tradeoffs
√ Quality Review CHECKLIST
 Brief and concise
 Provocative, inviting and inspiring
 Clear and focused
 Understandable by variety of people
 Grammatically correct
 Functional, action-oriented verbs that describe the desired result or outcome

42. Recommended Books for Skills Building
Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of
America‘s Greatest Inventor
by Michael Gelb, Sarah Miller Caldicott
Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to
Productive Thinking
by Tim Hurson
Simplified TRiZ: New Problem-Solving
Applications for Engineers & Manufacturing
Professionals
by Kalevi Rantanen, Ellen Domb, www.triz-journal.com
Making Questions Work: A Guide to What and How to Ask for
Facilitators, Consultants, Managers, Coaches, and Educators
by Dorothy Strachan

44. Ideality
+
Problem Storming
+
Innovation Exercise

45. Attributes 3. Ask WHY ideal
(5 times)
2. Ideal
1. Focus/Goal:
Attributes
2. Ideal
3. Ask WHY ideal
(5 times)
What are all the ways we might characterize the Ideal/Perfect World solution based on the resources we have available to us?
IFR

46. 3. Opportunities
w/o limitation
2. limitations
1. Focus/Goal/Objective/Problem:
2. limitations
3. Opportunities
w/o limitation
QuestionGeneration-Recipe: How might we use Opportunity #3 to overcome Limitation #2 and achieve/remove #1?
OR How might we achieve/remove #1 by using #3 without #2?
PS

47. Ideation Exercise

48. How might we identify valuable
mobile applications?
 Trend spotting
 Functional Analysis /‖Job‖ Identification
 Value Analysis
 www.AndroidZoom.com

49. Six Key Questions
I keep six honest serving-men.
They taught me all I knew;
Their names are What and Why and
When and How and Where and Who.
Rudyard Kipling
Indian-born British writer and poet

50. Session Name: Gemini Innovation Workshop Motorola Confidential when Completed
Idea Sheet
What problem are you trying to solve? What is a ―working title‖ or keywords for your innovation?
(If working from a list of questions, record the question number.)
How might your idea/solution be implemented?
(A sketch, flowchart, or list of features will help to explain this.)
What is your idea/solution?
Innovator(s) CoreID(s): Suggested Lead: Potential Business Value: Today‘s Date:
High, Medium, Low, Unknown 4/27/2007
Motorola Confidential Proprietary once Completed
MOTOROLA and the Stylized M Logo are registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners. © Motorola, Inc. 2004.

51. Trend Spotting
Who are all the people that use mobile devices?
What are their unmet needs?
When do people have access to their mobile
devices?
Where do people take their mobile devices?
Why are people pleased with or disappointed by
their mobile devices?
How might peoples‘ mobile devices better serve
their needs?

52. Trend Spotting – Roles
WHO are all the people you know that
use their mobile phones regularly?
 Family
 Spouse
 Children
 Parents
 Friends
 Classmates
 Co-workers
 Service Providers ( e.g., store
owners, restauranteurs, plumbers, construction workers, tollbooth
operators, government workers, ice cream vendors, security
guards, etc.)

53. Functional Analysis / “Job”
Identification
 WHAT are all the jobs or functions people
need to do that a mobile phone application
might support?
 user scenarios
 contexts
 activities
 jobs == tasks
 information exchange

54. WHEN do people have access to
their mobile devices?
 Before, during, in-transit to or from work
 At play
 At home
 Before, during, and after school
 With children (playing, babysitting) or out on the
town without children
 With aging parents (e.g., doctors, hospital)
 Daytime – morning rituals
 Nighttime – evening rituals
 Meal-time: breakfast, dinner, lunch

55. CONTEXT
WHERE do people take
their mobile devices?
 Shopping
 Home
 Office
 Grocery store
 Restaurants / Pubs
 Sports venues
 Concerts
 Vacation (e.g., camping, skiing, cruising)
 Gym, Workout Center, Dance Studio, Martial Arts
 Parks
 e.g., Running, Football, walking the dog, playing with children
Where would people like to take their phones but can’t today?

56. WHY are people
pleased with or disappointed by
their mobile devices?
Pleasing?
 What information is important to people?
 What excites or entertains people?
 What amuses people or makes them happy?
 What makes people more organized, efficient or productive?
Disappointing?
 What frustrates people?
 What annoys people?
 What stresses or worries people?
 What upsets people or angers people?

57. HOW might peoples’ mobile devices
better serve their needs?
What types of information might we bring to people in
real-time?
How might we eliminate the need to perform tasks by
automating them?
How might we eliminate the need for people to travel to
experiences?
How might we enhance existing mobile device
experiences to make them more gratifying and
satisfying?
How might we help people perform their ―jobs‖ more
effectively and efficiently in all contexts?
How might we help people better connect with those
they want in their lives and disconnect from those they
don‘t?

58. Value Analysis
of the
Mobile Application
Does it make the user able to perform a task (job) more
effectively?
Is the performance of a user task (job) more
convenient?
Is performance of the task (job) more affordable, so
more users can improve their efficiencies?
Are the user‘s functional, social and emotional needs
met in order to perform the job perfectly?

59. ―Technical skill is mastery of
complexity while creativity is
mastery of simplicity.‖
Christopher Zeeman, Mathematician (1925- )

60. “Don’t Ever Stop Asking Questions”
- Albert Einstein