Innovation CHEF

• looking at killerinnovations.com, excellent site #

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The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Washington DC ranked 40 countries and regions in an evaluation of innovation and competitiveness. Ireland is 13th out of 40, just on the edge of the top third.

The study , which was conducted prior to the recent financial difficulties/meltdown/apocalypse looked at a number of indicators. Ireland ranks higher than Germany, Canada and Australia.

The good:

• In several categories – corporate tax rates and in foreign direct investment – it is ranked number 1.
• Very positive too in terms of changes made with 52% more funding going into R&D and 6,088% increase in Broadband provision over the three year assessment period.
• Ireland is ranked no.1 in GDP per hour worked and no.4 for ease of doing business.

The not so good:

• IT investment as share of GDP, Ireland comes in 12th
• No. of researchers per capita Ireland is 14th
• Venture Capital availability is 13th
• Despite that massive increase Broadband availability is only 15th
• R&D investment barely in the top half at 18th

So a mixed result and as good a snapshot of Innovation Ireland in the Celtic Tiger as you are likely to get. Improvements in key areas but still short of being a transformed knowledge economy. Lets hope that momentum doesn’t get lost.
Who is number one? Singapore and who has made the most change: China.

Yellow is one of the colours for spring 2009. That much was clear from the pitches on this evenings Dragons Den. Two pretty successful shows under their belt and RTEs Dragon’s Den roared back onto the screen. In the past weeks some real innovations have mixed it up with some new implementations of tried and tested solutions. The nonsense has got fairly short shrift. So what did week three have on offer and was anyone buying?

Eddie was a man smart enough to get out of the property development game a few years ago. Did he have any other ideas? His invention was the Hangout. Essentially a wooden garden Gazebo with washing line fitted to the interior of the roof. He has sold about twenty five already for a fairly good margin. He was looking for capital to get his invention manufactured and marketed. Eddie clearly had thought this one through, unlike the text tax idea that we reviewed on this site earlier.

The Hangout hit many of the key elements for successful innovation:

• knowing what the benefit was to the customer
• prototyping and refining
• Market testing
• Pricing and positioning
• protection of Intellectual Property

In fact Eddie had even subdivided and prioritized his IP. Nice job. The Dragons realised this was a guy with his stuff together. Building a brand should be straightforward enough even in a crowded market. There is enough scope there to develop the idea even further. I made notes to the side as I watched on how to use TRIZ principles to make product extensions and add features. Not often Garden Furniture is that exciting.

He got the cash and two backers. Excellent work.

Part two brought Colm and Pat to the Den. It was a little shelf that sat in your window ledge and allowed you to bunch up your good curtains into an unattractive heap above your radiator so that you could benefit from the heat. 30% energy savings were quoted. Note: I often talk about Rule zero of business, make it easy for people to give you money. The fact that Sarah laughed her head off through the presentation wasn’t a great sign. Bobby thought it looked like a skirt bunched up in ladies knickers and Gavin more genteelly inquired whether it would put creases in your treasured pair of curtains. The guys acknowledged that this was a product for people who valued energy savings over the look of the curtains in the bedroom. There is a problem to be solved here. The ideal solution allows you to save the money and preserve the look of the curtains. The guys had a bonus invention around the back, a heat recovery system using pipes to be fitted to the exterior of the house and a heat pump, could be good but it wasn’t what we were looking at tonight. The presentation was uniquely described as “Mr. Bean meets Open University” and the traditional bad pun meant it was curtains for this idea.

Next up was the first of the Yellow fashionistas to the Den. Fiona in bright yellow dress and blue leggings was the primary coloured accomplice to Paula. They brought four models to show off their own branded fashion to the Dragons. The business model was a little hard to catch at first but essential it’s a two pronged attack. Buy your trendy clothes from the fashionshed and have a styling party at your house with your own trained stylist for the evening. The party idea seemed a good hook for the business and seemed to have franchise possibilities. Despite having a good pitch they left empty handed. They have a blog on which they critique nicely the dragons sense of fashion.

In a line the unsuccessful:

Brian with his safety hinge to stop kids fingers getting lopped off in the door. I would like to see more
Andrew with the permanent roof overhanging block. Maybe not for the dragons in this market, but protect this idea and build a brand if you can!
Susan with MAC blinds. automated blind opening and closing. Maybe if this was 1980 and the control board wiring didn’t look like a safety accident
Myles with his separated wheelie bin idea. I think I have seen one of those already and maybe so did the dragons

Finally Colin, sports scientist turned M&A corporate lawyer with his paddygames event. Paddy games are essentially stupid events like three legged welly tosses and the like. Now in fairness this is, to a degree, an idea that challenges conventional thinking. This blog and innovation thinking in general encourages use of thinking in different dimensions and ways. However that is for useful advances and value creation. Couldn’t see it here. Colin said, while standing in his yellow suit, “who says we have to run forwards, go over hurdles rather than under them?” However Colin reminded me of Will Ferrells character in Curious George and made it hard (rule zero again) for the dragons to take him seriously. The PaddyGames are in pursuit of some major sponsors and Colin certainly has the chutzpah to carry something like this off. It wouldn’t have interested me, it didn’t interest the Dragons and Colin got the National TV exposure. Fair result.

So three weeks in. Dragons Den is shaping up nicely. Good lessons to be learned and some entertaining moments.

Dragons Den week 1
Dragons Den week 2