• Announcement: nearest events

• A new extensive report on TFC 2005

• New articles from ICG T&C

• About innovation on the web; new books

• Examples of innovative thinking: "The other way around"
   

An extensive report about the ETRIA Conference TRIZ Future 2005 (Graz, Austria) was published by Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakun University, Japan): Click to open the report

The latest article on TRIZ and Systematic Innovation was published in the Dutch magazine Constructeur, February 2006 (in Dutch). You can find the article by following this link:
 

Systematisch innoveren met TRIZ Deel 4 (PDF, Constructeur 02-06)

Use these links to download previous articles:

	Systematisch innoveren met TRIZ Deel 1 (PDF, Constructeur 09-05)
	Systematisch innoveren met TRIZ Deel 2 (PDF, Constructeur 10-05)
	Systematisch innoveren met TRIZ Deel 3 (PDF, Constructeur 11-05)

• What Innovation Is: How Companies Develop Operating Systems for Innovation
  A white paper written by Howard Smith, CTO of Computer Science Corporation European Group focuses on necessary ingredients necessary for organizing modern innovation. A large part of the paper discusses the role of TRIZ and Systematic Innovation.
• Three Ways To Improve Your Product Innovation
  In his short article Erik Karofsky of AMR Research discusses what is essential to improve product innovation.
• Innovate on Purpose
  Interesting weblog by Jeffrey Phillips.
• The 2006 Innovation Tracker
  by futurethink probed the minds of 50 senior business executives who are either actively involved in or have contributed to innovation efforts during their career. Its purpose was to monitor current perceptions of innovation: what it is, who’s leading the charge, and the key factors that drive its success.
• Business Innovation Insider
  by Fortune: "Each day we showcase interesting interviews, case studies and commentary on the theme of business innovation. Our focus is on those factors that impact innovation - competition, customer experience, intellectual property, and design."
• Welcome to Crossing Signals
  A new project launched by a group of innovation professionals dedicated to bringing together Systematic Innovation and Collaborative Networking and providing a platform for sharing and exchanging ideas.

New books:

• Insourcing Innovation: How to Transform Business as Usual into Business as Exceptional by David Silverstein, Neil DeCarlo, Michael Slocum
  "It’s not often that a book comes along with the promise to transform business the way Insourcing Innovation does... In short, Insourcing Innovation answers the big question of how? How does an organization innovate regularly, pervasively and predictably? How does a company take full responsibility and control of its Innovation ROI?". One of the authors of the book, Michael Slocum is the co-editor of The TRIZ Journal.
• Book Review: Innovation on Demand - By Victor Fey and Eugene Rivin
  Review by Dr. Jim Bradley. A new book written by TRIZ Master Victor Fey and Eugene Rivin, professor of Wayne State University, is recommended reading for everyone interested in TRIZ and Systematic Innovation. 

Modern Systematic Innovation is a large collection of techniques enabling analytical and systematic understanding of situations, extracting root problems, and generating new ideas. One of its parts focuses on overcoming psychological inertia which keeps us inside our "mental boxes" and does not let us recognize opportunities and shift paradigms. Fighting psychological inertia can be done in different ways; and one of the earliest methods developed in TRIZ was a collection of heuristics known as "TRIZ 40 Inventive Principles".
One the 40 principles is called "The Other Way Around" (also known as "Inversion"), which recommends exploring possible changes of objects and systems by inverting their certain feature: either the entire system, or certain actions produced by an object, or its function and purpose. For instance replace static objects with dynamic objects, turn object upside down, replace action with inverse one (heat instead of cooling, lower instead of lifting, etc.) As an example, an advertisement block in a newspaper which is printed upside down will immediately catch attention among many other ordinary blocks. 
The idea of inversion can be used within virtually every context: from technology to marketing and advertisement. Some recent examples of doing things the other way around:

• The whispering wheel: In a ordinary electrical motor, a rotor is moving while stator stands still. In this invention, everything is done the other way around. Authors claim that this new technology used in combination with diesel generator helps saving up to 60% of energy and makes cars and buses almost noiseless. http://www.radionetherlands.nl/features/science/031215wheel.html
• Wheelman: We all know that it would not be a good idea if we stick our feet to a rotating wheel. Authors of the next invention were thinking different and decided that it could be a good idea and developed a "wheelman": a new type of a vehicle, in which our feet should be placed inside of the wheels to drive it.
  http://www.wheelman.com.au/
• Watercube: We all used to think that an indoor swimming pool should be liquid inside and solid outside. In this visually stunning new architectural concept, its authors decided to make walls of the building look like fluid. The concept is going to to be used for building a swimming pool for Olympic Games in 2008.
  http://www.ptw.com.au/Clients/PTW/template_project_detail.asp?content_id=1511&category=580&par_category=495
• Griefcase: What about a briefcase that can be opened by others and cannot be opened by an owner? The concept looks absurd, but nevertheless solves one of the major security problems arising when a courier should not be able to open the briefcase he or she carries.
  http://wearcam.org/griefcase/
• Reinventing the wheel by removing it: Again, when we imagine an ordinary train, wheels of the train roll on the tracks. But why not to make it the other way around? Let us build tracks into the train while making a road consisting of wheels.
  http://www.tubularrail.com/pages/1/index.htm
• Textiles that protect by destroying: Another example which illustrates the same principle: we all used to think that clothes have to protect and not destroy. This invention made with nanotechnology offers textiles for the use under specific conditions by destroying dangerous chemicals and bacteria while preserving the ability of skin to breathe.  http://www.technologyreview.com/NanoTech/wtr_16366,303,p1.html
• Floating wind generator: To fly, a propeller-based aircraft needs energy to rotate its propeller. In this invention, a flying vehicle made as a propeller generates energy.
  http://www.magenn.com/index.php