In today’s (July 30, 2007) Wall Street Journal, page A2, Timothy Appel reported on the increasingly ominous prospects of the US auto industry suppliers. But buried within the reporting is an interesting paragraph on how innovation occurs in large corporations:
“Another implication of the shift for the American auto industry is that many of those manufacturers have large research and development budgets that, in the past, let them transfer expertise and innovation among their diverse businesses. A breakthrough in developing tougher glass for airplanes, for instance, might be applied to cars.”
What has been going on in corporations is that often, only R&D has been charged with coming up with innovations. In today’s multi-faceted innovative environment, new ideas can arise from anywhere, by any department. The interesting ‘for instance’ in the article shows that ideas that are common place in the airplane industry could very well be analogically applied to the auto industry. This cross industry idea, I believe, has occurred to many executives and researchers. But, because in most cases, these are just fleeting and intriguing thoughts; nothing much concrete actions will result. That is, tougher glass in airplanes do not always lead to tougher glass in autos.
What is needed is a systematic way to make these ideas occur to decision makers in corporations naturally. That is the mission that we at Structured Analogy Consultants have charged ourselves with. We want to introduce a new, structured approach to use analogy so that more tougher glasses get from airplanes to autos.