The best innovations already exist

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My mentor used to say to me: “Remember, when working with clients in innovation projects that the best innovations are those that already exist”.  By that he meant, that having a global view and insights into, what is going around in the world, we can bring already proven inventions, novel thinking,  product ideas, concepts from other industries, cultures and geographies etc. to our clients that they can quickly assess, rethink, tailor to their needs and markets, integrate with their existing product and services etc.  That reduces risk, need for investments and in many cases vastly increases speed-to-market. You may think, that it is easier said than done, but actually the internet and IBM Watson is our best friend here.

Here are 3 examples of how we with IBM Watson help clients finding the ‘best innovations’.

Staying ahead of the curve with AI

Many clients are leveraging IBM Watsons capability to understand unstructured as well as structured data. By constantly monitoring thousands of news sites, scientific paper databases, magazines, blogs and social media, we help clients scout for emerging trends, technologies, ideas and experiences.  This help our clients getting ahead of new or changing trends.  As an example we have worked with Kerry Foods to develop the Kerry Trendspotter which is helping their customers craft differentiated, relevant solutions as well as launch first-to-market products with less lead time, capitalising on trends before their competitors.

In another case, we worked with a global fashion brand to spot new fashion trends. They reduced their time to market for new products with 72%. Trendspotting with Watson can be used in many industries as the ‘fly on the wall’ to get and stay ahead of the curve.

Advanced IP search – monitoring technology advances and competitive R&D

IBM’s IP Advisor with Watson combines deep intellectual property and patent knowledge with AI from Watson Discovery, News, Analytics and Knowledge Studio. Applying AI and Machine learning to the patent space in a multi-tiered approach provides much faster and stronger results (70% increased efficiency to search, 50% more results found) than a keyword or semantic search for new insights and better decision support.

Clients use IP Advisor for several different purposes assisting their IP departments in looking for patent infringement, prior art etc.  But some clients also use the advanced, cognitive search capability as a market scout.  As an example an international vegetable seed breed company use the platform with customized filters, query options, stop words and disease analysis to create very deep competitive views in terms of other market actors’ product and technology R&D activities – and potential moves in the market.

Accelerate your Innovation with the IBM Services Innovation Workspace

The IBM Services Innovation Workspace is a cloud-based innovation accelerator application that shares the latest IBM Research Intellectual Property not previously made public, as well as select, proven IBM Services Assets that address a variety of our clients pain points. In the Workspace you can search the catalog of curated IBM content, choose the research or IBM Assets that best meets your goals, and collaborate in real time internally and externally in a secure environment.

In addition, the Workspace has program management capabilities that enable you to share, track and manage your own innovations. This capability also comes with an Executive dashboard that allows your executives to keep an eye on their company’s innovation projects – anywhere in the world.

Key capabilities include: 

• Innovation Visibility: Browse through IBM Services Assets and ground-breaking IBM Research Intellectual Property solutions for your most pressing challenges.
• Manage and Collaborate: Use a  Dashboard to add and manage original innovation projects and collaborate across ecosystems (other customers, IBM, partners, IBM Research, etc.)
• Customized for you : Customized for your branding and business strategy in a secured, cloud-based environment. 
• IBM Garage Integration: The IBM Innovation Engine is also incorporated into the IBM Garage methodology and engagements if you want to co-create, try, or deliver groundbreaking technologies.

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The Innovation Workspace can increase both speed and value for clients engaged on an IBM Garage project.

The IBM Garage Offering delivers speed and value to your digital innovation projects. By leveraging the Innovation Workspace on IBM Garage projects, we address both metrics, allowing Garage squads to bring groundbreaking technologies to bear on your client’s problems – your value –  and leverage dedicated SMEs to turn those technologies into executable solutions – with speed.

So to conclude with another and famous quote:  “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed” (William Gibson) .  Use it!

If you would like to explore trendspotting with Watson, or our IP Advisor, feel free to contact me. And if you like a demo,  discussion, and trial access to the IBM Services Innovation Workspace – you can write directly to innovcoc@us.ibm.com , or to myself, and I shall be happy to help you.