Product Development

In this six and a half minute segment (download iPod compatible, 35MB), Larry lays out Inovo's significant expansion plans for 2008. First, they want to double in size, both in terms of staff working directly for Inovo and in terms of collaborators. Second, they want to turn their current arrays of tools and methods into online products and services, a theme with many service-oriented companies featured on this site, such as Inner Circle Media, Procuit, and Auto Watch.

Many companies seek an outside perspective to help them with the innovation process, providing the basis for Inovo's growth plans. In some sense, these companies realize that their internal perspectives may be victims of their current success. To truly innovate, they need to see beyond the current businesses and practices that have helped them succeed to date.

In this nine minute segment (download iPod compatible, 45MB), Larry Schmitt describes how Inovo markets is services and ideas. Most of their professional marketing has been through word-of-mouth. In 2008, they want to employ a more purposeful approach using the Internet. Larry suggests the centerpiece of their strategy will be a high visibility web site with resources on innovation.

Inovo also spreads its techniques through a non-profit institute that works with educational institutions to develop academic programs in innovation. They believe that the more their tools are known and used, the more companies will think to come to them to help with their innovation process. They currently have ongoing programs with:

• University of Michigan
• Washtenaw Community College
• Ann Arbor Spark

In all of these programs, a key underlying message is that innovation is not just about high tech but about delivering new value propositions that the market will accept.

In this seven and a half minute segment (download iPod compatible, 40MB), Inovo co-founder Larry Schmitt talks about his career in machine vision and how it led to his current work in innovation. Larry chose to do a Ph.D. in machine vision because he thought it would give him a chance to learn how the human mind works by modeling some of its functions in a computer. He chose not to pursue a career in academia, a normal route for many people completing a Ph.D., because he wanted to see his ideas implemented.

The contrast between academic and applied problems was stark. In academia, Larry designed algorithms that would interpret a scene with three hours of computational effort. At Larry's first posting in General Electric, the time constraint was 30 milliseconds.

He came back to Southeast Michigan to work in a startup because, at the time, the auto industry was considered one of the prime application areas for machine vision. However, it soon became apparent to Larry's company that the real opportunity was in semiconductors where machine vision was critical due to the speed of manufacturing and the small form factors involved. So, the company reoriented from their previous focus on automobile manufacturing to semiconductor fabrication.

Intriguingly, this story bears a strong resemblance to the types of things Larry's current company, Inovo, tries to help his clients do today.

In this seven and a half minute segment (download iPod compatible, 37MB), Larry Schmitt explains how innovation comes from the community, a notion that might seem counterintuitive at first. Larry's point is that innovation only comes after people have adopted the change it brings. It is not enough to have a new idea, people have to accept it.

With this perspective, it becomes clear that one of the critical factors in promoting innovation is determining what drives adoption. Larry's company, Inovo, uses a number of techniques to determine how people will react to what they have not yet seen, and we discuss how he uses tools like personas to help derive a notion of what the market will adopt.