Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009)

UNIT 2:
CREATIVITY, INNOVATION
AND
TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEURSHIP
1 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEURSHIP
(ENT600)
Introduction
Discovery of opportunity at the right
time and place is the corner-stone of
any entrepreneurial success

Technopreneurs need to be creative in
discovering new opportunities (in terms
of products or services) either through
invention or innovation.
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 2 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
What is creativity?
Creativity can be defined as the production of
new and useful ideas as well as the ability to
discover new ways of looking at problems and
opportunities.

It is the ability to use imagination to develop
new ideas, new things or new solutions. These
generation of ideas should lead to improved
efficiency or effectiveness of a system

(Adapted from Fredrick et al., 2006 and Dorf and Byers, 2005)



Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 3 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Examples
Creating the NEW
o Knowledge
o Products
o Processes
o Services
o Markets
o Business models
o Raw materials
Creative ideas often arise when creative people
observe established solutions, practices, or
products and think of something new or different.
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 4 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Creativity & Role of Teams
Technology entrepreneurship is at its best when
the creativity of a pool of people are
consolidated as a team effort

Hence, creativity should be encouraged among
team members or within an enterprise.

Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY 5
Six Resources of
Creative Team/Enterprise
1. Knowledge in the required domain and fields
i.e. in-depth knowledge of your industry.

2. Intellectual abilities to recognize connections,
redefine problems, and envision and analyze
possible practical ideas and solutions.

3. Inventive thinking about the problem in novel
ways
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 6 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
4. Motivation towards action

5. Opportunity-oriented personality and
openness to change.

6. Contextual understanding that supports
creativity and mitigates risks.
Six Resources of
Creative Team/Enterprise (cont.)
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 7 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Creativity Techniques
PROBLEM REVERSAL look at the opposite
of things, see things inside out, backwards or
upside down.

FORCED ANALOGY - gain new insights by
forcing a relationship between almost anything.

ATTRIBUTE LISTING - break down the thing
into smaller parts or characteristics and develop
ideas to improve on them.
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 8 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Creativity Techniques
MIND MAPPING - starts in the centre of the page
with the main idea, and works outward in all
directions, producing a growing and organized
structure composed of key words and key images.

BRAINSTORMING generating ideas based on
the principle of suspending judgments.

LATERAL THINKING - exploring multiple
possibilities and approaches from different
perspective rather than pursuing in a conventional,
logical, step by step single approach. i.e. by
changing concepts and perceptions, and
generating new ones.

Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 9 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Creativity has three basic components:

Knowledge

Motivation

Creative thinking skills


Three Components of Creativity
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 10 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Three Components of Creativity:
Knowledge
Knowledge refers to a confident
understanding of a subject with the ability
to use it if applicable. It encompasses
expertise, skills, familiarity and practical &
theoretical understanding of a subject.

Knowledge is gained by an individual
through study or experience

Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM
(2009)
ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY 11
Three Components of Creativity:
Creative Thinking Skills

Creative thinking skills is the use of creative intelligence
to approach problems and find solutions

Four styles of creative intelligence:
Intuitive focuses on results and relies on past
experience to guide actions
Innovative concentrates on-problem solving, is
systematic, and relies on data
Imaginative is able to visualize opportunities, is
artistic, enjoys writing, and thinks out of the box
Inspirational focuses on social change and the
giving of self toward an end



Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 12 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Three Components of Creativity:
Motivation
Motivation is in two forms:
Extrinsic motivation
comes from outside a person, whether
the motivation is a carrot or a stick

Intrinsic motivation
a persons internal desire to do
something. Satisfaction is derived
from overcoming the challenge.

Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 13 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Phases of the Creative Process
Phase 1: Background or Knowledge
Accumulation
Study the background of the subject matter
This may requires extensive reading,
discussion with experts, practitioners,
academicians, researchers in the field,
attending workshops and seminars, exploring
various unrelated areas etc.
These explorations expose entrepreneurs to a
variety of perspectives on the subject matter.


Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 14 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Phases of the Creative Process
Phase 2: The Mind Incubation Process
An individual immerse himself or herself in the
data, allowing the subconscious mind to muse or
ponder on the information gathered.
Sleep on it getting away from the subject
matter and letting the subconscious mind working
on it allows creativity to spring forth.
Incubation can be induced by: engaging in
mindless activities such as painting the house or
cutting grass, meditate or play sports or board
games. The rationale is new ideas often emerge
when we are busy doing something unrelated to
the matter.

Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 15 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Phases of the Creative Process
Phase 3: The Idea Experience
This is when the person discovers the solution or the
idea. The idea may appear out of the blue or it may
comes incrementally.
At this phase, the person begins to formulate the
solution.
Most of the time it is difficult to tell the movement from
phase 2 to phase 3.
To expedite movement to idea experience a person can
try to daydream and fantasies about the project and
always keep a notebook to record emergence of ideas
at odd hours.

Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 16 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Phases of the Creative Process
Phase 4: Evaluation and Implementation
This phase is the most difficult and requires
courage, discipline & perseverance.
There are a lot of possibilities of failures.
Ideas are modified and tested before the best
workable idea is put into a final form and
successfully implemented.


Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 17 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Blocks to Creativity
Searching for the only one right answer
Focusing on being logical
Blindly following the rules
Constantly being practical
Viewing play as frivolous
Becoming overly specialized
Avoiding ambiguity
Fearing looking foolish
Fearing mistakes and failure
Believing that Im not creative
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 18 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
The Most Common Idea Stoppers
That doesnt sound too practical
Weve never done anything like that before.
Lets get back to reality
Thats the dumbest thing Ive ever heard.
We have already tried that years ago.
I dont see anything wrong with the way
were doing it now.
Are you kidding?
Where do you get these weird ideas?
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 19 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
What is innovation?
Innovation is the specific instrument of
entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit
change as an opportunity for a different business or
a different service (Drucker, 1985).

Innovation is the ability to apply creative solutions
to problems and opportunities to enhance or to
enrich peoples lives

Entrepreneurs innovate by converting opportunities
into marketable ideas (Kuratko, 2004).

Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 20 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Creativity, Innovation & Invention
Creativity is thinking new things while
innovation is doing new things.
Invention on the other hand is often a product
of research.
Invention is the extreme and riskiest form of
innovation and often associated with
development of a new or better product or
process (Burns, 2008).
Not all inventions lead to a commercially viable
output.

Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 21 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
INTENSITY OF
INNOVATION
Incremental Innovation
Steady improvements
Based on sustaining
technologies
Obedience to cultural routines
and norms
Can be rapidly implemented
Immediate gains
Develop customer loyalty

Radical Innovation
Fundamental rethink
Based on disruptive
technologies
Experimentation and
play/make-believe
Need to be nurtured for long
periods
Worse initial performance,
potential big gains
Create new markets

Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 22 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Examples of Incremental Innovations
Mobile phone was regarded as a radical
innovation (compared to the traditional
stationed phone) when it was first introduced
to the market.

As technology progresses, several features are
progressively added to the phone to enhance
its features & functions.

These innovations on mobile phones are
considered as incremental innovations.

Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 23 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Examples of Radical Innovations
Air Products oxygen separation technology
Analog Devices Air Bag Accelerometer
Dupont Biodegradable polymer, display
technology
General Electric Digital X-ray
General Motors Hybrid vehicle
IBM Silicon Germanium Devices, electronic book
Nortel Networks Internet software rental
UTC/Otis Elevator Bi-directional elevator
Polaroid Memory storage device
Texas Instruments Digital light processor
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 24 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Impact of Innovation
Intensity on the Market
INCREMENTAL INNOVATION
Low market uncertainty
Low technical uncertainty
Low organization uncertainty
Low resource uncertainty


RADICAL INNOVATION
High market uncertainty
High technical uncertainty
High organization uncertainty
High resource uncertainty
LOW
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Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 25 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Basic Types of Innovation
INVENTION - Creating a totally new product, service or
process. Examples: aeroplanes (Wright
brothers), light bulbs (Thomas Edison),
personal GPS (Peter Maire)

EXTENSION - Introducing different application or new use
of existing product, service or process
Examples: laptop, PDAs, walkman

DUPLICATION - Creative replication of an existing concept
Examples: Franchise businesses such as
Chicken Rice Shop

SYNTHESIS - Combining existing concepts or factors into a
new formulation or use.
Example: combining functions of a telephone,
video and camera.
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 26 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Important Technological Innovations
1793 1829

Cotton gin

Practical
Steamboat

Steam powered
locomotive for
passengers and
freight
1830-1900

Telegraph

Vulcanized Rubber

Safety Elevator

Internal
Combustion Engine

Telephone

Phonograph

Radio
1901-1939

Air Conditioner

First Flight

Model T (Ford)

Liquid fueled
Rockets

FM Radio

Jet Engine

Xerography

Helicopter
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 27 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Important Technological Innovations
1940-1949

Color TV

General Purpose,
Electronic, Digital
Computer

Supersonic Flight

Transistor

Instant Camera

Jet Airliner

1950-1969

Sputnik 1 (USSR)

NASA

Integrated Circuit

Operable Laser

First Man In Space

Telstar Satellite

Fiber Optics

Apollo lX

1970 ->

Microprocessor

Recombinant DNA

Laser Printer

MRI Scanner

Space Shuttle

Scanning Tunneling
Microscope
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 28 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Sources of Innovation
Within the company or industry
Unexpected occurrence - unexpected discovery
such as penicillin
Incongruities the gap between what is and what
should be; arise whenever a difference exists
between expectations & reality.
Process needs require entrepreneurs to innovate
and answer a particular needs such as time-saving
devices
Structural change caused by industry and market
changes due to new developments such as
advances in technology.
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 29 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Sources of Innovation
Within the social environment
Demographic changes for example
changes in population, consumer preference
and geographical locations.
Perceptual changes perceptions can
cause mood swings and major changes in
ideas, for example fitness craze is resulted by
perceived needs to be healthy & physically fit
New knowledge the basis of development
of something brand new.
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 30 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Linking Creativity, Innovation & Entrepreneurship
INNOVATION
INVENTION
Ability to be
CREATIVE
Ability to spot
OPPORTUNITIES
ENTREPRENEURIAL ENVIRONMENT
SUCCESS Source: Burns (2008)
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 31 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY
Creative idea flows to invention and invention
flows to innovation.
Creativity can also directly leads to innovation.
Creativity is turned into a practical reality such
as a product through innovation.
The entrepreneurial context as well as
perception of opportunity are necessary to turn
it into a business reality.
Hence, creativity must be linked to
entrepreneurship in order to turn it into
commercial opportunity to be exploited.

Linking Creativity & Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship Dept, FBM (2009) 32 ENT600/UNIT 2: CREATIVITY