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December 20, 2006

Innovation From Monday Night Football to Monday Morning Quarterbacks

(Cross-posted from HedgeStop.com)

It’s the holiday season: Spending time with family. Eating a flightless bird. And, if you’re like so many others, watching football on TV. In the 86 years since the first NFL game was played between the Dayton Triangles and the Columbus Panhandles, a lot of innovation has taken place in professional sports (not the least of which is the creation of much, much cooler team names).

Two recent articles, one from MSN and the other from FOX Sports, provide a great overview of the changes that have taken place, and the impact they’ve had on the game.

MSN took a look at the “Five Ways Technology Changed Football,” noting that:

“Instant replay. Sky cams. Radios transmitters in the quarterback’s helmet. Statistical analyses by the screenful. All are now taken for granted as an indispensable part of today’s sports scene. But it wasn’t always so.

Pat Summerall, who began his pro football career in the 1950s as a kicker with the New York Giants, and later became a broadcasting legend with CBS, Fox and ESPN, remembers the “low-tech” pre-replay days.

“I was actually in a room underneath Yankee Stadium [where the Giants used to play] with a Polaroid camera taking pictures of the television sets that were available,” Summerall recalls. “They would isolate on one individual and I would take a Polaroid photograph of that picture and take it back to the director in the control truck. That was the beginning of instant replay, the isolated camera and the replays that we have today.””

Their five picks for the most impactful technological innovations?

1. Instant Replay
2. Statistics
3. High-Tech Medicine
4. High-Tech Coaching
5. Technology for Fans

Check out their full explanations for their decisions here.

FOX Sports also reminds us that in professional sports, like most everywhere else, innovation doesn’t always occur smoothly:

“In the summer of 1994, when the NFL introduced a helmet-radio system that enabled coaches to send plays directly to the quarterback, Los Angeles Rams' QB Chris Miller stood in the huddle during an afternoon practice session in training camp and heard in his ear-piece not the gruff voice of head coach Chuck Knox, but an order from the drive-thru window at a nearby fast-food joint.”

Oops.

In their article “Techno-sport: Big changes for players, viewers,” FOX looks at changes across a number of sports, and how they impact not only the quarterbacks, but the Monday morning quarterbacks, too.

”Unlike the inventions of the 19th Century, today's changes occur at DSL speed. In the age of Google and YouTube, computers lead the way. Baseball players like Jeter analyze their at-bats — and scout the next day's starting pitcher — from DVD compilations they play on their lap-top computers. Then, they download their favorite tunes to iPods for their workouts.

During NFL games, technicians photograph and then download images of the opposition's defense so that their team's offensive unit can better identify and attack those schemes.

On the NASCAR circuit, computerized electronic devices probe every facet of engine and tire performance during training laps in an effort to boost performance and speed. Pro golfers use computer-enhanced club design — along with sleek graphite shafts and titanium faces — that enables even the Fred Funks on the Tour to blast the ball 300 yards down the fairway.

No surprise, then, that sports are now played in modern-day engineering wonders. The NFL's newest facility, the Arizona Cardinals' University of Phoenix Stadium, debuted this September in Glendale, Az.

The venue boasts a retractable roof, but that's not what makes this state-of-the-art stadium so special. The all-grass field is North America's first retractable playing surface; it is contained within a 17-million pound tray that, powered by electronic motors, can be rolled in and out of the stadium within 45-60 minutes. (The $355 million stadium will host the annual Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the first-ever Bowl Championship Series title game in January of 2007, and Super Bowl XLII in February of 2008.)”

The article has an interesting ending, worth reading even if you don’t like sports that much:

What's certain is that technology will continue to influence and change sports in every imaginable way — and, frankly, in ways that are unimaginable to us today.

The 10-year-old kid who endlessly plays "Madden" will concoct the next generation of video games (except that the term "video game" will no longer exist). The assistant manager of the high-school track team will invent a sneaker with interchangeable soles for every imaginable running surface. Skateboards of the future will use recycled compounds that enable riders to jump incredibly vast distances. NASCAR vehicles will be powered by electricity. TV networks will cover sporting events with cameras in space (and maybe even cover events in space)

It’s a good reminder of a few things: (1) The people who use your product today are the people most likely to come up with a better use for your product tomorrow. (2) Nothing stays in the silo it started in. Football started on a grass field, moved to a TV screen, and then to a video game box. Innovation in any one of those places will likely impact the others. (3) Change, for both good and bad, is inevitable. (4) We’re likely to be disappointed and feel shortchanged by changes that occur in the short term. And we’re likely to be blown away by the changes that occur over the distant future. It’s the nature of innovation.

December 04, 2006

SPARC'ing Innovation

(Cross-posted from HedgeStop.com)

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota is known for a number of things: With regard to performance, it is consistently ranked second among best hospitals in the United States. It’s operations make it one of the largest non-profits in the United States, if not the world. And the number of people it services each year is stunning: In 2004, the hospital handled:

- 513,377 unique patients
- 2,271,484 total outpatient visits
- 130,093 hospital admissions
- 599,002 hospital days of patient care.

It is also becoming one of the hotbeds of medical innovation, starting with the brand new SPARC lab, a “clinical innovation lab that operates like a design shop and that specializes in the ‘patient experience.’” From Fast Company magazine:

Doctors, nurses, and other staffers do what designers do: They interview, shadow, and observe customers (in this case, patients) to uncover their needs, brainstorm with abandon, and engage in rapid prototyping--hence, the paper kiosk.

Despite its status as one of the best known and most respected medical facilities in the world, Mayo is wrestling with the same issues that designers routinely tackle: In an increasingly competitive field, how do you differentiate yourself? How do you generate fresh ideas and implement them in a timely fashion? And how do you make sure those ideas actually benefit customers?

Mayo's program is "definitely unique, and it has enormous implications," says Dr. Samantha Collier, vice president of medical affairs at HealthGrades, which rates the quality of the nation's hospitals. "Medicine has long been embedded in tradition. But just because this is what we've done since the days of Marcus Welby doesn't mean it's still the best way. [Mayo] could find disruptive ways of practicing medicine better. This isn't just about customer service but about quality."

SPARC is not simply a research lab or a medical clinic. It's both. Real patients see real doctors and, in doing so, participate in experiments (they're briefed and asked for permission). Instead of being shunted off-site, the program is based in the Mayo Building like any other clinic; it occupies a corridor that used to house urology. The acronym, which stands for "see, plan, act, refine, and communicate," is meant to remind participants of the design-oriented methodology so they'll continue to employ it when they return to their departments.

The idea grew out of the realization that outpatient care is overdue for fresh ideas. "Medicine has changed, people have changed, technology has changed, but the exam room isn't so different than it was in the 1800s," says Dr. Michael Brennan, an associate chair in the department of medicine, where the program originated. Mayo wants its doctors to apply the same experimental approach to clinical innovation that they apply to scientific innovation.

It’s a great idea: Use your strengths in one area (scientific innovation) to another areas (clinical innovation). Host the facility right in the midst of the operating environment (the former urology department). Create an open environment, both in the facility itself (with the Steelcase materials) and with the lines of communication between patient, doctor, and administrator.

What lessons can be taken from this and used in your company?

December 01, 2006

Losing Touch...

We all do it. Sitting at our desks and a little short on work, we start Googling old friends and people we've lost touch with, wondering just what they're up to. On my lunch break today, I was doing just this and came across the website for Walker & Cantrell. I went to high school with Sarah Walker, and remember her as being one of those really great people--smart, funny, attractive, etc. It's great to see her doing well, and the duo sounds fantastic. If you're in the NYC area, you can find their show listing here.