Jul. 16, 2018 "How employees can- and must- protect intellectual property": Today I found this article by Jeff McDowell in the Globe and Mail:
Chief operating officer of Primal AI
The current economic uncertainty is nothing compared to the financial crisis of 10 years ago. Then, not many companies or consumers were considering the potential of artificial intelligence. In fact, AI was still somewhat seen as science fiction. As an AI company that endured that economic uncertainty, Primal has a unique perspective on how to motivate your work force to innovate to strengthen your business and the Canadian economy, independent of the global environment.
STRONG VISION
While no business can claim immunity from the challenges economic uncertainty brings, we believe there are a few strategies that can enable a business to innovate during these periods. The most important is establishing a compelling vision for what unique business problems your company is attempting to solve. The intellectual challenge of accomplishing something no one else has done before will motivate employees.
Businesses must have conviction about achieving your mission, no matter the external factors that may threaten to take you off-course, be it trade headwinds or the latest buzz-worthy AI tool.
We didn’t begin 12 years ago with a vision of being an AI company. We were focused on a specific problem – how to use technology to find meaning contained within small data. This involved complex data science and research that had never been focused on before.
We had a strong nucleus of innovators that stayed true to this vision, and several years ago, it became clear that the emerging AI market was shifting toward us. That validated our mission and made us more focused.
We had a strong nucleus of innovators that stayed true to this vision, and several years ago, it became clear that the emerging AI market was shifting toward us. That validated our mission and made us more focused.
Solving a major AI problem is like landing on the moon. There’s lots of risk, but incredible payoff in being the first one to do it. While some larger companies may provide financial incentives for patent discovery to encourage the discipline of protecting intellectual property (IP), the unique problem that our company was focused on was more than enough to keep our work force passionate about finding the solution.
BEING THOUGHTFUL ABOUT INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGIES
To stay true to your mission, you can’t be a trend-chaser; you need to be thoughtful about integrating new technologies into your business. At a recent conference I attended, a panelist made reference to companies “sprinkling some AI on that” as a strategy − and although it was said in jest, sadly too often this is true (and not just with AI).
As with all things in business, the advantage comes not from AI technology itself, but from deeply understanding the mechanics of your company and how you will benefit from the deployment of new technologies.
For some companies, AI may fit best within their customer-service function − but that doesn’t mean you should just add chatbots to your website. We’re working on a case where AI acts as a virtual assistant, monitoring a chat between a customer and a service agent and suggesting highly relevant resources in real-time to the service agent as new questions arise.
This allows the agent to remain empathic and engaged in the conversation, rather than furiously searching a knowledge base for prescriptive answers that may be hit or miss.
This allows the agent to remain empathic and engaged in the conversation, rather than furiously searching a knowledge base for prescriptive answers that may be hit or miss.
PROTECTING YOUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Unlike revenue, IP is an asset that is less impacted by short-term economic fluctuations and can help buffer your business to withstand times of economic uncertainty. Primal has 148 international patents, but as we built our company, we didn’t motivate our employees by setting a patent goal to achieve.
We established a mindset of evaluating each new aspect of a solution to determine if the idea was new, core to our technology and worth protecting. If so, we patented it, and this led to an extensive portfolio. By protecting IP, it bolstered employee conviction that we were onto something noteworthy and solidified their commitment to the vision.
We established a mindset of evaluating each new aspect of a solution to determine if the idea was new, core to our technology and worth protecting. If so, we patented it, and this led to an extensive portfolio. By protecting IP, it bolstered employee conviction that we were onto something noteworthy and solidified their commitment to the vision.
One of the strengths of Canada’s economy is the fact that we have so many innovative homegrown AI companies. As the global AI race speeds up in parallel to increasing economic uncertainty, the need to keep this valuable IP protected is imperative.
Unfortunately, protecting IP is an area where Canada lags globally. Only 10 per cent of small and medium-sized businesses in Canada have IP, and only 9 per cent have IP strategies.
The Canadian government is helping reverse this trend with its new national IP strategy, which supports local innovators through increased resources and legislation. But it’s Canadian companies ourselves who need to see the value in protecting IP − to keep our employees motivated and validate their innovations, to protect our businesses’ hard-won knowledge and to keep strong companies growing and thriving in the Canadian economy.
sorry the girls in HR ruined everything . Toxic workplaces are everywhere - Company your on your own , complete with growing executive salaries and bonuses - even in the years a company looses money !
Feb. 24, 2018 "Of flywheels and Doom Loop": Today I found this article by Harvey Schachter in the Globe and Mail:
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/GAM/20180224/RBCAMANAGING
MANAGING -- There was much to learn from Jim Collins's 2001 book Good to Great, which studied companies that had made the transition from mediocre to superlative through what was revealed to be a series of common steps.
But one finding that has been starkly overlooked by leaders is that the good-to-great companies never had a big transformation program in which they unveiled and installed their new, successful formula.
"There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no wrenching revolution," he wrote.
Yet, companies still install new leaders who are expected in 90 days to come up with a grand program of transformation - even when the company is operating well. And existing leaders feel that pressure, too. It seems these days leadership requires proclaiming a new strategy and an accompanying program to implement it every two or three years.
Leaders who don't oblige are considered failing at their job.
But Mr. Collins studied leaders and companies who tried that.
And it was those constant programs, often erratic and unrelated to previous efforts, that were the cause of failure. He termed it "the Doom Loop," in which efforts don't work out, a new program is therefore concocted, and it doesn't work, and so on.
The failure comes in part because no single effort was sustained.
So if you're a leader, seeking a new strategy and a program of change, think twice.
If that seems astonishing, at first Mr. Collins couldn't believe it either. His methodology is to compare companies over time - a historical matched pairs experiment. He had found 11 companies that had 15-year cumulative stock returns at or below the general stock market, punctuated by a transition point, then cumulative returns of at least three times the market over the next 15 years.
So he expected something magical had happened at that transition point. And he primed his researchers to ask executives at those companies how they got the commitment and alignment behind their change effort.
But one day, he recalls in an interview, a frustrated researcher threw his binder with the collected information on the table and told Mr. Collins it was a stupid question: "That's not what happened. They don't understand the question."
Mr. Collins had discovered what he now calls "the flywheel effect." Flywheels are mechanical devices that efficiently store rotational energy. They can be difficult to get moving, but once they do if you keep pushing they feed in part upon their own energy.
The companies in a disciplined way had discovered things that worked for them and kept pushing hard on their flywheel to be successful. "It's the compounding consistency that builds tremendous results," he says.
Their transition came not through a brilliant vision or a flamboyant transformation strategy devised at a management retreat. It came out of the best of their current activities, pursued doggedly.
The study had included comparators for each company - another organization with a similar background and in a similar environment that failed to make the change. They were doing what your company probably does today.
"They kept trying new programs, new visions, and new strategies and never got the compounding effect from doing something basically good and keeping it up," he says.
Of course, the good-to-great companies had set the foundation for their flywheel by some other counterintuitive approaches that his book delineated. For example, their leaders were the antithesis of the charismatic saviours we would expect.
By contrast, they were humble but determined. Instead of immediately setting out strategy, they focused first on getting the right people on the metaphoric bus, kicking off people who didn't fit, and putting people in the right slots.
They faced the brutal reality of their situation and sketched out what the book called "the Hedgehog Concept,"
which involves determining what drives your economic engine,
what you can be the best in the world at,
and what you are passionate about.
Much of that is missed by leaders today as well. But arguably the biggest mistake leaders make is pronouncing dramatic new visions and strategies - too often unconnected if not contradictory to previous initiatives - rather than understanding and building on their flywheel.
We'll look at how to build your flywheel next week.
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/GAM/20180224/RBCAMANAGING
Oct. 10, 2020 My opinion: This reminds me of a book I read this year called The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.
My favorite parts of the article that relate to the book:
"It's the compounding consistency that builds tremendous results," he says.
It came out of the best of their current activities, pursued doggedly.
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