STALKING THE “AHA” FACTOR IN PRODUCT INNOVATION—ACCIDENT OR DESIGN?

Abstract

After all is said about new product strategy, we are still faced with the elusive prospect of generating a successful idea. Where do we look? How do ideas happen? Can they be made to occur? And, how do we know at the outset that the concepts we create will bring us into the winner's circle? Let's get down to fundamentals. Our quest is usually success driven. If that is so, the scenario is product turnaround or next generation, and that requires product innovation, and that can come from idea management. Success centers around the prospect of having a better and presumably profitable mousetrap in the right place at the right time. How can we devise strategies for dreaming up such a mouse‐trap? Can we chart a direct path from the present to some undefined product configuration in the future? For the most part that process in industry is often chancy or subject to happenstance. Management mindset sometimes presumes that in some strange way the right ideas and concepts will come forth from within the organization, although it is generally not known how this is to be achieved. We often rely on the belief or hope that a solution will emerge which will achieve an innovative “aha” breakthrough that will increase the prospects for product success. Leaving aside inspiration, wishful thinking, hunch, luck, and other subjective approaches, I would like to identify a few ways by which the “aha” factor might be more aggressively pursued and more consistently bagged.

Citation

Joshua Abend, C. (1984), "STALKING THE “AHA” FACTOR IN PRODUCT INNOVATION—ACCIDENT OR DESIGN?", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 49-54. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb008085