Wow! Uh-Oh.

Have I got your attention? The AU Leadership Forum’s (AULF) General Session certainly caught mine. Thought-provoking presentations by Autodesk VPs Callan Carpenter, Brian Mathews, and Jon Pittman on strategy, tech trends, and the interplay of innovation and strategy really set the tone for today’s AULF executive panel and breakout sessions.

Jon Pittman, who is responsible for shaping business strategy at Autodesk, talked about competing through innovation. Successful business strategists want their companies to create “Wow” reactions in their customers (for example, how amazingly real the characters seemed in the movie Avatar), and “Uh oh” responses in their competitors (for example, imagine conventional automaker reaction to Google’s self-driving car). Business strategists want their competitors to say “How do you do that?” Competitive separation is what gives businesses the ability to be profitable and remain that way. It’s the differences that matter, and the solution is innovation.

Sustaining Innovation vs. Breakthrough Innovation

Sustaining innovation is about continuous improvement, scaling, reliability, and responding to trends. According to Jon, Toyota is very good at sustaining innovation (although they’ve had a number of breakthrough innovations as well).

Breakthrough innovation involves using new technologies in new ways to create new solutions, unexpected surprises, experimentation, and leveraging of trends. Jon highlighted Bespoke Innovations, a company that uses scanning and 3D printing to create personalized, attractive fairings that cover prosthetic legs.

All innovation follows a continuum: Impossible > Possible > Impractical > Expected > Required.

Breakthrough innovation takes place in the range of Impossible > Impractical. Sustaining innovation jumps onto the continuum at Possible and continues on. Brian Mathews, VP Autodesk Labs, urged attendees to start investing in a technology when it is at the Impractical stage to stay ahead of the competition, saying “That’s the difference between an innovation and an invention.”

5 Technology Trends That Are Changing the World

Brian then discussed how companies need to take strategy and relate it to technology. He said that at Autodesk Labs, they are seeing 5 current technology trends (and he’s never seen 5 happen all at once!).

#1 Reality Capture—Think about point 3D point clouds, and chips that can be installed in objects to capture all kinds of data.

#2 Cloud Data—Think about storage for all these huge models that are generated as a result of reality capture, combined with remote desktop technology that has a latency of 10 milliseconds or better.

#3 Infinite Computing—Think about doing hundreds of design simulations in parallel, testing, revising, and optimizing the shape of a car as it moves through air. Think about computational evolution, using living organisms to create a bridge or having DNA assembling itself to create objects. Manufacturing is turned upside down when things assemble themselves!

#4 Simulation—Think about how much easier and more effectively you can communicate and collaborate with non-technical people if you can simulate what you are going to make for them.

#5 Digital to Analog Reality (3D Printing)—Think about bio printing (kidneys made to order from your own stem cells), or printing out entire factories (what happens to the construction industry when there is no construction as we know it today?)

Tactical Design vs. Strategic Design

Jon returned to the stage to talk about how companies (and their strategists) need to take a different approach to design. Tactical design, he said, is the usual mode. This type of design tends to be about form, but design is actually more than a thing. Strategic design is a holistic approach to problem-solving that emphasizes user experience, learning through prototyping, and integration of multiple disciplines and perspectives.

To become and remain competitive, companies must respond to technology trends using sustaining innovation, but also use those same technologies to create breakthrough innovations.

--sandy