| |
| |
| Foreword | |
| |
| |
| Prologue: Unlearning What's Untrue | |
| |
| |
| Acknowledgments | |
| |
| |
| Introduction to the Model | |
| |
| |
| About the Authors | |
| |
| |
| |
| Systems | |
| |
| |
| |
| Invention: Ah Attempt to Improve the World | |
| |
| |
| |
| Understanding Inventions: A Brief Introduction to the System Model | |
| |
| |
| |
| Edison's Electric Grid as a System | |
| |
| |
| |
| The System behind the iPhone | |
| |
| |
| Supporting the iPhone: The System Elements in Action | |
| |
| |
| Review Questions | |
| |
| |
| |
| Understanding Patents: An Application of the System Model | |
| |
| |
| |
| Plasmon Waveguide | |
| |
| |
| Spotting System Elements in a Patent Claim | |
| |
| |
| |
| Building an Intelligent Remote Control | |
| |
| |
| Discovering New Opportunities and Addressing New Threats | |
| |
| |
| Using the System Model to Solve the Problem and Patent the Solution | |
| |
| |
| |
| System Interfaces: How the Elements Work Together | |
| |
| |
| |
| Edison's Light Bulb Socket | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Universal Serial Bus Interface | |
| |
| |
| |
| Apple's 30-Pin Connector | |
| |
| |
| |
| User Interfaces (UIs) | |
| |
| |
| Review Questions | |
| |
| |
| |
| System Control Points: Where to Aim the Silver Bullets | |
| |
| |
| Control Points as Opportunities for Innovation | |
| |
| |
| Control Point Example 1: Microsoft Office versus Google Docs | |
| |
| |
| In Google We Trust: Leveraging Control Points | |
| |
| |
| Control Point Example 2: Privacy Is Dead. Long Live E-Commerce! | |
| |
| |
| Control Point Example 3: The Application Programming Interface | |
| |
| |
| Review Questions | |
| |
| |
| Conclusions | |
| |
| |
| References for Section I | |
| |
| |
| Section II Outside the Box | |
| |
| |
| |
| Outside the Box: Developing Skills for Creative Thinking | |
| |
| |
| |
| Seeing the Outlines of the Box: Discovering the Boundaries of a System | |
| |
| |
| Moving beyond the Box | |
| |
| |
| Review Questions | |
| |
| |
| |
| Inventor's Luck: A System Perspective | |
| |
| |
| What Is Luck? | |
| |
| |
| What Is a Lot of Luck? | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Three Magicians: Tools for Flexible Thinking | |
| |
| |
| Running a Three Magicians Session | |
| |
| |
| |
| Divide-Connect (What Is the Functionality of the Box? Does It Work?) | |
| |
| |
| |
| Climb-on-the-Roof (Does It Scale?) | |
| |
| |
| |
| Fall Back-Spring Ahead (Is There a Need for Scale?) | |
| |
| |
| The First Council of Magicians: Lean to the Ground (Past and Present) | |
| |
| |
| Review Questions | |
| |
| |
| |
| Imagination Development: Seeing the World beyond Present-Day Constraints | |
| |
| |
| Scale-Time-Money (STM): Tools for Exponential Thinking | |
| |
| |
| Playing with Time and Money | |
| |
| |
| Imagination Development: Conclusions about the Scale-Time-Money Tool | |
| |
| |
| Review Questions | |
| |
| |
| |
| Summary | |
| |
| |
| References Section II | |
| |
| |
| |
| System Evolution and Innovation Timing | |
| |
| |
| |
| The S Curve: Dynamics of Systems Thinking | |
| |
| |
| |
| A Stage of System Evolution: Synthesis | |
| |
| |
| The Destruction of Paper Books: Evolution of a System | |
| |
| |
| Conclusions Regarding the Synthesis Stage of a System | |
| |
| |
| Review Questions | |
| |
| |
| |
| A Stage of System Evolution: Early Growth | |
| |
| |
| Signs of Evolution: The Emergence of a Dominant Design | |
| |
| |
| Dealing with Copycats during the Early Growth Stage | |
| |
| |
| Fighting Copycats with Patents | |
| |
| |
| Keeping Secrets from Copycats | |
| |
| |
| Encouraging Copycats | |
| |
| |
| Licensing Inventions to Copycats | |
| |
| |
| Conclusions: Regarding the Early Growth Stage of a System | |
| |
| |
| |
| A Stage of System Evolution: Distribution Buildup | |
| |
| |
| Review Questions | |
| |
| |
| |
| Growing Up: A Paradigm Shift within the System | |
| |
| |
| |
| Infrastructure Innovations: Timing Is Everything | |
| |
| |
| Timing Example 1: $1.4 Billion for Rooftop Solar Power Plants | |
| |
| |
| Evaluating the Green Energy Argument | |
| |
| |
| Timing Example 2: The Google Fiber Project | |
| |
| |
| |
| Infrastructure and Growth: Zooming In on the Micro Level | |
| |
| |
| |
| A Stage of System Evolution: Efficiency | |
| |
| |
| Systemwide Electricity Disasters | |
| |
| |
| Efficiency and the Future of the E-Book | |
| |
| |
| |
| Payload Evolution: From Physical to Virtual | |
| |
| |
| Notable Early Attempts to Innovate with Large Collections of Documents | |
| |
| |
| The Birth of the World Wide Web | |
| |
| |
| Monetizing the Web: The Origins of Internet Commerce and User Interactivity | |
| |
| |
| A Revolution in the Making: Detecting Major System-Level Shifts in Technology and Business | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Web Is Dead: Abandoning Documents and Files in Favor of Information Streams | |
| |
| |
| Is the Web Dead? | |
| |
| |
| Example 1: Wikipedia versus Facebook | |
| |
| |
| Wikipedia | |
| |
| |
| Facebook | |
| |
| |
| |
| Deconstructing Luck: Factors Affecting the Success of a System | |
| |
| |
| Review Questions | |
| |
| |
| |
| Seeing the Invisible: The System behind the New Internet | |
| |
| |
| Google versus Facebook: The Battle for the Control Functionality | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Book Electric: A Scenario of E-Book Evolution | |
| |
| |
| Building the E-Book System | |
| |
| |
| |
| Payload Overload: Managing the Ever-Increasing Flows of Information | |
| |
| |
| The Electronic Program Guide | |
| |
| |
| DHL Express: The Signal before the Payload | |
| |
| |
| A Brief System Analysis | |
| |
| |
| |
| Anticipating Control Problems: The Telegram before the Train | |
| |
| |
| |
| System Efficiency: Solving Detection Problems to Improve Control | |
| |
| |
| |
| Stages of System Evolution: Deep Integration | |
| |
| |
| |
| Choosing the Right Problem: Matching Innovation Targets with Stages of System Evolution | |
| |
| |
| |
| Tech Battles: Discovering System-Level Competitive Advantages | |
| |
| |
| Considering the Tool Functionality | |
| |
| |
| Considering the Source Functionality | |
| |
| |
| Considering the Distribution Functionality | |
| |
| |
| Considering the Packaged Payload Functionality | |
| |
| |
| Considering the Control Functionality | |
| |
| |
| Summary of the Tech Battle Technique | |
| |
| |
| |
| TiVo versus VCR: A Detailed Application Example of the Tech Battle Technique | |
| |
| |
| TiVo versus VCR: The Tool | |
| |
| |
| TiVo versus VCR: The Source | |
| |
| |
| TiVo versus VCR: The Distribution | |
| |
| |
| TiVo versus VCR: The Packaged Payload | |
| |
| |
| TiVo versus VCR: The Control | |
| |
| |
| Conclusions: Regarding the Tech Battle Technique | |
| |
| |
| Review Questions | |
| |
| |
| References Section III | |
| |
| |
| Index | |