Do you have more tips from your own experience? Thanks for sharing!
Eager to boost an ideation or innovation project at your company? Let’s chat: coffee@boardofinnovation.com

Do you have ambitious innovation plans? Let’s connect and have a (virtual) coffee via coffee@boardofinnovation.com

PS: You can also find a sneak preview of our new structured innovation process on slide 23, but more on that later!

Electric cars, city charging points, biofuel, … eMobility seems to be the future; but are we really ready for this? The whole “transforming process” from the current automotive industry to the greener one  seems to go very slow. The few  electric cars are still too expensive for most people and getting the world population on the eMobility-track is something that will take a lot of time…

What if we could attract consumers to cooperate in this story? Is it possible to bring industry, government and consumers together to think about it, together?

As we believe co-creation is about sharing ideas & thoughts, to achieve a better result, we decided to share this study as well with you. We hope you learn as much as we did by scanning these platforms.

Still some remarks? Suggestions? Ideas? Feel free to download (pdf), to share, to comment or to contact us for further information!

Electric cars, city charging points, biofuel, … eMobility seems to be the future; but are we really ready for this? The whole “transforming process” from the current automotive industry to the greener one  seems to go very slow. The few  electric cars are still too expensive for most people and getting the world population on the eMobility-track is something that will take a lot of time…

What if we could attract consumers to cooperate in this story? Is it possible to bring industry, government and consumers together to think about it, together?

As we believe co-creation is about sharing ideas & thoughts, to achieve a better result, we decided to share this study as well with you. We hope you learn as much as we did by scanning these platforms.

Still some remarks? Suggestions? Ideas? Feel free to download (pdf), to share, to comment or to contact us for further information!

Today, I’m going to focus on Portugal, which made the headlines last week, maybe not for the best of reasons. But leaving that on the side, what I bring today to the table is the fact that small countries can be very interesting labs when one wants to do a Proof of Concept for a product, or test the market, before a world wide deployment. When you want to launch a new product or test a new business model on a global scale, you usually want to be sure that it makes sense and works, otherwise consequences can be quite serious (and costly). The answer is to do a Proof of Concept, and for that you usually need the following:

1. A big enough market so that it is statistically representative: You need to test a concept that then can be replicated to other bigger and different markets, and the behavior needs to be sound and consistent enough to be transposed to those markets.
2. A small enough market, so that consequences of a flop are mitigated: The experience can’t cost too much and must be doable with reasonable resources.
3. A controllable enough market, so that you can understand all the variables at play: You need to control all the main variables, otherwise it is not an experiment.
4. A market who is not too biased by legacy and open enough to new things: If here is too much tradition, or a conservative market, it is difficult to push through new ideas or concepts. The ideal is to pick a country who has developed recently, likes novelty and a lot of things still have to be done.

This is why sometimes multinational companies, specially in the Information Technology sector use Portugal as a Proof of Concept lab when they want to launch new products. I can remember Cisco, after acquiring Scientific Atlanta, who wanted to test their set top boxes in a widespread installation in a cable/ipTV environment.

This is also why it was not too hard for TMN to succeed at launching the first pre-paid mobile phone plan over almost 2 decades ago. And Brisa launched quite a few years ago a system called Via Verde, who first allowed you to pay highway tolls and now let’s you pay parking and pump up gas with a simple electronic transponder glued to your car’s windshield.

And SIBS, which is a not for profit company whose shareholders are the entire banking system in the country, manages all the ATM machines in the country and offers in every single machine everything you could want from a bank counter, open 24h a day. And you can also create a virtual and temporary credit card if you want to do some on-line shopping without giving away your normal credit card number. I’ll be digging into each of these interesting innovation examples in detail in the next posts, and then will also do an in depth analysis of Spain.

Cheers,
Pedro Cerdeira
Ambassador for Spain and Portugal

How is it possible that cars are offered for free? Which alternative payment methods can be used to reward customers for co-creating product? Are you still ahead of the latest trends? Throughout the year, Nick and I are travelling around to give inspiring lectures and workshops on trends, innovation and new business models. Come and taste new business models at our upcoming sessions in Amsterdam and Mumbai; or get in touch to meet before or after!

Feb 6 – Meet us at The Entrepreneurship Summit in Mumbai, India

The Entrepreneurship Summit is a unique initiative by E-Cell, part of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. The summit brings together hundreds of aspiring entrepreneurs, start-ups, venture capitalists and business leaders. I’ll be giving a plenary interactive lecture at 2 PM on February 6th on how people and organisations can build strong business models. I’m looking forward to jump into the Indian business and start-up scene this weekend!

Mar 17 – Business Model Tasting in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

What is business model innovation exactly? How can my organization benefit from it? And how do I get started? Get practical answers and instant inspiration on the new Business Model Tasting in Amsterdam on March 17. In a few hours you will:

• Gain insight in new experimental business models
• Exercise a set of visual tools to evaluate and strengthen your own model
• Receive some free templates, checklists and much more!

Don’t expect a lecture but an interactive workshop in small groups. The session is suited for entrepreneurs, marketing, sales and innovation managers. Cost is €150. The event is co-organized by Syntens, Pytch.nl and Board of Innovation. Interested? Read more and book!

Why should the next Business Model Tasting be in your city or company? As both sessions were sold out quickly, we’ve already got a number of questions for a next edition including some proposals for a location (Antwerp, Rotterdam…). We will do one more in 2010! Let us know if you think this should be in your organization or in your region! Also, if you are running an innovative business concept that you feel we should let everyone taste, tip us on twitter @philderidder/@nickdemey or via info@boardofinnovation.com.

Through a series of prototypes and workshops, we’ve found that the extended set better suits the subtleties of business models across different sectors. The new BM Blocks were used for the first time at our Business Model Tastings in Hasselt and Ghent (some action photos). What else? Brainstorm kits with magnetic blocks, business modeling with the blocks on the iPad,… stay tuned! What do you think? Send us your feedback via the contact form or directly to @philderidder/@nickdemey on twitter (tag: #bmblocks).

Define the answer yourself at

www.NederlandvsBelgie.nl or www.BelgievsNederland.be

You can pick your inspiring reward after answering just 6 questions about innovation. Do you choose for an in-company, inspiration workshop (half day, value: 1,200 EUR) or a 50% reduction on the Business Model Innovation training? The results of the study will be presented at several events after the summer, and will be processed into the development of new innovation tools where it seems desirable. In which innovation direction do you pull?

1. How can Hollrr.com pay bloggers for spotting new products?
   Early-adopters spot new products, and actively spread the word about their ‘discovery’. Hollrr’s system rewards them for their exposure.
2. From In-Game Advertising to In-Game Selling: The Next Big Thing?
   The game offers a platform to bring together buyer and sellers, and brings benefits to both, which we know as a brokerage service.
3. Online Auctions: From Products (eBay) to Experiences (Sweemo)
   In their own words: “Sweemo is the live auction community where people come to trade real-life experiences”.
4. Niiu.de, unique personalised newspapers printed on paper
   Niiu’s unique businesses model combines customized news with the classic paper experience, and looks promising.
5. Razor-blade model disrupted by Razwar’s subscription service
   Instead of using the traditional (Gillette) bait-and-hook model, Razwar markets razors as a convenient subscription service.
6. My Starbucks Idea, Free Crowdsourcing Of Product Ideas
   On MyStarbucksIdea.com people can post their ideas to improve their Starbucks experience and see how Starbucks puts those ideas to work.
7. Nexicon, turning fear into cash
   Nexicon threats with legal action if distributors don’t settle within 10 days by paying 10 dollar per illegally shared item.
8. Kickstarter.com – community funding of extraordinary projects
   Kickstarter let’s people reach out to the masses and community to fund their extraordinary dreams and projects.
9. Quirky, get paid to influence product designs
   Quirky has a very intriguing multi-level business model that shows other web 2.0 projects that making money from day one is possible.
10. A non-advertising based Free business by TruGenetics
    TruGenetics gives away free individual genome reports to its users, in order to build up interesting group data to sell.

Interested in visualizing and submitting your own business model? Try our these business model templates and send us your results for feedback.