Insights into Innovation™
Editor-in-Chief
April W. Klimley
Klimley Communications
28 Riverside Ave., Suite 6H
Red Bank, NJ 07701
1-732-530-1639
AKlimley@aol.com
Contributing Senior Editors
Greg Githens, GDG@catalystPM.com
Gerry Katz, gkatz@ams-inc.com
Beebe Nelson, bnelson@workingforums.com
Specialty Editors
Chapter and Affiliate Spotlights
Tricia Sutton, pasutton@suttonenterprises.com
Launch Pad
Mark Hart, mark_hart@oplaunch.com
NPD Book Briefs and Resources
Leigh Stewart
lmstewart@suttonenterprises.com
Open Innovation
Michael Docherty, mdocherty@venture2.net
Technology
Ed Crowley, eacrowley@photizogroup.com
Visions Advisory Board
Mark Deck, Bob Gill, Michael Menke,
Chris Miller, and Steve Uban
Advertising
Mr. Jordan Amonette
1-317-726-0788
jordan@stevens-stevens.com
Ms. Henry Van Nostrand, PDMA
1-800-232-5241, ext. 1
henry@pdma.org
Subscriptions
See page 42.
Digital Visions
Go to www.digital-visions.com or the
PDMA website, www.pdma.org
Visions magazine keeps members on top of
trends and developments in the new product
development world and the latest thinking
of product development and innovation
leaders. It is published quarterly or three
times a year by the Product Development
and Management Association (PDMA).
Subscriptions are included in PDMA
membership packages or are available at
$85 per year in the United States or $125
abroad.
It looks as if the recession may be over, ac- cording to many economists, despite the continuing high rate of unemployment. That’s
good news. A rebound may be on the way. But
will it be strong enough to energize new product
development (NPD) — a discipline that has taken
a back seat over the past year as many companies
did more cost cutting than innovation?
This is a question we can’t answer. But several
of our authors provide useful recommendations
on how to get through the present recession, and
what to do as the economy pulls out of it. These
articles include:
Gerry Katz’s “Preaching to the converted,” •
which argues that recessions are good times
for innovation,
Brian Christian’s “Mired in a recession: •
What’s an innovator to do?” which recom-mends using “value-focused innovation”
during bad times, and
Jerry’s Thomas’ “In tough times, ‘hyper- •
creatives’ provide inventive advantage.”
This issue also contains a Special Section with
articles from two innovation studies. The first
article is an excerpt from Booz & Company’s
2008 Innovation 1000 study which revealed that
companies are moving the locations of their R&D
research. The accompanying artwork provides
dramatic visual evidence of this. The second
article contains the results of a study by Sood and
Tellis measuring product development results a
very different way—through “total returns on
innovation.” Read the article to learn more about
this concept.
Moving on to some of the “nuts and bolts” of
NPD, this issue offers readers two particularly
useful articles. The first is our cover story — an
overview of “personas” by Tim Grabacki — on
why companies are using them and how to create
them step-by-step. He provides an easy-to-follow
roadmap of this tool that many companies have
adopted to help them better understand users.
We also continue our “Gate Debate” through
an exciting case history that illustrates the use of
“Agile” product development. It is a case history
from the U.S. Army profiling how a Department
of Defense product development team used
“Agile” to create a new software platform within
nine months, integrating complex legacy systems
into it and handling many upgrades during this
complicated process
Our report from the PDMA/IIR 7th Annual
Front End of Innovation Conference in Boston
is packed full of useful information. This year’s
conference organizers created a new interactive
format with expanded content. The reports on
speeches from keynote gurus are particularly
engaging.
Please also take a few minutes to review
our PDMA news section, where you will find
out about PDMA’s first SIG — in the chemical
industry — and be able to examine a series of
reviews of new NPD books , as well as an analysis
of a “classic” in the column by our NPD resource
editor Leigh Stewart.
Finally, a word of thanks to Rich Notargiacomo, whose term as President and Chairman
of PDMA is ending soon. I’d like to thank him
for his steady stewardship during these two
years—guiding PDMA not only through a major
global and administrative growth spurt, but also
through the worst economic downturn since the
Depression. We hope he will remain active with
PDMA and Visions in the future.
EDITORIAL CALENDAR—Visions 2010
Visions welcomes articles on product devel-opment and management. Articles for the
next issue of Visions (March 2010) are due
December 20, 2010. Please submit queries
to the Editor, April W. Klimley, by email
or phone.
Deadlines
Advertisers
January 11, 2010
June 1, 2010
August 23, 2010
October 28, 2010
Issue Authors
March 2010 December 20, 2009
July 2010 May 10, 2010
October 2010 August 2, 2010
* OPTIONAL ISSUE:
December 2010
October 12, 2010
*The schedule may expand from three issues to four. Check the Visions pages on the PDMA website ( www.pdma.org) for the
latest news or contact the editor at VisionsEd@pdma.org. — April Klimley, Editor
Chapters & Affiliates (through PDMA)
January 11, 2010
June 1, 2010
August 23, 2010
October 28, 2010
