”Frust” 20.01.2007 Presenteres 09.02

What is a ”frust” (”pain”) Product / technology that seeks a market or a market that seeks a product / technology? För att förklara en frust så kan vi starta med innovationer och hur innovationer kommer till. För att förenkla det hela så kan man säga att innovationer antingen kommer till genom att någon uppfinner en ny produkt eller teknologi som söker en marknad där lösningen kan lösa problem. Lasern är ett bra exempel på detta. Den första fungerande versionen av lasern tillverkades 1960 i Kalifornien i USA. Man hade några tänkbara applikationer till den, som spektrometri, men i stora hela var det egentligen bara en ny teknologi och man visste inte på det stora hela vad man skulle med den till. Kallades till och med en lösning som letade efter ett problem. Man sökte en marknad. Först 10-15 år senare så började man hitta en marknad för den. T.ex. Telekommunikation där man behövde koherent ljus för att kunna transportera signaler i glasfibertrådar. Streckkodsläsare är en annan applikation som dök upp tidigt, i mitten av 1970-talet. Sedan dess har det bara växt. För det andra, någon kanske tänkte på ett problem, kommer på att flera lider av samma problem och börjar sedan leta efter en gammal eller ny produkt eller teknologi för att lösa detta problem. Exempel skulle kunna vara trepunktssäkerhetsbältet. Volvo tar åt sig äran för detta och i viss mån ska de väl ha det också, men det var inte dom som tog upp det från början. Det var läkarna på sjukhusen som reagerade på att det blev så svåra skador även vid krockar i små hastigheter. En av läkarna satt med i en frivillig organisation, där fanns en fru med till en volvo-anställd som i sin tur började fundera på problemet och så vidare. Traditionellt, så har den första varit mer vanligt förekommande. Det ligger också i linje med många traditionella modeller på innovation, där man ser innovation som något som först kommer ur grundforskning – utveckling – marknad i en technology push. Visst så är det fortfarande i mångt och mycket. Men, i alla fall enligt Lars Monrad-Krohn, så har det blivit vanligare med den andra sortens innovationer, den som tar marknaden som utgångspunkt. Koncept som användardriven innovation och att se till lead-customers är ex. SCA – hygien products – master students to third world countries to see how poor woman develop solves the problem of female hygiene products in order to get ideas. Looking at in this second way also leads us into Frust or Pain because Frust is a way to find or think of common problems that may be solved by a product or technology and that may be enough of a problem to create a market.

Frust Typically a ”frust” is something that people are frustrated with, and where a technology or other can be applied to solve the problem. Typical areas are: Sheer frustrations (e.g. Why does this cost this much?, Why does not this and that exist?) Bottlenecks (e.g. process problems) Improvements (e.g. efficiency problems) Future ”frusts” (e.g. demographic changes) Sheer frustrations: Paraply. For example, when you go one the subway here you can see the screens but they close to always only show the time table – not how long it will actually take before the train comes! Why? I want to know where my train is, not when it is supposed to come according to the time table. My parents annoyed with murder snails. Bottlenecks: Drucker Around 1909, a statistician at the American Telephone and Telegraph company projected two curves 15 years out: The telephone traffic and American population. Viewed together they showed that by 1920 or so every single female in the United States would have to work as a switchboard operator. The process need was obvious, and withing tow years, AT&T had developed and installed the automatic switchboard. Improvements: Think, for example, about IT and how much IT has improved efficiency in many instances. I believe that there is still a lot to do actually. Future frusts: Demographic changes: Take for example robotics. In Japan they are way ahead in robotics, and one reason is that they think in demographic terms. Population statistics change, and change faster than managers usually believe, i.e. In terms of age distribution, education, occupations, and geographic location.

Frust Note: Focus first on the problem and the different aspects of it – then the solution! Problem Solution Example: A classic example is the owner of skyscrapes in New York. At a point he received plenty of complaints that the elevators were going to slowly. What to do? Well, if one had not analyzed the problem much further one might have called upon an elevator company to install even faster elevators. However, what he did was to penetrate the problem a bit further. Upon doing that he found that the real problem was that people were bored in the elevators. The solution does not always need to be a new technology, it can be a new kind of distribution etc., a new kind of pricing model (google). Murder snails for example: It was not about finding any new miraclulous substance that would kill these little monsters. Such substances were already available on the market, the problem was just that it cost too much.

Homework Step 1) Find a ”FRUST”! (2 pers / gruppe) Interview for example people to find out more of problems/frustrations – those closest to the problem often have the best knowledge of it. Step 2) Propose a solution to the ”FRUST” That is, try to find out an idea for a business plan. Naturally, the solution should also be able to generate money.

FRUST Also, for our next gathering prepare a presentation of the FRUST that you have found. The presentations should be made on transparency films be maximum 3 minutes Remember that these ideas could be the basis for all other work til exams, so try hard to find something out.