INNOVA, Inc.
The primary purpose of INNOVA, Inc. is to support the development of creative and innovative thinking focused on the vision and objectives of an organization. We employ a process consultation model to assist corporations in gaining the best from the collective efforts of their employees.
Because an organization is a living organism, it can best be characterized by its ability to renew itself and transcend boundaries that have become self-limiting. The innovative thinking which generates the skills necessary to expand these boundaries can be taught, learned and applied in a team environment.
Through the implementation of a variety of assessments, team analysis, personal and team dynamic profiles, executive retreats, coaching and mentoring, INNOVA, Inc. facilitates the insights and solutions created by the interactions within an organization.
Our focus is on creative thinking and innovation related to organizational leadership and change. This is accomplished through:
- Creative Leadership Development
- Transition Strategies
- Team Dynamics
- Organizational Diagnoses
- Process Analysis
In this ISSUE
Profiles in Innovation
Adam L. Gimbel
Marketing Ideas from Saks Fifth Avenue ...
INNOVA Products
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BIOMIMICRY - Innovation Inspired by Nature
Janine Benyus
Some of the most exciting technological advances in the works today are knockoffs of naturally occurring phenomena, as scientists and inventors increasingly borrow ideas from the plant and animal world.
When sketching his designs for flying machines in 1487, Renaissance artist, scientist and mathematician Leonardo da Vinci examined the mechanisms of bird flight; so did brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, the 20th-century inventors of the airplane. This process of transferring nature’s principles to technology is called biomimicry and examples exist all around us, ranging from everyday to magnificent.
Gustave Eiffel based his trussed tower on the human femur bone; Alexander Graham Bell modeled the telephone receiver around the structure of the human ear; and in the early 1940s, Swiss engineer George de Mestral developed Velcro from cocklebur spines. The motivation is simple: When investing time and money in research, why not take advantage of principles that have been tested for millions, sometimes billions, of years?
“Corporations are ramping up their biomimicry research, and biologists now have a seat at the design table,” says scientist Janine Benyus, whose 1997 landmark book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, helped to galvanize the movement. Boeing, General Electric, General Mills, Kraft, and Procter & Gamble have all called upon the expertise of Benyus’s Montana- based consulting firm, the Biomimicry Guild, to create an “amoeba to zebra” report, which pinpoints the animal or plant that best solves a design problem. When Nike was designing materials that would keep athletes cool, for instance, the group recommended studying African reed frogs, which can survive in sub-Saharan grasslands and wooded areas for up to five months without water, because of a waterproof mucus they excrete.
From San Francisco to Japan, venture capitalists who believe that going green can be both profitable and responsible are also banking on the biomimicry movement, which naturally lends itself to eco-friendly materials and processes. In 2006, “cleantech” investments doubled to $1.28 billion, with a growing number of those dollars going toward nature-inspired innovations.