Directly from The Economist Innovation Award and Summit in London

In this podcast, Ricardo presents the highlights of the award promoted by the British magazine The Economist for the most important innovations of the year. Ratan Tata for the low-cost car "Tata Nano" and Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, are among the recipients. Topics of how project management is critical for innovation implementation were among the discussed items in a 2-day meeting with more than 120 people from all over the world.

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Episode transcript

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Hello everybody.

Speaker 1 (5s): You come to the five minutes PM. Podcast Today directly from London from the Economist innovation awards in the Economist innovation summit. That is happening yesterday. Today, here in London yesterday, we had this ceremony, the award ceremony, and despite have all the great award recipients. I was really amazed at to see people lack the creator of the mobile phone and the creation of the wifi networks and the digital camera they are together.

It's really impressive to see a, how the people went to this award and to celebrate Innovation and to celebrate the creation of new ideas. So it was really, and the highlight of the night yesterday was the mr. Had Dan Tata as a recipient of the awards for business process and related to the project management of the Nano, the Neal Carr that they are producing new, very low cost card, that they are creating a, so the day you started with Liza Hoyt from NASA or the director for the research center at NASA, and she explained, and how do they fight the space and do the work in the space with the innovation and the new product development.

So they discussed it about how they use the concept to recycle water at the international state, a station and how they can transfer this knowledge to the poor people and to Africa. And some of these countries, they presented the project that they develop together with a Speedo two, the swimsuit that Michael Phelps use it for the Beijing Olympic games and how they work it to the gather with the study, have the fluid dynamics and also the textiles to use to create something that that's really a new trend for the modern swim competitions.

Also the supersonic flights, and also to create new products like the sun polarize that lands for the sunglasses bays at the, on the land's that they use to work on the space. So it was very, very interesting. And Dan, just after her, we have the creator of the digital camera and he said that they need it to change that time, all of that chain. So not the people, they do not want to spend time waiting for the processing of the film.

They want to see the film just after they take the shot. So they created this it's a 0.01 megapixel. It takes 23 seconds for a shot. And the way that is about two kilos over about four pounds. So it's, it's really interesting to see this as about 25, 30 years ago. So it's amazing. See, and he said one word that that's really titled with what we do in project management. It's many times we need to go above and beyond our limits to see if it to a work or not.

We can need to reframe and think about it you differently. But the problem two do that. And we discussed it a lot about the downturn and the downturn creates a much more need for Innovation product management to tie this great idea to great results. In many, many people, they said, OK, how I can tell right? The idea to this results. So it's very hard to have good ideas, but it's really, really hard is to change the design to a result.

And to highlight of the day was the presentation about the Tata Nano project, that the new cars and the vice chair of Tata motors and you presented it was a brilliant presentation. And he said, we had a problem in India. We have too many motorcycles and the families are big. So it's impossible to care of this people. And we shot a blue ocean. If we can build a car and create a car, very low cost card, up to two or three, 1000 us dollars to sell to this people, to replace the motorcycle.

And now, so the heat shut the three roads. I'm like a motorcycle. And so everything started with the target. We need to produce a reliable car with up to $2,000, does was in 2002. And a lot of skeptical people. They said, Oh, there's will not work this car. We'll not have bores will not have windows. We are not seat. It we'll be like a goal. If the car, the eight will not be safe, its not reliable.

It's impossible. A they will lose money. They will not make it happen. And then they work at very hard. And the most important challenge in that project is to break up the preconceived ideas about the car. So they took very young people, new people, understanding, okay, how we can built this car. And he hadn't, Tata said, I challenge you to fail. I challenge you, take risks, think differently.

And Tata Nano has now seven different patents, different things. It's a for people with lower gas emissions, it pollutes a lot less than a motorcycle. Lot of people at complaint at that, Oh, Dez will damage the war, damaged the environment. And the idea is to replace the motorcycle. So it's it's to give much more status and they will carry people low carbon emission. It's a single volume and everything regarding security, including in some models, airbags, the airbags.

So it's was developed to help in that, to attend the in your market. And last year, 2008, this car became true. And this was a result of an extremely good idea with a risk of a different risk perspective, an extremely good project management. Now the scars on the market right now, this car was on the market with 47 or 47 or eight. I think our 51, something around that. If the countries looking for distribution of the car that was supposed to be sold only in India now can take a global approach to replace this.

So it's a great, great example of how you can change from the red ocean, where the pie keeps in the same size. And you want to a bigger share in detriment of the order of your competitors, but in the blue ocean, if you were competing with something that is completely new. So the Innovation is that and why I'm presented in this, in the project management Podcast it's because only Innovation is not enough.

We need to have great ideas, but it's really hard to transform these great ideas in great products. This long stop that took me six years from Tata motors, from the idea of, of mr Tata to create the Nano and the Nano. I shot a Nano this morning and it's amazing. It's up. It's unbelievable that this is a $2,000 car it's unbelievable to, to see this happen. It's really a new paradigm shift in the automotive industry and this is why he received this award.

So it was great then end to finish this podcast. I'd like only to be a very humble on seeing such a great people together. So it's, it's amazing to see it and to listen how this people can make a real difference. So it's, it's amazing. It's, it's almost unbelievable to see how they can use the innovation to create better life or the people. I saw examples from Africa countries, the people using projects to recycle water and to give water and to combat the malaria and all other diseases.

So it was really, really a privilege for me to attend this, take a look at the Economist website, and it's a great opportunity for you to understand how innovation and product management can deliver a much better results. See you next week with another five minutes PM. Podcast bye.

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