Page 82 - ENTREPRENEURSHIP Innovation and entrepreneurship

53231_Innovation and Entrepreneurship.qxd 11/8/2002 10:50 AM Page 75

Source: Process Need 75

For many years the information required by a number of profes-
sionals such as lawyers, accountants, engineers, and physicians has
grown much faster than the capacity to find it. Professionals have been
complaining that they have to spend more and more time hunting for
information in the law library, in handbooks and textbooks, in looseleaf
services, and so on. One would therefore expect a “databank” to be an
immediate success. It gives the professionals immediate information
through a computer program and a display terminal: court decisions for
the lawyers, tax rulings for the accountants, information on drugs and
poisons for the physicians. Yet these services have found it very hard to
gather enough subscribers to break even. In some cases, such as Lexis,
a service for lawyers, it has taken more than ten years and huge sums
of money to get subscribers. The reason is probably that the databanks
make it too easy. Professionals pride themselves on their “memory,”
that is, on their ability either to remember the information they need or
to know where to find it. “You have to remember the court decisions
you need and where to find them,” is still the injunction the beginning
lawyer gets from the seniors. So the databank, however helpful in the
work and however much time and money it saves, goes against the very
values of the professional. “What would you need me for if it can be
looked up?” an eminent physician once said when asked by one of his
patients why he did not use the service that would give him the infor-
mation to check and confirm his diagnosis, and then decide which alter-
native method of treatment might be the best in a given case.
Opportunities for innovation based on process need can be found
systematically. This is what Edison did for electricity and electronics.
This is what Henry Luce did while still an undergraduate at Yale. This
is what William Connor did. In fact, the area lends itself to systemat-
ic search and analysis.
But once a process need has been found, it has to be tested against
the five basic criteria given above. Then, finally, the process need
opportunity has to be tested also against the three constraints. Do we
understand what is needed? Is the knowledge available or can it be
procured within the “state of the art”? And does the solution fit, or
does it violate the mores and values of the intended users?