Yesterday I did a webinar for the P&G Alumni Association. It featured three P&G Alumni doing amazing things to help with COVID-19.   John Milander – Respirator Invention – Andi Grudgeon – Face Shield Production  – and myself for our work with producing and donating 2 million ounces of Hand Sanitize.

The best part of doing the webinar was two days before it – the three of us got to connect via video sharing the good, bad and ugly or our experiences.   

Interestingly we found UNIVERSAL AGREEMENT that the hardest part of what we are doing is not the “making of the product” – rather it’s the FRONT and BACK END. 

FRONT END – is Supply Chain, Regulatory Certification & Label Approvals

BACK END – is route to market to those with the greatest need. 

The stories of supply chain failures, crooked vendors putting prices up 10X.  

When I started in innovation (40 years ago – UGH ) – my youthful focus was solely on the “big idea”.   The consequence was that as projects moved from idea to reality they slowly but surely died – or worse yet were compromised and introduced anyways.  The driving forces to these compromises were Supply Chain availability/costs, regulatory issues, and Route to Market challenges.   

Today our Eureka! Ranch approach is to look at innovation as system from the True Front End to the True Back End.   Our Eureka! Ranch Inventing Projects AND our Jump Start Your Brain  LMS Training teaches people to THINK OF INNOVATION AS A TOTAL SUCCESS.   The result is increased speed and a doubling of success rates.