As I wrote in my previous entry, I was in the New Product Development Strategies conference in Amsterdam. the best souvenir from that trip is definately getting to know Creax. This company does the most amazing stuff. According to the four brochures that came with the conference package, they specialize in helping their customers answer four basic questions: 1) Can I train to become a strong innovator and problem solver? 2) What is the next generation of your product or process? 3) What are the existing solutions to your specific problem? 4) Are there new markets for my existing product or process?

Their core idea is to use patent databases to transfer problems solved in one industry to solbve problems in another industry. The clue is to identify and define the problem in a out-of-the box way, utilizing tools that they call ProductDNA (a 360 degree checklist for every property of your product or process, such as flexibility, transparency, geometry), Directed Variation (evaluating four elements - performance, sustainability, convenience, efficiency, and mapping thos to a 9 window matrix to give dimensions of time and space.  

Creax was the sponsor of the event, and they had lots of amazing demos to show how companies have solved their problems by borrowing solutions from other industries.

They showed how the patent database works, you just enter the problem you want to solve (e.g. transferring liquids) and the database looks for patents solving this problem. Take a moment to browse on their website, I'm sure you will be as impressed as I was.