The 3 aspects that distinguish innovation from improvement

Nikola Tesla with his invention, a wireless lightbulb powered by the electric field surrounding it. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Have you noticed the increased use of the word "innovation" over the last few years?  A decade ago the buzz word was "improvements" but its meaning was successfully killed by overusing it in all the wrong contexts. 
Before I get to the difference between innovation and improvement, I want to touch on the subtle difference between the words innovation and invention :

• Invention is the formulation of new ideas and concepts
• Innovation is about the practical application of inventions to build new products, services, processes.

Even though both activities are highly intertwined I believe a certain amount of "genius" is required for inventing.  An innovator can already be successful having an open mind, a willingness to explore new concepts and a healthy disregard for the impossible.  Basically, anyone has the potential to be an innovator which is a good thing because it allows us to apply the inventions in different ways with maximum benefit.

Now what exactly are those 3 aspects that set innovation apart from improvement?

1. True added value for HUMANITY not for convenience

This is my personal favorite.  Humanity in this context also covers our habitat (the lump of dirt we live on, flora, fauna...) and the interactions we have with it (atmosphere, space, temperature, fellow humans and non-humans,...).  
I will not go into the philosophical concept of what humanity needs in terms of value but I guess we can agree that love, stability, security and welfare cover a large portion.
As a ground rule, we should never build anything that we know could/would reduce that true value but given the situation as it is, some older stuff needs to get fixed.  The convenience-drive has seriously deteriorated our life but we chose to turn a blind eye and/or defer our problems to others.  Some examples:

• in Q1, 2012, we all bought 20,3 mio tablets - stacked flat this is a 190km tower.  Even though manufacturers claim they are fully recyclable since 2010, I still haven't seem a working process for collecting, processing and separating the components because as a starter, I don't know where to drop off an older tablet nor do the recycle guys I talked to know what to do with it except burn it.
• In Europe, cars used to 'last longer' which is actually our perception of faithful use. Contemporary cars are of better quality than ever and yet after 4 years of use they get tossed out.  How come?  In the 70's we had to process and pile up the junk ourselves which meant that every big city had a landfill with scrap heaps, junk cars... and that was an embarrassing sight.  More recently, we discovered that we could manipulate public opinion in less developed countries that owning stuff like a car is a means of showing your value, so they gladly accept our - still running - old car models.  No more scrap heaps in Western Europe but elsewhere they are starting to realize what happened...
• The amount of light in doors and outdoors increases exponentially.  Using your tv, laptop, tablet...  in the evening breaks down your biological clock, keeping you even longer awake than your body wants to.  I live in a suburb and we have a lot of birds in the area.  Unfortunately we also have much light pollution which keeps them awake all night.
• How about our communication innovations? Texting, smart phones, Whatsapp,... actually accomplish the opposite of their intent: we spend less time face to face, hiding behind screens upholding the illusion that we have more friends than ever.  People have never felt so alone.

This list can go on and on but my main point is this: if you want to change something, make sure it is the right thing to change and that it is worthwhile changing.  In the latter example, the issue was not the means of communication but the increasing speed at which we are forcing ourselves to live, allowing less time to interact with others in a personal and social sense.  Basically we innovated the communication process and completely ignored the end result - the impact on our society.

2. REVOLUTIONARY not evolutionary

I have a design background and as such I have been pushed to invent or create truly new stuff.  This started during my college years and I am eternally grateful that our professors really pushed us to get the "old ways and conformist thinking" out of our system.  At the age of 18 we got a mental reboot that allowed us to rethink form and function and get out of the design rut.  As Einstein said: " We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them".

• Consider the typical train of thought when it comes to material use for construction.  The main factors are cost, own weight and strength, so for building larger walls, floors... one would use more material or a stronger material.  The concept that lead to the hollow sandwich constructions typically found in cardboard was a revolutionary step to lighter and cheaper materials.
• The freemium revenue model as an idea might have been thought up last century but it took an innovator with persistence and drive to venture out and take the plunge, transforming the idea into a process and leading the way for many to follow.

The revolutionary aspect provides you significant differentiation from the rest (of the competition).  An innovation will make you stand out, will truly solve a problem or internal contradiction and will give you an advantage over your peers/competition.The disruptive impact of innovation can kill the competition whereas an improvement will be a logical next step that anyone could have thought of.

3. LEAD the way

Innovation is about creating that breakaway differentiation that Geoffrey Moore describes as "an outcome competitors are either unable or unwilling to match" in his book "Dealing with Darwin".

The outcome of an innovation is unique in scope, depth and returns, and despite the possible financial gains that can be achieved, your competition will have a hard time catching up.

Conclusion: 

Given that an innovation has a bigger impact than an improvement, it is crucial to validate your assumptions in terms of problem analysis, resulting changes and longer term consequences.

• Make sure you will deliver true value which will make you stand out.
• Take the time to explore new ways of thinking to escape the common improvement-cycle.
• Be proud to lead with your result and don't ignore the impact you have on your environment and the world.

Understand that the same people touting 'improvements' are now shouting 'innovation' so don't believe everything you hear and read.  Innovation requires a different approach, has a different process and will yield different results - sometimes more fails than gains - but the end result will be worthwhile the effort.
In upcoming blogs I will talk more about the 'HOW' of innovation, the 'WHAT' has been covered sufficiently in most of the other blogs around.


Final thought: 
In a very simplified view on life we can divide the population into builders and maintainers. So why do companies hire 'Innovation Managers' when there is no innovation to manage yet?  The strategy needs to be defined, processes developed, insight and awareness needs to be raised and problems need definition.  Are you sure your innovation manager is trained to do this hands-on or is he just using fancy words?

Back again

Whether you landed here deliberately or by chance, welcome back to my pages.

I wish you happy reading and maybe some of my ideas, concepts and thoughts inspire you to great(er) things, in which case I would like to hear about you.

Being a serial multi-preneur, my mind is always in overdrive.  At this moment I'm not sure what you will find here as my blogs tend to grow organically into different directions.  The main topics on this site will relate to my interpretation of business and life in general.

Why do I restart this blog?  Mostly to vent some ideas and thoughts in such a form that they inspires others to take another look at situations that are considered 'normal' or 'given'.  I strive to present alternatives if possible, guides if required and if all else fails I hope I leave you startled and confused.

Confusion after all is the mental state of the wise.

Why localized social media is not as harmless as it seems.

What is Localized Social Media?

As you know, FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace and the likes are considered social media.  Social Media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques which turn communication into interactive dialogues [1].  The communication medium used for this is the internet.   Since the launch of web based services for mobile devices, the internet is no longer the network that links all computers but it now also includes any and all devices that connect to the 'old internet', expanding the internet tremendously and bringing it into our daily lives.

The Localized part of the definition refers to the ability of most devices to determine their position on the globe using GPS technology.  This position can be used as additional information to add as attribute to any type of information you want to share.  E.g. you can share your thoughts on FaceBook using your cell phone and have your GPS coordinate sent with it or you can automatically share with the Foursquare community that you just entered the Starbucks as such and such location.

Localized social media has been rising since the birth of Foursquare.  Before Foursquare, you had Google Latitude and even when device based GPS wasn't widespread, users on FaceBook and the likes would post their locations online by just typing it in.

Why bother with the Localized stuff?

 

All the FaceBook apps are already using your personal profile information so as long as the information is not linked back to you 'as a person', using the information is legit: the amount of female FarmVille users living in a certain region who focus on growing flowers instead of wheat might be interesting information to a local flower shop. Especially if they can relay their ads to your FaceBook session based on this info.  Most social media hubs like FaceBook already offer ads and suggestions based on such information.

 

Current easy data mining on FaceBook and Twitter provides feedback on the general 'mood' of a country: just query all the statuses of everyone listed in e.g. United Kingdom and filter on predefined words or their combinations related to emotional state. Trendspottingblog has a post on this here. Mind you that these statuses are free information, not personal profile stuff, and as such free to use by 3rd parties.

One type of functionality that will arise from the mix-and-matching of existing features is highly personalized and in-your-face marketing and advertisement. Your cell phone can feed your GPS location to your FaceBook post and as such this information will also be available for query.  Given that most internet users still remain unaware of the humongous loads of personal information they share online, it is only a matter of someone building the data systems to consolidate the bits and pieces. I'm not talking about a 5 year time frame here, this will happen before end 2011.

The next step - which is already being worked on - is bringing this information closer together in real time including your actual location instead of your web browser.

What does this mean for me?

The data mining companies will capture more data in less time which will lead to higher data intelligence.  People who are interested will know more about you than you would prefer.  This data can and will be used to derive 'your marketing profile' and ads will be fit to your assumed needs and wants.  Seems harmless no?

Well, as more information about you becomes available for the marketeers AND more technology becomes available to push information to you as a consumer, you will be confronted with commercial messages in complete new situations:

• Bill boards catering to the 'common divider' of the majority of people in range of this board.
• Your ATM might propose services or products as a means for the banks to cover the costs of the machines.
• Displays spread throughout a store will provide branded imagery tailored to your interest: a specific type of coat or hiking shoe because your FaceBook pictures hold a lot of pictures containing rocks and mountains.  The products you are browsing could be visualized in what is assumed to be your favorite clothing color based on the pictures where you are tagged in.

It seems harmless and to some level it is but the line between marketing and blunt manipulation will become thinner.  There will be a larger grey zone in between what is acceptable and what is not.  This grey zone will not be covered sufficiently by legislation.

On the personal level the impact will be stunning.  Imagine visiting a car dealership and the sales person knows your age, food preferences, color preference, holiday habits, hobbies and amount of children (from former marriages)?  He and all his colleagues got the information as soon as you walked through the door.

How did they do it?

Technically it is a marvel but the idea behind it is relatively simple.  You are your phone.  The one device you have on you at all times which is linked to the internet and the satellite network is your cell phone.

GPS location is still much more unreliable and inaccurate than we all think.  GPS granularity worldwide is still only guaranteed to be 15m.  Anything better is luck.  This would be sufficient to trigger billboard messages along the highway but in a store it is useless.

BUT any and all cell phones have a unique ID to make it accessible at any time in the worldwide mobile phone network.  It is an identifier that helps your calls, messages, data feeds etc to reach YOUR phone and not any other phone.  This Cell ID as it is called can be triangulated using your position with respect to 3 or more Base Transceiver Stations (the gsm antennas on top of buildings etc...).  Given the high density of BTSs in an urban area, this triangulation will have a much higher accuracy.  Some shops have additional indoor systems to enable use of your cell phone within their building.  These systems also have mini-BTSs which can do the triangulation too.

In short: if you send a post to FaceBook, the device it originates from is known by its Cell ID.  The post will be delivered to your account which can be linked to the Cell ID.  Whatever available information about you will also be tied to the Cell ID.  Your LinkedIn details can be found too and linked to the Cell ID.  Your tweets are added to the mix as well as your blogs.  All this information is mixed and matched to derive relevant information about your assumed or expected purchasing behavior (do not underestimate the power of psychological profiles!).  And all this information is now available to the sales guy, giving him a huge advantage in the negotiations.

 

And how about the privacy issue?

Hmm ... as long as the data cannot be routed back to you as a person they can get away with it.  To what extend will this hold if I gather information about my neighbor, link it to his phone but take away his name and personal identification?  I would end up with a context linked to a cell phone without knowing the name of the person holding it.  Now that even 6 year olds have a cell phone, one can assume that the person holding the phone is likely to be the owner.  Not sure if this sticks but I consider most laws to be a backdoor with legal text around it to cover it up ... and so do corporate lawyers (no offense to my lawyer friends).

Are we lost?

 

It all depends on how you want to experience your privacy.  In some countries, personal info like medical records is already shared amongst the hospitals if required without the need for your consent.  You might want to share thoughts and ideas using a blog, your emotional state using tweets, your location either automatically or by typing it in,...

I believe that the next few years will shape the way how privacy will evolve. We just left the decade where people got connected and strangers started sharing information and we are entering the decade where means and technology will allow anyone to sift and filter through this vast amount of data in search of information.  They will decide what they will do with the information, you need to decide what you will share.

Both your professional life and personal life are up for grabs if you're not careful.  Make sharing a deliberate choice, the same way you would do when sharing your lawn mower, your car or even your house,

To end with a positive outlook, some use of personal information will benefit you as some medical information might give emergency services an advantage, the pharmacist a better view on what not to prescribe, robbing a bank while taking your cell phone with you will become a no-no and you will be able to find your kid in the park IF he holds on to his cell phone (or whatever device with the functionality required).

 

Personal opinion - feel free to omit

Call me old fashioned but personally I do not want the rest of my friends to continuously know where I'm at. Buying birthday gifts would be a pain in the ass. Next to this, I believe that most people get numb to the ever expanding load of non-relevant information we get fed every day. This also holds the danger of us not caring anymore what we share, assuming the other people will not read it anyhow.  They might not but the computer systems definitely will.

Apparently the availability of means and technology still drives the manufacturers and developers to build new features and functionalities. Latest bright idea is Google's Instant Search feature which feeds results while you type.  Hmm ... so because the bandwidth is available someone at Google thought I would be interested in crappy results based on my incomplete query.  I'm wandering off topic here but for me, this type of functionality is broken on purpose (see TED talk by Seth Godin for more info on types of broken-ness).

 

I feel like this will not be the only post about this topic ... I'm not done talking just yet :-)

[1] Wikipedia

Crowd behavior: are we really unaware?

The recent disaster at the Duisburg Love Parade is one of the many occurrences where authorities and event planners claim that they could not have foreseen the tragic events.  21 People were crushed to death during a mass panic in an access tunnel, more were injured and the event was called off.

Although I can understand the organization's position from a legal point of view "we didn't know" and maybe understand the position where they wouldn't have a clue how to anticipate on such events, what the hell were the event planners thinking?

These are the common crowd situations one can encounter at events:

This is not the first nor only event that resulted in casualties due to unplanned mass/group behavior and will likely not be the last one either. The research for human predictability has already resulted in many groundbreaking insights and mathematical algorithms to enable crows simulators to pretty accurately predict outcome of predefined scenarios. Unfortunately - as usual - such insights are either known to the happy few who are researching these topics or lie dormant in an academic paper.

The occasional team arises to build a software solution for such types of simulations but currently the most known solution would be the traffic simulation.  Why?  Because it is commercially viable and can be used to market a company's 'green value'.   Understanding traffic flows can enable the company to commercialize services that help the drivers to avoid the bottlenecks, causing less queues, pollution,... Basically, it helps the company get better in terms of image and turnover and the driver benefits from it.

How about the pedestrians? How about the micro-environment of an event, a campus, a city block in development,...? Wouldn't it be good to provide the designers as much info as possible about how people will likely behave in those environments under normal and less-normal circumstances? And the BIG question is: who will pay for it? The car drivers pay for the live service on their satellite navigation system because they can actually directly benefit from it themselves.

How about the new house owners that bought their home in a new development?

How would you rate the value of knowing that your area will be able to handle the mobility stress?  How much would you pay to be sure that your kids will be safe on the sidewalk when walking to the shop on a busy day?

Will the pedestrian zone be able to handle the amount of pedestrians in all situations? How about the city planners that are designing a new urban development? How do they decide on pedestrian areas, pavement width, bottlenecks...? What are their assumptions, where do they get their data from, and how accurate is it still in 2010 as updates of such data will likely involve a cost not directly covered by any commercial benefit resulting from the design itself.

After all, when you buy a residence in a new development you assume correctly that the designers have covered all that. I believe such simulation service should be available to all designers AND the public. Designers will have the obvious benefit of being able to reduce the risk of disaster, insurance claims... and enhance the visitor's experience. The public will be able to check out scenarios for new traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, parking lots, wider curbs, pedestrian zones... and have well prepared proposals for the city planning commission.

Over the next months I will be covering this here in my professional blog as I am investigating the possibilities of providing full context mobility simulation services to the wider audience.

Ways to make a computer game without coding

some of you will have experienced these moments in life when you feel very creative and have a smashing game idea. You come up with graphics, moods, stories, tactics and game strategies, allies and enemies... and then it hits you: how do I get these ideas into an interactive form? How do I program this and what tools will I need to do so? How many years will it take me?

The simple answer is: there is no way to make a computer game without programming (unless switching the display on and off manually constitutes a game)

HOWEVER ... the programming part should not be the show stopper!

Your game ideas will likely already hold some form of programming like "I'll use the mouse to aim and shoot" or "if the character falls down he will lose part of his health" or "the main character will need to find a key to open the door". These are basic forms of programming and they are still used in board/card games: playing Monopoly, some rules will make you pay up, earn money or go to jail, playing cards, some cards outrank others depending on the game play.

And that is basically what programming is: designing rules within a certain context that will generate a result.

the FUN part is that some tools have taken the coding out of programming. This doesn't mean that programming is obsolete but they have managed to literally break down the coding effort into a sequence of using building blocks. As an example: instead of having to manually enter the programming lines in whatever programming language to have your character move forward when pushing the up-arrow on the keyboard, they enable you to select your character, link it to a 'keyboard' coding block where you select which key (up-arrow) will trigger what action (move forward).

In order to fully grasp this, you will need to get your feet wet and check out some of these game tools. I have listed some of them hereunder and although this list does not provide all tools available, it does hold a good representation of tools for their game genres.

Mind you that all game tools require you to think about what you want and how you want it. You will need to provide the graphical elements like background, characters, buildings, cars, weapons, ships, planes, space ships, aliens... and the sounds too. But don't worry, some Google searches will provide you plenty of links to free graphics and sounds for games :-)

2D and 3D games:

Virtools [web site]: expensive 2D/3D game development environment running on Windows that I used to work with. It does hold some very interesting and very high end features and you can get a long way without writing a line of code.  Virtools uses darg & drop building blocks that one can link in order to have them perform more complex tasks.  You can make games to run on Windows, Mac, Wii, Xbox360 and in web browsers using their browser plug in.  It will set you back some $5000.

Shiva [web site]:  very nice 2D/3D game environment that runs on Windows and Mac (under Parallels) which allows you to make games for Windows, Mac, Linux,  iPhone, iPad, Android and Palm.  Shiva is available at different price ranges and they have a PLE (Personal Learning Edition)

Unity [web site]: I love this Mac tool which is now also available for Windows.  Make games for Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android.  Their base Unity version is FREE!

Alice3D [web site]:  Designed by Carnegie Mellon University, it is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.  It is much easier to work with than the other tools listed above and I would recommend it as a first start.  Get your idea, make a rough game and get to understand the basics of game design.  Alice3D is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

2D games:

Scratch [web site]:  this is a fun tool to play around with.  Easy to use and their building blocks will also need to visually match (like a puzzle piece) so you cannot make errors linking wrong blocks together.  This is an ideal tool for K12 and their parents :-)  No higher math required at it is free to download at their web site.

Gamesalad [web site]:  GameSalad is a visual, drag & drop based tool for game creation that provides people with the opportunity to make sophisticated 2D casual games for the iPhone and iPad devices, without the need for programming or coding knowledge.  As a Mac user I love it although I haven't got a lot of experience using it yet.  Gamesalad reminds me a lot of Game Maker (below) which I used in my Windows-days.

GameMaker [web site]: my favorite Windows game tool for casual games.  The base version is free and for a small fee you get the Pro version.  You can upload your games to their community site and share them with fellow game design fiddlers.

Specials:

Google AppInventor for Android [web site]: Google implementation of the Scratch tool specifically targeted at the Android platform.  It allows you to make simple games and applications to use on your Android.

Off course I will have left out some other interesting applications which you either use or have seen elsewhere.  This blog post doesn't focus on providing a full list but merely lists the tools I have used in the past either for fun or for work.  I deliberately left out the major players on the games market because it would not make sense to consider them as non-programmer tools - aside from their license fees that can go up to $500.000 per game per development site.

The first 3 game tools listed are also very adequate for visualization of industrial design, architecture and/or urban planning concepts.  The others are fun to play around with and Gamesalad is being used by a 13 year old boy called Wesley Campbell who sells his games on the App Store.  See article here.

So to you parents out there, if your kid wants to make a computer game then check this list and start with Scratch for the under 12 years old or Game Maker / Gamesalad for the slightly older.  And please HELP them understand the basics as even though the learning curve is not that steep, they will want to jump in right away without learning the basics - this is where you come in.  Draw some graphics for them if they can't.  Get a scanner or your camera and use pictures of your kid as main character.  Add the dog to it as well.

To the kids that are reading this blog, shut down your computer and go play outside.  Come back after an hour and check out some of the links if you're still interested in building your own game.

 

Business process improvement using state diagrams

Over the last 10 years I became increasingly more interested in visualization of behavior and 'way of working'. I was focusing on process efficiency and quality, and I noticed that quite some organizations don't actually know how good or bad their processes run. They have a flow chart, a tool and are used to how the process works, including its workarounds and caveats.

The typical business process flowchart is focusing on descriptive text and RACIVS tables (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed, Verified, Sign off). Digging somewhat deeper in the process and checking the interaction of the users with the process flow, I noticed that moreover there was a lack of visibility of the process flow. Typically and largely a result of project focus on delivery, not on support/documentation. Users had to work with either the high level BPM diagrams or the application UML data diagrams.

One day we had to link our content management system to the customer relationship management system in order to pipe incentive and marketing data/feedback to the correct systems. It seemed an easy task and on the technical level it was, but still the CRM managers were not satisfied with the speed at which updates were delivered. None of the existing systems had been changed and all individual processes worked as usual so what went wrong?

Essentially, the connection between the systems and the visibility we got from the new department heads re-surfaced some existing issues we hadn't really fixed in the past. Some systems needed manual follow-up during batch processing of tasks so we timed those processes to run during working hours, having the IT staff readily available to monitor progress. Over time the systems were tweaked, performance and stability improved significantly but as usual, running projects had main focus so no one considered retiming the data pipeline for efficiency.

This is where I come in :-) In an effort to properly document the systems under my control and better understand the systems that we were feeding to, I started working on a data state diagram. None of the process management methods I knew covered what I needed to analyze so I used a Petri Net Diagram approach as a basis. My trigger came from my brother who is a Biochemical Engineer and overall smart ass. He once explained the state diagram approach to me and I tweaked it to fit my needs.

Basically a state diagram has 2 components:

• State visualized by a circle
• Action visualized by a rectangle

Here is a simple example showing the step of validating data, which needs to have the data available for validation and which will result in validated data.

 

Remember that I don't care about who owns the data or system, I just want to increase efficiency of the throughput to satisfy my customer.  So I need to add the test scenario to the diagram as this could be a potential bottleneck in my throughput:

 

Nothing too spectacular here and although it provides me more insight in the system's complexity and dependencies, it will not really help me solve my problem.  The single most important thing that helped me identify the true bottlenecks and focus the developer's efforts was the step where I added timing.  The timing dependencies turned out to be crucial for optimal efficiency and we were able to derive the timing data from the obvious sources like existing Business Process Diagrams, overall Working Hours and Cron batch scripts.

Timing can exist of many features but for my purposes I required to know:

• process absolute start (e.g. working hours, batch process kick off...)
• process nature: automated vs manual
• process run time

Having this information enabled me to run different scenarios to validate time related bottlenecks and overall it made the throughput time clear to al parties involved, reducing help desk tickets and inquiries tremendously.

 

This is merely a small example to convey the concept to you.  Although there are some very powerful business process tools available that could do the trick including the automated scenarios, most of them would require a lot of information to be entered into the process entities before a flow can be generated.  I used Visio to visualize this complete data flow spanning multiple pages (we plotted the diagram on an A1 paper so show the full image).

Even though I have used this simple technique multiple times, the teams involved are every time again surprised about some of the unexpected dependencies that turn out to be the true culprit.  Some seem relatively obvious like working hours, customer feedback process, synchronization timing being daily instead of hourly.  At times I stumbled upon indirect timing dependencies like daily scheduled IT maintenance by other teams killing the network bandwidth...

 

 

 

Concept mapping to deepen project/product requirements Part 2

This is the second part of my blog on concept mapping and I will provide some details on how I have used concept maps to my advantage.

Constructing Good Concept Maps

1. Identify context: Concept map structures are dependent on the context in which they will be used and a good way to define the context for a concept map is to construct a Focus Question, that is, a question that clearly specifies the problem or issue the concept map should help to resolve. Every concept map responds to a focus question, and a good focus question can lead to a much richer concept map. These questions are maybe less important when the outcome is meant a overall documentation but e.g. "What external factors can we influence to enable a better product execution?" could lead to more insight in financial, environmental, logistical... factors that influence your customer/project.
2. Brainstorm concepts: The next step is to identify the key concepts that apply to your subject. Usually 15 to 25 concepts will suffice but make sure you keep them as concise as possible.
3. Sort concepts: These concepts should be ranked from the most general, most inclusive concept, for this particular problem or situation at the top of the list, to the most specific, least general concept at the bottom of the list. Although this rank order may be only approximate, it helps to begin the process of map construction.
4. Start connecting: You can now build a preliminary concept map and move these concepts into the map as you determine where they fit in. Some concepts may remain in the "parking lot" as the map is completed if you see no good connection for these with other concepts in the map.
5. Iterate and revise: It is important to recognize that a concept map is never finished. After a preliminary map is constructed, it is always necessary to revise this map. Other concepts can be added. Good maps usually result from three to many revisions. This is one reason why using computer software is helpful. After a preliminary map is constructed, cross-links should be sought. Cross-links are links between concepts in different segments or domains of knowledge on the map that help to illustrate how these domains are related to one another. Cross-links are key to provide insight in the relationships between the sub-domains in the map.

Concept mapping tools.

Concept maps are graphical by nature but PLEASE don't use Powerpoint or Visio as these office tools will require you to draw the graphics first and add the text later. Essentially they will bog you down and make you lose focus.
Concept mapping can be done by writing all of the concepts on Post-its(TM) and putting them on a white board or on butcher paper to move concepts around easily. I prefer using a tool like the FREE IHMC CmapTools [1] computer software program. Easy concept replacement is necessary during the initial process of building a good hierarchical organization and CmapTools allows me to move the concepts or groups of concepts together with linking statements to restructure the map. When CmapTools is used in conjunction with a computer projector, two or more individuals can easily collaborate in building a concept map and see changes as they progress in their work. CmapTools also allows for collaboration between individuals in the same room or anywhere in the world, and the maps can be built synchronously or asynchronously, depending on the mapmakers’ schedules.

Amongst its many superb features, CmapTools supports the possibility to link files, urls and other Cmaps to a concept (see icons at the concepts in above picture). The look and feel of the map is editable and making a concept map is just about automated: most mapping effort is click and drag. See the youtube movie for a first glance (click on picture).

CmapTools also has a life saver feature called 'Nesting nodes' that enables me to group closely related concepts into 1 box (can be clicked to 'close' or 'open'). Especially for documentation purposes this is an extremely interesting feature as the base concept map can be saved with nesting 'closed', making the overall story easier to grasp.

Some tips and pitfalls

1. Although concept mapping will become easier with practice, never forget your own first steps as you are presenting the method to your colleagues. Not everyone can easily handle the 'meaningful linking structure' of concept mapping. Some people have a more linear way of thinking and will require more coaching. Others will require more assistance in the way they define the concepts.  Take some time browsing the web for supporting resources that explain how to get started with concept maps.  This information will provide sufficient triggers for an information briefing/session in which you can reveal the method, its benefits and use.
2. It is important to keep in mind that all concepts are in some way related to one another. Therefore, it is necessary to be selective in identifying cross-links, and to be as precise as possible in identifying linking words that connect concepts. In addition, one should avoid “sentences in the boxes”, that is, full sentences used as concepts, since this usually indicates that a whole subsection of the map could be constructed from the statement in the box.
3. Although the digital canvas is endless, make sure that the concept map will fit with readable font size on a piece of paper supported by your printer. For most concept maps related to building understanding of a 'limited topic' this should not post much of a problem. For concept maps that are destined as documentation, you could embed the following features:

• nesting of concepts
• linking to documents, web sites or other concept maps containing more detail or linking main conceptual elements of your map to their same level siblings in other maps.
• use of a 'table of content' concept map that has each concept link to a sub-map much like a chapter in a book.

Finally, next to CmapTools you will for sure find other tools for concept mapping like Inspiration, Compendium,... on the web. The choice is not unlimited but you will hugely benefit from a concept mapping specific tool as the workflow is distinctly different than e.g. mind mapping. The 'other' tools lack the supporting workflow, often force you into a mind mapping mode and will be very inefficient in solving the graphic stuff for you. After all, you want to document the concepts, not design a fancy graphical chart. So go and download [2] Cmaptools for Windows, OSX, Linux or Solaris and check the videos on their web site [3] and on YouTube [4].

Happy mapping, let me know how it goes!

[1] http://cmap.ihmc.us
[2] http://cmap.ihmc.us/download
[3] http://cmap.ihmc.us/Support/Help
[4] http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cmaptools&aq=f