According to a new study from researchers at the University of Illinois-Urbana, regular aerobic activity can reduce the typical brain shrinkage that starts to occur after age 40:

“The researchers said patients who engaged in three or more hours of aerobic exercise weekly experienced increases in their brains’ volume of gray and white matter, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The team studied 59 adults, age 60 to 79, in three groups: one group that received aerobic training, one that engaged in non-aerobic stretching-and-toning training and a group that did not exercise.

The non-aerobic exercise group and the group that did not exercise did not experience any change in their brains, but “the aerobic group showed a substantial increase in brain volume,” Illinois’ Arthur Kramer told The Journal. “After only three months,” Kramer said, “the people who exercised had the brain volumes of people three years younger.” Kramer said the subjects who exercised aerobically had better working memories, better abilities to switch between mental tasks and were more adept at screening out distractions than those who did not exercise.”

[image: Jamie Lee Curtis in “Perfect”]

With less than two weeks to go before the start of the FORTUNE Innovation Forum in New York City, Dick Harryvan, an Executive Board Member of ING Group who is responsible for ING Direct, joins the Business Innovation Insider for a special Q&A on innovation. At the FORTUNE Innovation Forum, Geoff Colvin will interview Dick Harryvan as part of the “FORTUNE Interviews a CEO” series.

Q: Who should be responsible for innovation inside of a large corporation? Why?

Dick Harryvan: General management must create the right conditions and make a commitment, after which all employees are empowered.

Q: What is the most important thing that needs to happen before innovation inside a company can occur?

Dick Harryvan: All employees must feel empowered to express their ideas and management must listen and show commitment.

Q: Is there an innovation success story within your business that you are most proud of?

Dick Harryvan: ING Direct is an innovation success within ING Group, despite negative advice by consultants.

Q: Is there a formal process for tapping into the knowledge of your workforce?

Dick Harryvan: We have a ’simplify’ program, as well as Lean Six Sigma and self-assessments throughout ING Direct globally. The objective is to make things simpler for employees and, most importantly, for clients. Employees can submit an idea to make something easier. Employee engagement was high in many simplification processes.

Q: How much do you rely on research and analysis to guide the development of new innovative services and products?

Dick Harryvan: All new products have to go through market research, resulting in a positive business case before we implement them.

Q: What innovative companies do you most admire?

Dick Harryvan: IKEA, Google, Nokia.

Q: Can you innovate without having access to large amounts of capital? If so, how?

Dick Harryvan: Absolutely, innovation is driven by creativity and can lead to cost savings rather than requiring capital.

Q: How can failure lead to innovative breakthroughs in business?

Dick Harryvan: Failure leads to innovative ideas to remove barriers to success.

Q: Does the importance of innovation to your organization vary depending on where you are in the business cycle?

Dick Harryvan: If an innovation leads to value creation the investment case can be approved even in tight phases of the business cycle.

[image: ING Direct Cafe]

James Dyson, the founder and owner of Dyson, the eponymous British maker of innovative household cleaning machines (e.g. vacuum cleaners), is launching a new school of design and innovation in England in 2008. Needless to say, the Dyson School of Design Innovation will be the first school of its kind in the UK. According to the school’s website, it appears that the educational programs will focus on teens (ages 14-19), but will also offer coursework to adults who want to sharpen their skills. With funding from the government and support from corporations such as Rolls-Royce and Airbus, the school will attempt to produce the next generation of innovators within the UK.

As Influx Insights points out, there are at least four reasons why the launch of the new design and innovation school is a smart move for the Dyson brand:

(1) It establishes the brand as a thought leader in the world of design innovation;

(2) The company can discover and nurture new talent through this school;

(3) They can invite other design innovators to teach and build programs and can learn from them;

(4) It’s permanent and enduring.

[image: Dyson School of Design Innovation]

In the weeks leading up to the FORTUNE Innovation Forum in New York City on November 29-30, the Business Innovation Insider is pleased to present a regular series of thought pieces with innovative thinkers in business and academia. Charles W. Prather, Ph.D., the president of Bottom Line Innovation Associates and the former Manager of the DuPont Center for Creativity & Innovation, joins us for a special Q&A on innovation. Below, he discusses creating a culture of innovation, unclogging the innovation pipeline and developing a “bottom line” model of innovation.

Q: What is the basic conceptual framework for “bottom line innovation”?

Charles Prather: Bottom Line Innovation is a set of offerings that provide the three essentials for helping organizations create a core competence for innovation. They are (1) Education, (2) Application, and (3) Leadership. The Education module teaches the basics along with tools to help break thinking patterns. In the Application module, a structured process for innovative problem solving is used to apply the tools of creative thinking to solve critical business problems. The Leadership module teaches leaders the four tasks they must accomplish to fully support and nurture innovation in their organization.

Q: What are the keys to creating a climate of innovation within any organization?

Charles Prather: Personal commitment and active participation by the top-most levels of leadership is THE key to creating a climate of innovation. We know that there are 10 dimensions that describe the climate for innovation, and the first and most important is Trust & Openness. Two of the remaining dimensions that benefit when there is a high level of trust are Freedom and Risk-Taking. When leaders’ performance is judged in part by the climate they set, things get better.

Q: Can you share a success story of how you transformed and developed innovation into a core competency for growth?

Charles Prather: Yes. One of the marketing arms of a medical company became committed to making innovation a way of working, and the effort was championed by none other then their President. He and his direct reports actively participated in the Education and Leadership workshops and sponsored a number of the Application sessions. As a result they are seeing growth in sales and earnings. The President even took it upon himself to learn the basics well enough that he began to teach these to his staff, and he talks about it frequently. This is the level of commitment and participation from leaders that will make a difference.

Q: How can companies “unclog” their innovation pipelines?

Charles Prather: Assuming there IS a pipeline of projects that is stalled, what is needed is a set of process steps and organizational supports to assure progress. One element is to realize that we must resource the selected projects to win, rather than just not to lose. “Just not to lose” resourcing is revealed when projects are staffed by 0.1 person and little budget - which of course dooms the project to a slow death from the start.