With retailers such as Trader Joe’s, Safeway and Wal-Mart branching out into natural and organic food offerings, Whole Foods is fighting back with an innovation of its own. The Austin-based supermarket chain recently launched its first wellness spa located within one of its stores in North Dallas (the really wealthy part of Dallas where the “ladies who lunch” hang out with their Hermes scarves and plan their next shopping trip to Neiman Marcus). The thinking, of course, is that people who care about what they eat will also care about their overall mental and physical well-being:

“Refresh: The Everyday Spa by Whole Foods Market is a new venture for the Austin-based supermarket chain. Housed in a 4,500-square foot space above the main floor are seven treatment rooms stocked with organic cotton sheets and towels and offering various massages, scrubs and other treatments. Massage chairs on the balcony overlooking the main grocery floor will provide a range of five- and 10-minute pick-me-ups. Spa guests who feel a bit peckish can order from the chef’s spa menu (the store also has a staff dietitian who can be booked for menu planning, diet consultations and shopping guidance). The spa reception area also is stocked with Whole Foods’ higher-end beauty and body-care products, including the Dr. Hauschka line, along with organic-cotton bedding and towels, and organic-fiber clothing.”

Taking a big picture view, this experiment by Whole Foods is an interesting development. Judging from the spectacular success of the minute clinic concept in other retail stores, it appears that people are willing to satisfy their healthcare and wellness needs without the help of traditional healthcare providers. Speed, convenience and pricing, it appears, are powerful motivators.

[image: A massage table at Whole Foods]

Microsoft never seems to get any respect as an innovator within the technology sector. Things may be changing though, with the company redoubling efforts to bring innovations from the lab into the broader market. As Network World explains, Microsoft Research is fighting back against critics who claim that Microsoft consistently plays second fiddle to the likes of Apple and Google. Certainly, the massive brainpower assembled by Microsoft is impressive:

“Microsoft planted the seeds of innovation 15 years ago when it established what has become one of its most distinguishing features, Microsoft Research (MSR). The lab has spawned innovations seen today in products from Windows Vista to Exchange Server to Xbox 360.

MSR has grown from an idea to more than 700 researchers working out of five labs around the globe with a budget of more than $250 million. MSR incubates not only futuristic ideas but young minds, having hired 700 interns worldwide this year including 250 computer science PhD candidates in Redmond alone, which is roughly 21% of all the computer science PhD candidates in the United States. It’s a program Microsoft officials say is the world’s largest PhD. internship program for computer science.

The MSR staff, however, is not just computer scientists, it includes psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and medical doctors who are tasked with pushing the envelope on state of the art technology as much or more than transferring their technology into new and existing Microsoft products.

If you’re interested to learn more about what’s next at Microsoft, you might want to check out another profile of Microsoft Research called Inside Microsoft’s Labs.

[image: Microsoft Research head Rick Rashid with Bill Gates]

As much attention as innovation is attracting in the business world, it’s perhaps not surprising that the world of academia is also re-thinking the importance of innovation and creativity within the curriculum. In one notable example, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs recently announced the creation of the Bachelor of Innovation™ (BI) family of degrees. After debating which elements of engineering, entrepreneurship, business and law should be blended together to form the basis of an innovation academic program, the university finalized the creation of an “Innovation Core.” This core has some unique aspects to it, including the use of long-term, multi-disciplinary teams working on real projects for companies; a course in proposal preparation and responding to RFPs; and an undergraduate law course with half of it dedicated to intellectual property issues.

The Bachelor of Innovation™ program is not a degree in innovation, it’s actually a family of related majors (much like a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science) with a common core supporting a mix of degrees. The university currently offers 5 BI degrees and expects to add more soon. The core of the majors is the same (e.g. BI in Business and BI in EE have exactly the same required courses), only the electives are different.

[image: The Bachelor of Innovation]

MIT World has uploaded a one-hour video of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner speaking about leadership in the automotive industry:

“Rick Wagoner’s outlook is optimistic, in spite of the bumpy road General Motors has traveled recently. With MIT Sloan Dean Emeritus Glen Urban, he discusses GM’s aggressive recovery plans in response to $10 billion in losses last year, and his determination to regain the public’s trust and confidence in GM cars. Wagoner sees new global competition creating both challenges and opportunities. India and China have opened up markets “that this industry hasn’t seen … since the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s.”

Wagoner also discusses GM’s massive “legacy” costs as well as the company’s bold new China strategy:

“After cutting thousands of jobs and negotiating with unions, GM will look “to grow in the right places.” For instance, the company has a unique partnership with a Shanghai auto corporation, and will soon be supplying 12% of China’s cars. In an aside, Wagoner mentions that the Chinese “insisted on the Buick brand” — the last emperor drove a Buick, so it’s got a “good image” over there. This is in sharp contrast to American consumers for whom the Buick name has “become polluted.”

As always, MIT World has provided extensive show notes for the video. Flip forward to the 15-minute mark, to hear Wagoner describe the competitive threat from Asia (both Japan and China), and to the 30-minute mark, to hear Wagoner analyze the upside and downside of new hybrid technologies within the automotive sector.

[image: Rick Wagoner]

With blog coverage of the FORTUNE Innovation Forum continuing to roll in during the first two weeks of December, it’s time to hand out this year’s (unofficial) Best Blog Coverage of the FORTUNE Innovation Forum award. This year’s award goes to John Caddell, a Pennsylvania-based innovation consultant who writes the Shop Talk innovation & marketing blog and also contributes to the Futurelab blog on strategy, innovation and marketing.

There were three distinguishing characteristics that pushed John’s blog to the top of the list: (1) Real-time commentaries and analysis from the event speakers (2) Extensive highlights from the optional workshops and (3) Cool photos from the event. Not only was John soaking in lessons from A-list speakers like Gary Hamel (London Business School), Chad Holliday (DuPont), Bob Nardelli (Home Depot), Brian France (NASCAR) and Brad Anderson (Best Buy) — he was participating in a storytelling workshop from The Moth, making a unique Metamorphosis sculpture with the help of Sophie Marsham (pictured, right), and learning how to use images and illustrations to guide the innovation process in a workshop with Tom Wujec.

The runner-up this year for the Best Blog Coverage Award was the Style Station blog from Jinal Shah. (Keep an eye out for Jinal in 2007 - she’s planning on launching a new site called BeingMyBoss.com that will feature interviews with top entrepreneurs and innovators). She posted a great five-part summary of the event, complete with observations and commentary from a number of the speakers and optional workshops, as well as observations from the Innovator’s Studio.

[images: The Innovator’s Studio and Metamorphosis sculpture]

For publicly-traded companies, the easiest way to establish a link between innovation and value added is by tracking the stock price of the company and simultaneously assessing the consensus Wall Street opinion about the growth perspectives for that stock. The faster the company is growing, the more likely that the company is coming up with innovative new products and services - and the more likely the stock price will be moving north.

Anyway, with that as backdrop, the current issue of Barron’s features an interesting profile of Medtronic, which has been one of the most innovative companies in the medical device space. The company has been a long-time Wall Street darling; however, lately, analysts have been getting a bit worried that the company will no longer be able to sustain its impressive pace of growth. The company is still the market leader in pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (i.e. ICDs) but this market segment could be reaching a saturation point in the U.S. Recognizing this fact, the company has ramped up its innovation initiatives, hopeful of finding new products to bring to market. According to Barron’s, this strategy seems to be working:

“CEO Art Collins believes Medtronic can increase its sales and earnings at about a 15% yearly rate for the next five years. That would mean the Minneapolis-based company doubles revenues from the $11.3 billion shown in the fiscal year ended April 2006.

Medtronic has many shots at achieving those ambitions. Its sales of ICDs should thrive, thanks to innovations like wireless telemetry, which will let doctors monitor and treat patients wherever they might be - before patients land in the emergency room. As populations grow grayer, Medtronic should also see substantial growth in devices for managing other chronic diseases, of the spine, the pancreas and even the brain… “I think we are just scratching the surface now, says CEO Collins of the disease-management opportunities awaiting Medtronic.”

Barron’s is particularly enthusiastic about the next-generation wireless devices from Medtronic that will relay data through patients’ BlackBerry devices, allowing them to go almost anywhere and remain under their doctors’ care. (The title of the article is, appropriately enough, “Doctoring by BlackBerrry?”)

Anyway, if you have any kind of interest in the future of health care, it’s worth taking a look at some of the cool products on the way from Medtronic, as well as the company’s new partnerships with biotech companies like Amgen and Genzyme. For more on the company’s take on innovation, also be sure to check out the panel discussion featuring Stephen Oesterle of Medtronic at the recently-concluded FORTUNE Innovation Forum in New York City. What’s interesting is that Medtronic views doctors not as “customers” for its devices, but as “partners.”

[image: Art Collins of Medtronic]