A Frog Leap to Leading Edge
Find your future business princes
Development projects must usually be justified by return on investment or some other monetary arguments. Sometimes a project is nevertheless approved "for strategic reasons". Both the technologist and the decision-maker sense the importance, but do not have means to justify it.
They lack a common language.
To bridge the gap Matthews introduced "Blue Box research". The idea is to assess initiatives and select from among them the potential winners by answering questions such as "Is it practical?" and "Is it desirable?" – or, put bluntly: "Could we do profitable business with it?"
Matthews calls this "kissing technological frogs", referring to the fairy tale. The frogs are potential factors of success, or options. Pick up one frog at a time, kiss it, and see if it actually is an enchanted prince. If it is, school it to become a king. If not, release it to go back to the pond and mature.
Only the possible development projects as a consequence of this process call for actual investments.
Our simple but efficient model, SAKU™, kisses technological frogs.
What for SAKU?
Saku is the name of a frog in a Finnish nursery rhyme.