 WTSP: Presentation: ETRIA TFC2022 (Warsaw TU & Online, Sept. 27-29, 2022) |
 
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WTSP Report (6) Catalogs of TRIZ and Around-TRIZ Sites in the World (Preparing for Gamma Edition) |
ETRIA TFC2023 (Offenburg Univ. (Online), Sept. 12-14, 2023) |
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Japan),
Darrell Mann (Systematic Innovation Network, UK),
Michael Orloff (Academy of Instrumental Modern TRIZ, Germany),
Simon Dewulf (AULIVE & Innovation Logic , Australia),
Simon Litvin (GEN TRIZ, LLC., USA),
Valeri Souchkov (ICG Training & Consulting, Netherlands)
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Sept. 14, 2023 |
Posted: Sept. 18 , 2023; Updated: Sept. 26, 2023 |
Press the button for going to Japanese pages.
Editor's Note （Toru Nakagawa, Sept. 16, 2023)
This page is the record of our presentation at ETRIA TFC2023, posting the followings in English (and in Jap;anese in a sfew days):
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English page  |
Japanese page (Sept.26, 2023)
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Abstract |
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Paper |
The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42532-5_34  (.pdf, 17 pages)
Final Manuscript version in HTML (here): |
Japanese translation of the full paper
(posted: Sept. 26, 2023)
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Presentation slides |
15 slides HTML PDF  |
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Presentation video |
15 slides, 11m12s, 49.5 MB MP4  |
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Table of Contents of the Paper
1. Introduction
1.1 Vision of the WTSP Project
1.2 Goals and Requirements of the World WTSP Catalogs
1.3 Expected Values of the WTSP Catalogs
1.4 Who and How to Create the Values of the Catalogs?
1.5 Brief History of the Creation of the World WTSP Catalogs
2. Framework of the World WTSP Catalogs
2.1 Introduction and Evaluation of Individual Websites
2.2 Selection and Arrangement of Websites in the World WTSP Catalogs
2.3 Structure of World WTSP Catalogs
2.4 Building, Updating, and Using the World WTSP Catalogs
3. The Current State (Beta Edition) of the World WTSP Catalogs
3.1 TRIZ Websites in the World WTSP Catalogs
3.2 Around-TRIZ Websites in the World WTSP Catalogs
4. Recent WTSP Activities for Building the Gamma Edition of the World WTSP Catalogs
4.1 Promotion of WTSP to Overcome the Inactive Cooperation
4.2 Recent Activities to Enhance the World WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Websites
4.3 Tentative Status of the World WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Websites
5. Concluding Remarks
5.1 Overcoming the Difficulties of Inactive Attitudes in the TRIZ Community
5.2 Proposal of "Systematic Innovation Review" Website to Represent TRIZ
References
Paper
Acknowledgement: The final publication is available at Springer as:
Nakagawa, T., Mann, D., Orloff, M., Dewulf, S., Litvin, S., Souchkov, V. (2023).
WTSP Report (6) Catalogs of TRIZ and Around-TRIZ Sites in the World (Preparing for Gamma Edition).
In: Cavallucci, D., Livotov, P., Brad, S. (eds) Towards AI-Aided Invention and Innovation. TFC 2023. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 682, pp. 436-452. Springer, Cham.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42532-5_34 (.pdf, 17 pages)
Here I show the accepted version adjusted to this Website style:
WTSP Report (6)
Catalogs of TRIZ and Around-TRIZ Sites in the World
(Preparing for Gamma Edition)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Japan),
Darrell Mann (Systematic Innovation Network, UK),
Michael Orloff (Academy of Instrumental Modern TRIZ, Germany),
Simon Dewulf (AULIVE & Innovation Logic , Australia),
Simon Litvin (GEN TRIZ, USA) and
Valeri Souchkov (ICG Training & Consulting, Netherlands)
Abstract
This is the sixth annual report of WTSP (World TRIZ-related Sites Project). We have already built the World Catalogs of Around-TRIZ (i.e., Creative Problem-Solving Methods in general around TRIZ) Websites (with 419 sites) by September 2022. But the World Catalogs of TRIZ Websites was made with only 62 Websites at that time, due to the lack of voluntary cooperation in many countries.
Our difficulty is: "Many TRIZ colleagues support the WTSP Project, but very few of them actually work to build the World WTSP Catalogs". The obvious reason is: "The talented people in TRIZ are always too busy in their business to do extra voluntary work". In order to overcome the difficulties, we have made many different efforts to clarify our visions, build framework structures, show examples, send letters, publish results, etc. for 5 years and this year 2023.
We now understand that the core of the hidden reasons is: "People do not yet recognize the (possible) Values ("Useful and Attractive") of the World WTSP Catalogs because they have not yet really seen the Catalogs".
Therefore the present paper is dedicated to "explain the possible Values by showing the structures and examples and to convince people that we, the TRIZ experts in different countries, should create the Values and that such a Value creation is achievable with the procedure already demonstrated".
The paper summarizes the actual/targeted situations in 58 countries around the world for the preparation of the Gamma Edition of the World WTSP Catalogs.
Keywords: WTSP Project, World Catalogs of TRIZ Sites, World Catalogs of Around-TRIZ Sites, International Cooperation, Possible Values of WTSP Catalogs
1. Introduction
This is the Sixth Annual Report of WTSP (World TRIZ-related Sites Project), which aims to build a system of Catalogs of Websites in TRIZ and related methodologies worldwide [1]. The Project is established and operated on a volunteer basis with the support of the global TRIZ community, and under the "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" Website [2] the WTSP website [3] is operated by Toru Nakagawa (the WTSP Project Leader).
In this Introduction section, we describe our Vision/Aims and Goals/Requirements and then clarify expected Values and how to create them. Understanding the Values of World WTSP Catalogs is the key to overcoming the difficulties of our project, as written in the Abstract.
1.1 Vision of the WTSP Project [1, 4]
In today's world of highly advanced technologies and complex social systems, we humans and society are faced with numerous difficult problems, and we are struggling to solve them with some philosophy, strategies, methods, information, social/physical resources, and so on.
Here we focus on Creative Problem-Solving Methods in general. We particularly deal with the methods of TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) because of its deep concepts of systems, contradiction solving, practices of information handling, broad application results, etc.
In order to understand and apply such methods, we would like to have some reliable and systematized information resources. With any keyword, we can easily have a flood of information from fragments of webpages. Unfortunately, however, such information is messy and noisy, a mixture of good and poor, and unreliable.
Our Vision of WTSP is: "To build a system of reliable information resources on a global scale in the field of TRIZ and creative problem-solving methods in general. It should be open to the public, easy to understand, covering various aspects, scalable for expansion, and kept up to date." [1]
To achieve this vision, we have made several basic decisions:
Websites as the unit of the information resource: Ordinary units can be papers, articles, webpages, patents, etc.; they are a record at one time (usually not updated), relatively small, and published in different places (need grouping later to fully understand). Books are good units of information, but readers have to buy them separately. Journals, conference proceedings, institutional/national repositories, etc. are much larger and often reliable, but they list many smaller documents without enough categorization. Websites often represent the thoughts and activities of a group of people, made available to the public in an easily understandable and systematized way, kept up to date over several years/decades, in their own quality.
Catalogs of Websites: Catalogs are not simple lists, but selected good items (i.e., Websites) are shown with brief/detailed explanations and categorization. This means we make special efforts to make the content reliable and useful.
Two pillars of Catalogs: Catalogs of TRIZ websites and Around-TRIZ Websites (covering Creative Problem-Solving Methods in general). We believe that TRIZ is one of the most important methodologies for creative problem solving and that TRIZ people should learn other methodologies and people of other methodologies should learn TRIZ as well.
World Catalogs and Country Catalogs: Our basic strategy is to make Country Catalogs in each country and to integrate their world-worthy Websites into the World Catalogs; in fact, only a few countries have made their Country Catalogs and we have made the World Catalogs rather directly.
WTSP Website as a system to show: The system of the Catalogs is published on the WTSP Website, free of charge. The Catalogs can be used interactively on the WTSP Website [3], and can also be downloaded and used/printed on users' PCs.
1.2 Goals and Requirements of the World WTSP Catalogs [4]
Our Goals for the WTSP Catalogs are set in accordance with the Vision :
"To create Catalogs of selected Websites in the World in the field of TRIZ and related Creative Problem-Solving Methods. It should be published in the form of a Website, open to the public, free of charge, easy to understand, covering various aspects, scalable for building, and kept up to date".
Three Basic Requirements for (Any) Catalog (from the user's point of view) are as follows, as we have found in this project:
- Req. 1: Collect good items (i.e. Websites) broadly, select them with evaluation, and show them in categories.
- Req. 2: Individual items should be introduced in a proper/fair manner, briefly or closely, and guide the readers/users to good items.
- Req. 3: It should be easy for users to find one or more items within the Catalog that meet their current interests/needs.
Our WTSP Project has been working to meet these basic requirements, as shown in Sections 2 and 3.
1.3 Expected Values of the WTSP Catalogs [4, 5]
We now clarify the expected values of the WTSP Catalogs (especially of TRIZ Websites) from the point of view of different stakeholders:
For Site Owners: Individual website owners are given the opportunity to introduce their websites concisely, in a standard format, and also fully in a free format. They are encouraged to write a full introduction of their Website in free format, using illustrations/tables/etc. on 2 to 20+ A4 pages. The introductions should be highly valued by other TRIZ experts and Attractive to many TRIZ people.
For TRIZ leaders/experts/practitioners: The Catalogs provide an overview of the entire range of TRIZ-related Websites in the world. These people can quickly look for good and new websites, understand the development/progress of TRIZ and Around-TRIZ, and study new approaches and methods through the websites and their references.
For TRIZ practitioners/users/learners: The Catalogs are a useful source of information about good websites and their contents for learning/studying TRIZ and Around-TRIZ. We notice that these people are initially interested in websites that are easy to learn and apply TRIZ methods, that are written in their own language, and that are active in their own country. Later, some advanced practitioners/users go on to read/use simple but excellent websites in the World WTSP Catalogs.
1.4 Who and How to Create the Values of the Catalogs? [4, 5]
Who? -- The answer is clear: Individual Website Owners, and collectively TRIZ leaders/experts/practitioners (including most Website Owners). Individual Website Owners contribute to the Value of the Catalogs by presenting their websites which attract many readers/users/professionals. Groups of TRIZ leaders/experts/practitioners contribute to the values of the WTSP Catalogs by collecting website introductions from site owners and editing manuscripts of (country) parts of World Catalogs that contain selected websites in a categorized manner. The usefulness of World Catalogs comes from the coverage, selection, and arrangement of presentations of good websites. A fair and unbiased selection of websites is the most important Value of the World Catalogs to be developed by the global TRIZ community.
How? -- Ideally, by global cooperation of (almost) all the TRIZ leaders/experts/practitioners including the site owners. In practice, cooperation of such people in each of different countries may be a good basis.
If we notice the initial behavior of TRIZ practitioners/users/learners, we should prepare Country Catalogs of TRIZ Websites, where TRIZ is introduced from beginner to expert level in their own language, including translations from excellent global documents. We should also prepare the World WTSP Catalogs to include at least one Website from each country to reflect the approach/spread of TRIZ in that country.
1.5 Brief History of the Creation of the World WTSP Catalogs
- (Dec. 2017-2018) Nakagawa proposed WTSP as a volunteer-based international project, and 5 TRIZ leaders were invited as Global Co-editors. WTSP Catalogs in Japan were established as a pilot model. 80 members from 30 countries joined (or signed up to join) WTSP at TFC2018. [1]
- (2019) Preliminary Edition of World WTSP Catalogs was quickly built. TRIZ sites were cataloged with contributions from 4 countries and 2 internet surveys, while Around-TRIZ sites with the results of 5 cases of internet surveys. The difficulty of forming voluntary WTSP Teams in many countries became clear. [6]
- (2020) Beta Edition was published [4]: WTSP was presented online at 4 International Conferences (MATRIZ, ETRIA, AI, and ICSI) and a Japan conference.
- (2021) Nakagawa conducted Internet surveys of TRIZ-related sites in 52 countries individually [7, 8].
- (2022) Catalogs of Around-TRIZ sites were enhanced by refining the Internet survey results [9]. Catalogs of TRIZ Sites were made for UK and Germany by Nakagawa. [10,11]
- (2023) Contributions to World TRIZ Sites Catalogs are intensively requested to the TRIZ community for the preparation of the Gamma Edition by Sept. 2023 [12], but the responses are currently slow.
2 Framework of the World WTSP Catalogs [4]
When we built the Beta Edition in October 2020 [4], the framework of the World WTSP Catalogs was essentially established, as shown in this Section.
2.1 Introduction and Evaluation of Individual Websites [13]
The basic items of our WTSP Catalogs are chosen to be Websites, as discussed in Section 1.1. Here we discuss how to collect, evaluate, present, and introduce them.
Scope: The term "TRIZ" is widely used throughout the world without much ambiguity; nevertheless, we should include keywords such as ТРИЗ, TIPS, Systematic Innovation, I-TRIZ, xTRIZ, MTRIZ, SIT (ASIT, USIT), Bio-TRIZ, etc. to cover many variations.
On the other hand, the broader fields of Creative Problem-Solving Methods in general include a large variety of methods developed by different groups of people in history and do not have proper/widely-used terms to cover the fields. Thus to search for Websites in the fields, we used several sets of internet surveys with keywords of general terms; such as Creative Thinking Method; Problem-Solving; Innovation; Quality/Value/Cost/Productivity Management; and Patent/IP. We use the term "Around-TRIZ" as the short form of "Creative Problem-Solving Methods in general".
Domain: Websites of our interest usually have a single domain of URL with a large number of subfolders (subdomains) and Webpages. In other cases, they may be specific sub-sites of larger Websites of some institutions, or they may form a system of multiple domains with different roles (such as languages and territories).
Types/Roles: Corresponding to different activities related to TRIZ, we want to collect different types of TRIZ-related Websites; and we have found that the Roles of Websites (i.e., close to Roles of Website Owners) are important to categorize various Websites [13]. The Roles of sites are classified as (a) Information sending sites, (b) Promoter organizations, (c) Public organizations, (d) Academic organizations, (e) Developer organizations, (g) Information sharing, (h) User organizations, and (i) Personal. And they are further categorized on an ad hoc basis. Roles of a website are specified by a list of several subcategories of Roles (i.e., Main Role, and subsidiary Roles).
Evaluation Criteria: To include in the Catalogs, evaluation and selection of Websites are necessary. We set our multiple criteria for Website evaluation as follows:
- Quality (reliable, correct, novel, original, comprehensible, up-to-date, ...)
- Usefulness (resourceful, reference, handy, practical, effective, ...)
- Attractiveness (interesting, easy to understand, illustrative, ...)
- Accessibility (open access, free/low cost, widely used, ...)
- Scope (scope of the topic/field, scope of activities, comprehensive, ...)
All these criteria are qualitative. Websites have their own strengths and weaknesses; we want our Websites to be especially good in some of these aspects, and reasonably good in others. We evaluate different Websites mostly on their strong aspects.
Grading: We grade the Websites in 5 levels by using the symbol marks such as:
◎: Most important (about top 30) in the World WTSP Catalogs
○: Important (about the next 100) in the World WTSP Catalogs
□: Worthy in the World WTSP Catalogs
△: Worthy in the Country WTSP Catalogs
−: Unworthy or Irrelevant in the WTSP Catalogs
The grading of Websites is done separately for the TRIZ Sites Catalogs and for the Around-TRIZ Sites Catalogs. The grading of Websites (especially those of other (competing) experts) is delicate but necessary for practical reasons (Basic Requirement 1). We may show our ambiguity by using double marks (e.g., ○□ means ○ or □). Grades at the ◎ and ○ levels are (roughly) limited in number, and may only become clear after accumulating examples and comparing them with one another (but still qualitatively).
[Note: Many site owners do not like their sites to be evaluated by others, especially competitors. Many TRIZ leaders/professionals/editors hesitate to evaluate others' websites, for afraid of personal/organizational conflicts. However, evaluation is absolutely necessary for any Catalog. Even simple lists of websites are made after (implicit) evaluation. We have to overcome this mental barrier with our professional truth and with understanding of the Values of Catalogs created with good evaluation. To our relief, we do not try ranking but grading into 5 levels with criteria of multiple aspects weighing their positive sides. Site owners may propose their own site grade, and the editors may sometimes adjust the grade in comparison with many others. The grading is shown publicly and may be revised later. If a site owner wants to claim a higher grade, it may be a good idea for him/her to submit a full introduction (c) of the site to the Project.]
Basic Information for the Index: The following information about each Website is used and shown in the Index table of the WTSP Catalogs:
Site Code: Country/Survey Code + numbering to identify a Website.
Site Name: Typically, "Acronym (Full name)" or "Organization : Website name"
Site Domain URL: Multiple URLs may be displayed if necessary.
Site Location: The country where the Website organization's headquarter is located.
Site Language: Language(s) describing the Website.
Roles of Site: Show a few Site Roles with subcategories in order of importance.
Evaluation: Show the level of grading with 5 icons: ◎○□△―.
Single-line description: Short introduction in a line. Better omitted than long.
Remarks: Especially on the filename of the Full description (c).
Descriptions of Websites in the following 3 levels:
(a) Brief description: Free format, 3 to 15+ lines, usually written by a surveyor/recommender, using excerpts from top pages and "About Us" pages, etc.
(b) Standard Form description: One page in A4 tabular format, mandatory to be completed by the Website Owner. In addition to the Basic Information, answers on the Application phase, Application fields, and Methods by choosing from preset categories. Free format introduction of the Website in about 5 to 10 lines.
(c) Full description: Free format, 2 to 20+ pages in A4 in a separate file, optionally written by the Website Owner, encouraged to describe attractively by using illustrations, photos, tables, etc.; choose some suitable style/structure for the Type of Website.
2.2 Selection and Arrangement of Websites in the World WTSP Catalogs [14]
We have collected several hundred Websites for World TRIZ Sites Catalogs and also for World Around-TRIZ Sites Catalogs. Therefore, we decided to create the following 3 levels of World WTSP Catalogs, for TRIZ Sites as well as for Around-TRIZ Sites:
Top Catalog: Only the Most important sites (◎).
Basic Catalog: Most important sites (◎) and Important sites (○) together.
Extended Catalog: Worthy of World Catalogs sites (□) only.
In each World Catalog, all Websites are arranged in the order of their Main Roles. Thus the Websites are effectively classified by their Types and grades in each World Catalog, in order to make the Catalogs convenient for users and scalable for Catalog builders.
2.3 Structure of World WTSP Catalogs [4, 14]
The source data of a group of Websites is contributed to the World WTSP Catalog system by a Country team or a surveyor. Such a record consists of a pair of Index file and Site description file. Websites are arranged and specified in the Index file and have hyperlinks to access the corresponding site descriptions in the Site description file. The flexibility of the hyperlinks allows free rearrangement (and duplication) of the Websites in the Index file, without rearranging the Site descriptions.
The overall structure of the World WTSP Catalog system is shown in Figure 1 from the user's point of view. On the top page of the World WTSP Catalog system, users see various indexes of Catalogs, such as source data Catalogs (of countries and surveys) and various forms of World WTSP Catalogs.
Fig. 1. Structure of the World WTSP Catalogs at the Top Page
Each World WTSP Catalog has an Index file, which lists many Websites in a rearranged order and the hyperlink of each Website gives access to the corresponding site description stored in the source-data Site description file. The hyperlinks allow flexible rearrangement of Websites in different Indexes. This form of World Catalog can be used only interactively to browse the Website descriptions.
For the purpose of easy reading of the Websites in the World WTSP Catalogs, we have also prepared "World WTSP Catalogs for Print". Individual Site descriptions are copied from the source-data Site description files into the Site description part within "World WTSP Catalogs for Print" (in the rearranged order). Thus, "Print Type" World Catalogs can be printed easily in readable form and can be downloaded and used on users' PCs because the hyperlinks access the site descriptions stored in the same file.
2.4 Building, Updating, and Using the World WTSP Catalogs [13]
The process of building the World WTSP Catalogs is also already established. Its outline is:
- In each country, list candidate Websites through recommendations and Internet surveys.
- Visit the Websites one by one to understand, briefly introduce, and even tentatively evaluate them.
- Ask the Website owners to present their own Website by filling out the WTSP Standard Website Description Form. And encourage them to take an optional advantage of attracting users and experts by writing full introductions to their Websites in free format in a separate file.
- Make a manuscript of your Country Part of the World WTSP Catalogs as a pair of Index file and Site Descriptions file. The manuscript is now submitted to the Project Leader.
- All the contributed data of Websites will be integrated into World WTSP Catalogs by rearranging the Websites according to their grading and categorization.
The first four steps can be cooperatively done by the voluntary WTSP Team and Website owners in each country, while the last step has to be done at WTSP Center (or Project Leader).
Various manuscripts at the intermediate stages shown above are stored separately on the back end of the system for further preparation. Updating the World WTSP Catalogs should be done incrementally or as an edition every 2 years, for example.
All World WTSP Catalogs are published on the WTSP Website (under the copyright of the WTSP Project), and can be used by anyone free of charge [3]. This is of significant value to many people, as discussed in Section 1.3.
3 The Current State (Beta Edition) of the World WTSP Catalogs [4, 9]
The Beta Edition of the World WTSP Catalogs was published in October 2020 [4] and fulfills the framework and structure described so far. Table 1 shows the number of Websites recorded in the World WTSP Catalogs as of Jul. 2022 [9].
Table 1. Number of Websites in the World WTSP Catalogs (Sept. 2022) [9]
The Table shows the number of Websites for TRIZ (in the left columns) and for Around-TRIZ (in the right columns), classified into the grades (◎, ○, □), and further classified into rows according to the Main Role of the Website.
3.1 TRIZ Websites in the World WTSP Catalogs
The data shown here for the TRIZ Websites are the same as in the Beta Edition (Nov. 2020) [4]. Four countries contributed their manuscripts of Country Catalogs: they are Japan (Toru Nakagawa), Malaysia (Eng Hoo Tan), China (Rung Hua Tan), and the Russian-Language region (Michael Orloff). Two cases of Internet surveys for TRIZ Websites written in English in the world and in the USA were contributed by Toru Nakagawa. Because of these limited source data, the World WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Sites have only 23 ◎ sites and 39 ○ sites. [15]
In spite of our appeals, voluntary WTSP activities have been inactive in many countries for these two years, resulting in too minor revisions in the World WTSP Catalogs to appear in Fig. 2.
3.2 Around-TRIZ Websites in the World WTSP Catalogs
In 2019, Toru Nakagawa conducted intensive Internet surveys for Around-TRIZ Websites. He detected about 1,000 websites and visited them one by one to build the second pillar (Around-TRIZ) of the World WTSP Catalogs at the ◎ and ○ levels in Oct. 2020 [4, 16]. During Mar. - Jun. 2022, he visited all the Websites again, to revise the (Brief) introductions and evaluations of individual sites and to enhance the World WTSP Catalogs on the □ level [9]. Fig. 2 shows the 30 ◎ Websites in our Around-TRIZ World Catalog (including 10 ◎ TRIZ Websites). [16]
Figure 2. Around-TRIZ Websites (◎) in the World (Sept. 2022) [9]
As a result, the World WTSP Catalogs of Around-TRIZ Websites are quite well built, covering consistently (though limited in the English-language Websites) and having Brief introductions for all Websites (mostly written using excerpts from the target Websites). This strategy of building World WTSP Catalogs for Around-TRIZ Websites was chosen because we did not have strong partners in such broad and diversified fields of Creative Problem-Solving methods to ask for effective cooperation.
4 Recent WTSP Activities for Building the Gamma Edition of the World WTSP Catalogs
After having built the Around-TRIZ Websites Catalog (Section 3.2), we have decided to concentrate our efforts on enhancing the TRIZ Websites Catalogs (Section 3.1) to make their Gamma Edition by the time of ETRIA TFC2023.
4.1 Promotion of WTSP to Overcome the Inactive Cooperation
In order to overcome the difficulty in obtaining voluntary cooperation in the TRIZ community, we have made various promotion activities, besides the actual development of the Catalogs: [3]
- "Mission and Philosophy of the WTSP Project" was published (Aug. 2021);
- "Introduction to World WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Sites and Around-TRIZ Sites" was published for the users (instead of the developers) (Jan. 2022) [17];
- Messages and reports of the WTSP were posted on LinkedIn more or less regularly every two weeks (Jan. 2022 - present).
- Papers and slides presented at ETRIA TFC2022 [9] and some other conferences were posted on the "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" (Oct. 2022).
- WTSP Communication Forum pages [18] were opened (Dec. 2022- present).
- [WTSP] Letters were sent to TRIZ leaders in Italy, France, Korea, Taiwan, etc. to help them coordinate WTSP Teams in such countries active in TRIZ (Dec. 2022).
- "Call for Contributions to the WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Sites in the World (for Gamma Edition)" was published (Jan. 2023), and was sent individually to TRIZ colleagues in 30 countries asking for their cooperation (Feb.-Mar. 2023).[12]
- "Values of WTSP Catalogs for different TRIZ people: -- And Who creates them" was published (Apr. 2023). [5]
4.2 Recent Activities to Enhance the World WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Websites
As briefly reported at the TFC2022 [9], Nakagawa conducted Internet surveys of TRIZ websites in 52 individual countries (excluding the 6 countries already participating in the Beta Edition) (May-Nov. 2021) and detected 1200+ Websites in total. Figure 3 summarizes the current state of survey analysis of TRIZ Websites for all the 58 countries in the world.
Figure 3. Current State of Survey for TRIZ Websites in the 58 Countries in the World
Among them, 40 countries (in the first 3 boxes in Fig. 3) were studied first. By visiting about 700+ websites one by one, he wrote Brief introductions (a) and evaluated them provisionally. The numbers of Websites detected, and graded as ◎, ○, □, and △ (as TRIZ Websites) are listed in the table for each country (Nov. 2021). The analysis work met difficulties in many countries because of language barriers, even with the help of automatic translation by Google Translator or later by DeepL. These Websites, however, have not yet been integrated into the World TRIZ Sites Catalogs because their Roles have not yet been identified.
Analyses of the survey results for the 12 countries in the top right box in Fig. 3 were left undone for the time being. They include the countries active in TRIZ, such as UK, France, Italy, Germany, Taiwan, Korea, etc., where we can expect many good Websites in TRIZ. The survey analysis for such a country is obviously very difficult for any foreign surveyor, especially because many (more than half) of the Websites are written in their own non-English languages (except for UK). So we asked TRIZ leaders/colleagues in these countries for their proactive cooperation.
Lately, to demonstrate how to build the Country Part for such a country, Nakagawa worked to analyze the survey data of UK (Feb. 2022). The work was fruitful to find 5 ◎, 1 ○, 8 □, and 1 △ Websites for TRIZ, and 2 ◎, 3 ○, 6 □, and 3 △ Websites for Around-TRIZ. Then the results were combined with the data of Websites in UK already recorded in the Beta Edition of World WTSP Catalogs. Figure 4 lists the ◎ and ○ Websites thus obtained in UK for TRIZ and Around-TRIZ. We are asking TRIZ leaders and experts in UK to review and revise the present manuscript.
Figure 4. TRIZ and Around-TRIZ Websites in UK at the ◎ and ○ levels.
Nakagawa next worked to analyze the survey data of Germany, struggling over a month with the help of DeepL. After checking with the data of Germany Websites recorded in the Beta Edition, we obtained the Germany Part of World WTSP Catalogs in Dec. 2022. It now contains 3 ◎, 6 ○, 7 □, and 3 △TRIZ Sites and 2 ◎, 7 ○, 18 □, and 6△ Around-TRIZ Sites. The ◎ and ○TRIZ sites are shown in Fig. 5.
Figure 5. The ◎ and ○ TRIZ Websites in Germany
In this survey work, he newly realized the real importance of Michael Orloff's Website and invited him to write a full introduction. The introduction of "DE-03 ◎ Modern TRIZ Academy Website (Michael Orloff)" was published on the WTSP Website (Dec. 2022) [3] as an excellent example of a Website introduction.
Then he started to work for Taiwan but had to stop in the middle realizing the heavy work due to the language barriers. We decided to rely on the voluntary cooperation of the TRIZ community in many countries around the world.
Thus, we issued a "Call for Contributions to the WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Sites in the World" (Jan. 2023). The points are: To form a WTSP volunteer Team in each country, to contribute a manuscript of the Country Part of World WTSP Catalogs, and to submit site introductions written by the Site owners. We made a special promise that if Website owners write their site introductions both in the Standard Form (b) and a full introduction in free format (c), the introductions will be published additionally as independent pages on the WTSP Website. The Call for Contributions was sent to TRIZ leaders/colleagues in more than 30 countries individually and to some Website owners
The current states of WTSP activities in important countries are summarized here:
South Korea: Min-Gyu Lee is working as the WTSP coordinator with the help of KTA (Korea TRIZ Association) and KOSCA, and has prepared the 0.7 Version of Korea Part of World WTSP Catalogs, which lists 27 Websites (◎○□). He says that the Owners of these sites would not like to write their site introductions. He also found that there are only a few TRIZ Websites that show their TRIZ activities/methods/real applications, even though Korea is the world's leading country in promoting/training/applying TRIZ in industry and academia. He notices that several big companies in Korea have achieved global success by introducing/promoting/training/applying TRIZ and they show their methods/applications/activities/etc. fully on their Intranet Websites, while not disclosing them to the public. Many consultants and academic experts support and cooperate with such companies, but are regulated in showing their TRIZ experiences openly.
Taiwan: Ming-Hung Sung (Feng Chia University) serves as the Country Editor, with the support of Daniel Sheu. When Sung visited the websites that were detected in Nakagawa's survey, he found 9 of them are worthy in the World Catalogs. He wrote the introductions of the 9 sites in the Standard Form (b) for himself. We ask him to get feedback/revisions from the site owners. The manuscript of the Taiwan Part will be published in the near future, after combining Nakagawa's notes.
France: Pascal Sire and Roland De Guio are joint Country Editors.
Italy: Matteo Spreafico is the Country Editor, with the help of Davide Russo.
Although we have not heard from these two countries recently, we assume that some preparation work is going on there.
Besides these countries, we have had some preparatory communications from Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Poland, Sweden, Israel, Thailand, Australia, Mexico, etc.
It is noteworthy that we have recently received two Regional Editors: Khaled Shoaib (Egypt) as Regional Editor for Middle East/North Africa (especially in the Arabic language) and Adehi Guehika (now in Canada) as Regional Editor for Africa (especially in English/French). We will be able to get new information about TRIZ in these regions.
We should mention here the 5 countries (shown in the right bottom box in Fig. 3) that have already made significant contributions to the Beta Edition [14].
Japan: As an early pilot project, Japan WTSP Catalogs were created (Mar. 2018) with 92 Websites. We have asked 30+ TRIZ colleagues (mostly organized in Japan TRIZ Society) to update and revise them, but so far no WTSP activities, to our pity.
Malaysia: Eng Hoo Tan sent us an update with 10 Websites.
China: We are asking Run Hua Tan, the Country Editor, to update the data completely to reflect the rapid development of their technologies and TRIZ, but have not yet received an answer.
Russian Language region (especially Russia and Belarus): In addition to the 37 Websites (Jul. 2019) included in the Beta Edition, Michael Orloff expanded the list (Aug. 2020) into 55 Websites (◎○□), and Nikolay Shpakovsky added 8 more Websites (Aug. 2020); unfortunately these additional Websites are not yet integrated into the World WTSP Catalogs due to the lack of information about the Main Role of sites.
USA: The Beta Edition uses the results of the Internet survey (Jul. 2019). We are asking many TRIZ leaders/colleagues to form the WTSP Team of USA and update the data: but no positive reactions have been heard yet.
4.3 Tentative Status of the World WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Websites
As written above, the World WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Websites are in a tentative state waiting for manuscripts from many countries. The TRIZ Websites at the ◎ level are tentatively shown in Fig. 6. Six websites marked with the red star are newly included, but several more ◎ websites are still missing, we suppose.
Figure 6. TRIZ Websites (◎) in the World WTSP Catalogs (tentative, Apr. 2023).
5 Concluding Remarks
5.1 Overcoming the Difficulties of Inactive Attitudes in the TRIZ Community
As written in the Abstract, our project encounters the difficulty that "Many TRIZ colleagues support the WTSP Project, but very few of them actually work for building the World WTSP Catalogs". The obvious reason is that "the talented people in TRIZ are always too busy in their business to do extra voluntary work". While struggling to solve the difficulty for about 5 years (Sections 4.1 - 4.2), we now understand that the hidden core of the difficulty is: "People do not yet recognize the (possible) Values ("Useful and Attractive") of the World WTSP Catalogs, because they have not yet really seen the Catalogs". Therefore, the main purpose of the present paper is "to explain the possible Values (Section 1.3) by showing the structures and examples (Section 2 - 3)" and also "to convince people that we, TRIZ experts in various countries, should create the Values (Section 1.4) and that we can achieve the Value creation by following the procedure already demonstrated (Sections 2.4, 3)". See Note in Section 2.1.
5.2 Proposal of "Systematic Innovation Review" Website to Represent TRIZ
A simple but significant finding obtained through this project may be seen in Fig. 4. That is "Although we have many (hundreds of) good Websites in TRIZ, there is no Website that can represent the whole field of TRIZ". This becomes clear when we see that "The Official Altshuller Foundation" Website has not been updated since 2008 and "The TRIZ Journal" has not been updated since 2020. Many Websites are run independently/competitively with different methods and approaches in TRIZ. The situation is even more diversified/confusing in the broader field of Creative Problem-Solving Methods in general.
In Sept. 2022 we, the Global Co-editors of the WTSP Project, started to propose to "Establish a New Website Representative in TRIZ" [19]. We tentatively named it "Systematic Innovation Review" (or "SI-Review" in short) Website, with the intention to cover the broader fields of Creative Problem-Solving Methods in general in the future.
In order to be "Representative", SI-Review will not try to compete with many other good Websites/journals in publishing new original works, but rather to be compatible and yet outstanding with them by publishing new (or already established) overview/review works. It will accept different works of different methods/approaches in TRIZ in the broader sense (and Around-TRIZ). It should be run by an editorial board of 5 or more international and interdisciplinary editors. The SI-Review will publish several types/aspects of work, such as (overview) papers on methods, applications, promotional activities, standard texts, introductions, texts for children, etc. It should have a pool of candidate topics/documents recommended by many editorial advisors. It will regularly publish several papers every month, and keep them as an archive in a well-categorized and easily accessible way.
In a sense, SI-Review is similar to the World WTSP Catalogs, whose excellent websites are presented by turn in several lecture series; because the accumulated articles on a Website often resemble an overview of original papers focused on a topic. The (possible) Values of the SI-Review Website are almost the same as those of the World WTSP Catalogs (Section 1.3). How to get Editorial Board members, how to run the Website effectively, how to run it financially, etc. need to be solved in practice.
References
[1] Nakagawa T., Mann D., Orloff M., Dewulf S., Litvin S., Souchkov V., World TRIZ Sites Project (WTSP) for Building and Maintaining Global Catalogs of TRIZ-related Web Sites, Summary slides of ETRIA TFC2018 presentation; Nov.11, 2018, eTHPJ/epapers/ e2018Papers/eNaka-WTSP-TFC2018/eNaka-WTSP-TFC2018-Summary -4P-181023.pdf
[2] Nakagawa T. (editor), Website "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" (in English), (abbreviated here as eTHPJ), https://www.osaka-gu.ac.jp/php/nakagawa/TRIZ/eTRIZ/ , established on Nov. 15, 1998.
[3] Nakagawa, T. (editor), Website of World TRIZ-related Sites Project (WTSP), eTHPJ/eWTSP/ , established in Dec. 2017.
[4] Nakagawa T., Mann D., Orloff M., Dewulf S., Litvin S., Souchkov V., World TRIZ-related Sites Project (WTSP)(3): World WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ and Around-TRIZ Sites: First Edition (2019) and Its Further Enhancement, ETRIA TRIZ Future Conf. 2020, held online at Cluj-Napoca, Romania, on Oct. 14-16, 2020: eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-B4-News2020/eWTSP-Presentations2020-WTSP3/eWTSP-Presen-ETRIA-TFC2020-WTSP3-201106.html
[5] Nakagawa T., Values of the World WTSP Catalogs: for Site Owners, for TRIZ Experts, for TRIZ Users, and for TRIZ. -- Who then Creates the Values?, Apr. 6, 2023, LinkedIn, eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-B7-News2023/eWTSP-Forum2023B.html#WTSP-Values-2304
[6] Nakagawa T., Mann D., Orloff M., Dewulf S., Litvin S., Souchkov V., World TRIZ Sites Project (WTSP) (2): To Build Catalogs of TRIZ-related Web Sites in the World, Presented at ETRIA TFC 2019, held on Oct. 9-11, 2019, at Marrakech, Morocco; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32497-1_40 ; eTHPJ/epapers/e2019Papers/ eNaka-WTSP2-ETRIATFC2019/eNaka-WTSP2-ETRIATFC2019-191016.html
[7] Nakagawa T., Mann D., Orloff M., Dewulf S., Litvin S., Souchkov V., World TRIZ-related Sites Project (WTSP) (4): World WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Sites and Around-TRIZ Sites, Let's Make Them Attractive and Useful!, Presented at ETRIA TFC 2021, held on Sept. 22-24, 2021, at Free-Universtiy of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, Online; DOI: ; eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-B5-News2021/eWTSP-Appeal-ETRIATFC2021-210927.html
[8] Nakagawa, T., Current Status of the Survey Results of WTSP World TRIZ Sites, and Overview of Deployment of TRIZ in the World, Nov. 20, 2021, eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-B5-News2021/eWTSP-News2021-Results-Surveys4th-211118.html
[9] Nakagawa T., Mann D., Orloff M., Dewulf S., Litvin S., Souchkov V., WTSP Report (5) Catalogs of TRIZ and Around-TRIZ Sites in the World: We Can Learn Full Scope of TRIZ-related Works in the World, ETRIA TRIZ Future Conf. 2022, held Warsaw TU and online, Sept. 27-29, 2022; R. Nowak et al. (Eds.): TFC 2022, IFIP AICT 655, pp. 443–457, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17288-5_37 ; eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-B6-News2022/eWTSP-ETRIA-TFC2022-WTSP5-220930.html
[10] Nakagawa T., UK Part of the World WTSP Catalogs Has Been Built as an Example of Country WTSP Catalogs, Mar. 2, 2022, eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-WorldCatalog/eWTSP-WorldCatalog-A-uk/eWTSP-Output-A-uk-UK-220301.html
[11] Nakagawa T., Germany Part of the World WTSP Catalogs Has Been Built, Dec. 16, 2022, eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-WorldCatalog/eWTSP-WorldCatalog-A-de/Index-DE.html
[12] Nakagawa T., Call for Contributions to the WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Sites in the World (Gamma Edition, Sept. 2023). Country Manuscripts by Apr. 16., Jan. 31, 2023, eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-B7-News2023/eWTSP-CallContributions-230131.html
[13] Nakagawa T., WTSP (A4) Guidelines for Building World WTSP Catalogs, Nov. 20, 2020, eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-A4-Guidelines.html
[14] Nakagawa, T., World WTSP Catalogs: Top Page, eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-WorldCatalog/eWTSP-World%20Catalog-World/World-Catalog-TopPage.html
[15] Nakagawa, T., (A2P) World TRIZ Sites Basic Catalog (◎○）for Print, eTHPJ/ eWTSP/eWTSP-WorldCatalog/eWTSP-World%20Catalog-World/World-A2P-TRIZBasic-Catalog-PDF.pdf
[16] Nakagawa, T., (C2P) World Around-TRIZ Sites Basic Catalog (◎○) for Print, eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-WorldCatalog/eWTSP-World%20Catalog-World/World-C2P-AroundTRIZBasic-Catalog.html
[17] Nakagawa, T., Introduction to World WTSP Catalogs of TRIZ Sites and Around-TRIZ Sites, Jan. 24, 2022, eTHPJ//eWTSP/eWTSP-B6-News2022/eWTSP-WorldCatalogsIntroduction-220123.html
[18] Nakagawa T. ed., WTSP Communication Forum (2023), Jan. - Apr., 2023, eTHPJ/eWTSP/eWTSP-B7-News2023/eWTSP-Forum2023-Index.html
[19] Nakagawa T., Mann D., Orloff M., Dewulf S., Litvin S., Souchkov V., Proposal of "Systematic Innovation Review" Website, Aug. 30; Sept. 22, 2022, eTHPJ/eWTSP/eSIReview/eSIReview-InitialStage-2208/eSIReview-Initial-Proposal-2208.html
Presentation Slides (ETRIA TFC2023)
===> Presentation Slides (.pdf) (15 slides, 758 KB)
[1] Introduction: Our Vision, Basic Policy, and Brief History
[2] World WTSP Catalogs : Development and Current State
[3] Difficulties in Develoment: Possible Causes and Our Policy
[4] Concluding Remarks: Summary and Appeal
Presentation Video (ETRIA TFC2023)
Video in MP4, 15 slides, 11m12s ===> Presentation Video (.mp4)
Last updated on Sept. 18, 2023. Access point: Editor: nakagawa@ogu.ac.jp