Abstract
There is a mixed-message news flash for TRIZ and Innovation connoisseurs. The general popularity of specific innovation-related keywords as a Google search term is high but they have been steadily trending down since 2004. The bad economy and recession are not directly linked with this drop since innovation topics have been falling out of favor as a search pursuit a few years before the housing bust and bad economy arrived on the scene.
What is TRIZ?
TRIZ is the Science of Inventive Problem Solving, which was developed by the Soviet inventor and science fiction author Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues, in 1946. It is based on the premise that great creativity can be a learned skill. It gives optimism for a more innovative future and hopes that the best ideas do not always have to come out of highly funded “Think Tanks” or from innovation geniuses.
Today, TRIZ specialists from different companies and associations have created a wide array of training programs, specialized techniques and software that supplement the early work of Altshuller. In order to maintain worldwide clarity, common ground and a clear definition of what TRIZ actually is, a TRIZ Institute and 2 TRIZ associations created a TRIZ Body of Knowledge to fill that need.
TRIZ Popularity Levels and Trends as a Search Term
Any search analysis of short terms and especially acronyms like TRIZ are risky because the acronyms can mean many different things in different countries than what a web searcher might actually be looking for. For example, the average monthly web searches for “TRIZ” in Brazil was incredibly high (74,000) in 2011. That would make Brazil the #1 fan of innovation-based TRIZ, if it were true. However, innovation-based TRIZ interest is not that high in Brazil for a few different reasons. TRIZ is also the name of an ESPN TV sports program in Brazil. “POR UM TRIZ” is a movie title (Out of Time) released in Brazil starring Denzel Washington and are part of the lyrics in a popular song. TRIZ is the name of a music band in Brazil, the name of a antihistamine, a brand of glue in South America, Chinese Export firm, etc.
Due to these issues, estimated Innovation-TRIZ popularity numbers in Brazil should be reduced by a figure of 70,000 searches per month for 2011 to reflect the real story. That puts an accurate assessment of TRIZ popularity in 8h place when compared to 23 other business improvement initiatives.
According to data from the Google Keyword Tool, there is an average of 246,000 worldwide searches that were initiated each month in 2011 on the web for the Business and Industrial search category for TRIZ. I estimate that the true innovation-based TRIZ interest is more accurately estimated as 176,000, due to the other uses for the term TRIZ, as mentioned. The adjusted 2011 TRIZ popularity rank is shown below, which also includes 23 other Business Improvement Initiatives. As seen here, there are huge differences in the popularity levels of certain business initiative search terms.
As impressive as the bulk of monthly worldwide searches were in 2011 for specific innovation-related terms (see chart below), they have all seen a 25 – 67% drop in popularity since 2004. The bar chart below shows the average monthly search volume for specific term for 2011. As seen here, TRIZ is not yet at par with other common innovation words rolling through the minds of worldwide web searchers. Altshuller, the founder of TRIZ, does not attract much attention. If the TRIZ founder’s full name “Genrich Altshuller” were tested for popularity, the numbers drop quite a bit more that what is shown on the chart below.
Google Trends and Google Insights for Search tools were used to determine the popularity trends for TRIZ and other innovation-related terms. In spite of this grand number of searches initiated each month by the would-be innovators of the world, interest in TRIZ and its founder Genrich Altshuller is down 55% since 2004. Other business improvement initiatives do not appear to be stealing fans away from TRIZ since most of their numbers are also down sharply since 2004. TRIZ is not the only creativity-based search words that are waning in popularity. This short list of other similar search terms might be a signal that other priorities are displacing innovation topics as a popular interest and pursuit in life and business:
- Patent – down 67%
- Invention – down 60%
- Creativity – down 40%
- Innovation – down 25%
ARIZ (Algorithm for Inventive Problems Solving) is also a popular TRIZ concept that was not included in this search analysis because 98% of the time, it is associated with the abbreviation for the State of Arizona, in the USA, which has no direct association with TRIZ.
Search Popularity Levels for some Non-Innovation Terms
We all know the phrase: “You are what you eat”. In a digital world, it might also be true that: “You are what you search”. Is the general population of the world less interested in innovation and thinking that true innovation is beyond them? It’s also interesting to note that worldwide Google web search interest in keywords like “training” and “MBA” are also down over 40% since 2004. How people get their information is changing. Interest in the search term “blog” is up 4-fold since 2004, while the interest in “Newspaper” and Magazine” are down over 50% for the same time frame.
Popularity & Trend Charts for Innovation-Related Search Terms
Shown below are 6 trend charts for search words mentioned so far (Patent, Invention, TRIZ, Altshuller, Creativity & Innovation). The charts were created with the Google Insights for Search charting tool, which accesses Google search data, ever since 2004. They are shown in order of the most severe drop in popularity to the smallest drop in popularity.
Trend Charts for Economy-Related Search Terms
There is no apparent correlation to metrics from the bad economy for this drop in innovation interest. This drop of interest in innovation as a general down trend started before the big recession hit and was not directly affected at the peak of the recession. A trend chart for interest in a web search that included the word “recession” is shown below. TRIZ and other innovation key words do not appear to correlate with or be influenced by general interest peaks in search terms like “recession”.
Unfortunately, popularity of search keywords like “unemployment” is up since 2008, as shown below.
TRIZ search Popularity in 2011 by Country
Below each Google Insights for Search trend chart created with this Google tool is a bar chart ranking the keyword popularity by country, as shown below for a TRIZ analysis. This chart is very deceiving and misleading. Its intentions are good because it does not want to favor big countries that have a lot of web search activity, which might always come out on top of a search analysis. This country rank for TRIZ has little to do with the actual search numbers and everything to do with how TRIZ compares to the popularity of other search terms.
The actual numbers of searches ranked by country looks very different than the above chart. That information can be extracted from the Google Keyword Tool but, interestingly enough, the actual numbers for every country of the world are available except for Iran, which was ranked on first place on the Google Insights for Search country rank, shown above.
Shown below are the actual average monthly searches in 2011 for the top 36 countries of the world for the word TRIZ included in a Google search. Brazil numbers were adjusted from 74,000 to 4,000 as mentioned previously to show its true interest in Innovation-TRIZ compared to other non-innovation uses for the search term TRIZ in Brazil.
Trend Charts for the Biggest 3 Country Fans of TRIZ
Looking at just TRIZ popularity as a search term in the USA, Mexico and Germany also shows a 50 - 65% decline in interest in TRIZ as a search term since 2004. The 3 charts below show the details of those trends.
Summary
Search popularity for terms like Patents, Invention, Creativity, Innovation and TRIZ has dropped since 2004. TRIZ specifically, is not synonymous for the citizens of the world yet for innovation. In spite of that handicap, TRIZ (The Science of Inventive Problem Solving) still enjoys respectable levels of popularity in 2011 as a Google search, even when other non-innovation meanings for the TRIZ search numbers are subtracted from its popularity rating. TRIZ popularity has dropped since 2004, in line with many other business improvement initiatives. Maybe TRIZ techniques and analysis should be used to determine why this is happening and how to turn around world interest levels in Innovation.
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