| Issue 87 |

Guy Levy, Innovation Manager at CET – The Center for Educational Technology

• Number of company employees: 450.
• We provide: We develop media-rich interactive digital content for preschool to 12^th grade, and various online learning models. We are the largest publisher of printed and digital school books in Israel.
• What I like about the job: That a significant part of it involves nonstop learning.
• The most difficult part of the job: The huge disparity between our innovative developments and the ability to implement them in the education system.
• Goals I want to attain: At work – to design the learning environment of the 21^st century, which combines technology and the development of skills relevant to today’s reality: creativity and innovation, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, teamwork and collaboration. In life – I want to keep reading good literature, and at some point finish the novel that I started writing four years ago about Vietnam…
• Our vision: To give all pupils in the Israeli education system an equal opportunity to get the best possible education that will prepare him/her for the challenges of the 21^st century.
• Original products in the field: Learning Object – Digital learning objects in the Sciences and Math (STEM), which teach abstract concepts and complex theories using simulations and interactive demonstrations. For example – a simulation of a child on a skateboard, which can be controlled, can teach how energy is converted (potential energy, kinetic energy, friction, and the law of energy conservation). We have developed hundreds of simulations like these, and thanks to our capabilities in this domain we were selected to be part of a consortium that develops the international PISA exams (PISA 2015) for the OECD, in scientific literacy and shared problem solving. We also launched a virtual high school together with the Ministry of Education, which enables pupils in the periphery to study for 5-point Bagrut exams in Math and Physics, starting from the 10th grade, even when there aren’t enough pupils to open a special class or if there is a shortage of suitable teachers.
• Sources of innovation: We develop regular “inside the box” innovation using on-going feedback from our customers – over 1,500 schools in Israel. For revolutionary “outside the box” innovation, we are inspired by ideas from other countries and innovative projects that come from Academia (such as MOOC – Massive Open Online Courses). Also, we founded MindCET , an R&D center in Yeruham, which is designed to develop a new education paradigm.
• Recommended professional book: Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen, which explains how disruptive innovation will change how the world will learn in the future.

• CET's website: www3.cet.ac.il
• For questions and responses: guyl@cet.ac.il 
• Would you like to be interviewed?: contact us
  

Innovation / Curtis Carlson & William Wilmot / Crown Business Publisher

Curtis Carlson is the President and CEO of SRI International, a technological research institute whose developments include the HD standards for televisions, the Internet domain names (org, gov, com), technologies for robot-assisted surgery, and hundreds of other technological innovations. William Wilmot helped develop SRI’s innovation workshop, which is taught to various organizations worldwide.

Innovation, our newest recommendation, was co-authored by the two, and it describes the innovation workshop and innovation processes developed by SRI, and elaborates on the fundamentals for creating products and services that customers truly want.

Among other things, the book explains how to avoid unnecessary innovation and focus only on very important customer and market needs (ones that have a high financial value). The book also explains how innovative ideas can be honed and processed by repetitively presenting them to internal teams and decision makers while receiving feedback and constant improvement, so that they can be promoted in a large and complex organization. And finally, the book explains how to build innovation teams and verify that ongoing innovation can be ensured even in a conservative organization using innovation leaders and effective and focused innovation processes.

Innovation is recommended for anyone that works with technological innovation, and also for those developing innovation in the service sector, especially if you are from large organizations. Although the book isn’t always an easy read, it teaches important lessons and can help you systematically transform your organization into a more innovative one. .

Coffee as you like it
About café café’s unique franchise model

Retail chains generally provide consumers with a consistent and reliable experience, which is why we would expect to find similar menus, prices, service, and design in a chain of restaurants and cafes (for example – McDonald’s and Aroma). These are all part of the service experience, making it possible to brand the chain, and differentiate it and its uniqueness.

However, if you visited a few different café café branches this year, you may have been surprised to discover that each branch is designed differently, and that the chain has a wide variety of formats, sizes, interior design, dishware, service levels, menus, food, and desserts.

In fact, each branch is unique and differs from the other branches, and aside from the shared logo and branded food items (coffee, sugar packets, etc.) that come from the same central supplier, it’s hard to know that the branches belong to the same chain.

Café Café’s innovative and flexible franchise model lets each franchisee design their own branch, add food items that appeal to the local clientele, and adapt each branch in the chain to the preferences of the franchisee running it. In other words, numerous eliminations were made compared to the regular franchise model.

The franchisees receive professional knowledge, a well-known logo, and coffee from the chain, and pay a significant percentage of their turnover for this, but they have to organize the rest themselves and adapt it to their individual locations. The high flexibility given to franchisees, which competing chains do not offer, enables the café café chain, owned by Ronen Nimni, and its franchisees, to enjoy several significant advantages.

First, the flexibility is more convenient and saves many franchisees a lot of money. For example – someone that already has a café or restaurant and is interested in converting it to a café café branch and running it under a well-known brand will not need to invest a lot of money in design and changing the décor. This also makes it easier for new franchisees to find suitable locations.

Second, the flexibility makes it possible to adapt each branch to the specific location in which it operates. Each franchisee can adjust the menu, service, prices, and décor at the branch to the needs of the local clientele, and also to what the local vendors offer. For example – a franchisee can offer special dishes according to the ethnic groups in the area, and adapt the branches to be family or student-friendly, to buy fresh desserts at a local bakery, and so forth.

Thus, thanks to the operational flexibility, many more franchisees prefer to join the café café chain. In fact, it is one of the chain’s main secrets of success, which has helped it grow rapidly and become the largest café chain in Israel, with over 120 branches, and growing.

Moreover, since the franchisees have so much autonomy regarding their branches, the café café chain saves numerous operational expenses (on inspection, operation, establishment, construction, etc.).

And what about branding, you are probably wondering? Apparently, at least in Israel, you can develop a strong brand simply by having a strong presence and numerous branches, even if the brand is very diverse and the branches don’t resemble each other, and even if you don’t actually know what to expect as a customer when you go to a new café café branch .

• Café Café's web site (in Hebrew)
• Systematic Innovation workshops
• An article about Inventive Thinking Tools: Reduction