Released Oct. 10, 2007

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - If one good idea could assist a company in accelerating new business growth, imagine if it could choose from 50 ideas and determine in advance which ones are most likely to succeed.

That's one goal of a program called Eureka! Winning Ways that is available to 14 north-central Indiana companies and uses employee talent to drive prosperity. The methods from the Ohio-based Eureka! Ranch assist companies in building skills so employees can more effectively create, select and execute new ways of growing sales and developing new products.

Indiana WIRED is partnering with Purdue University's Technical Assistant Program, local economic development organizations and small business development corporations to bring the Eureka! program to the WIRED region. The region includes the Indiana counties of Benton, Carroll, Cass, Clinton, Fountain, Fulton, Howard, Miami, Montgomery, Tippecanoe, Tipton, Wabash, Warren and White.

"By launching the WIRED Winning Ways workshops, we plan to encourage industry leaders to think differently about how they grow their businesses," said Mark C. Smith, Indiana WIRED project administrator. "These workshops will promote innovative thinking and idea generation, which will have work force impacts such as new skills, new positions, employment growth and employee well-being."

Indiana WIRED is providing the financial support for the $414,247 initiative.

Doug Hall is a former Proctor & Gamble executive and the founder and CEO of Eureka! Ranch. He said that he has developed methods that forecast an idea's probability of success within 88 percent reliability, while fostering ideas faster, less expensively and more successfully than by traditional research and development processes.

"With studies showing six out of 10 companies need ideas for cost savings and a whopping eight out of 10 need ideas for growth, the mission for this program was clear," Hall said. "Eureka! Winning Ways has seen huge success from small- and medium-sized companies across the country by simply helping everyone think like an entrepreneur and creating measurably smarter choices for growth."

In Eureka! Winning Ways, a company's employees, leaders, suppliers and customers develop new skill sets to generate ideas for top-line growth.

The methods developed by Eureka! Ranch also steer companies toward the best ideas. Merwyn Research, a Eureka! Ranch program, has an 88 percent reliability rate in forecasting an idea's probability of success. This scientific way of separating winning ideas from losing ideas creates benchmarks on 50 success factors. The process uses reverse engineering to determine what separates market successes from failures.

The Eureka! TrailBlazer research and development process provides a system for investigating and developing new ideas faster, cheaper and with less risk than classic methods, Hall said. By thinking like a "new business startup," TrailBlazer can develop new ideas with 10 percent to 20 percent of the staffing, time and money versus classic research and development methods, while being five times faster with twice the success rate, he said.

When the Indiana WIRED Winning Ways project wraps up in February 2009, it is estimated the combined results of the 14 companies will have generated more than 700 defined "Choices for Growth" options, approximately 56 reports on success probability for the top growth choices and 28 leadership action plans for companies to implement.

Companies chosen for the program will be selected based on receptiveness to the plan, potential for impact and growth, and sector penetration. Purdue's Technical Assistance Program may elect to service more companies than indicated in the proposal based on resource availability.

"We've worked with sign manufacturers, bakers, resellers, retailers - you name it, the project works," Hall said. "And now, thanks to our relationship with the Purdue Technical Assistance Program, we're able to bring the program to folks across counties in Indiana."

Indiana WIRED is an economic and work force development initiative administered by Purdue University. WIRED, which stands for Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development, is a federal initiative designed to energize the nation's economy through regional economic development partnerships and work force education and training. In 2006 the U.S. Department of Labor awarded $15 million each to 13 regions in the United States, including a grant to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. The grant covers the 14-county Indiana WIRED region.

For more information about Indiana WIRED, visit the project's Web site at http://www.indiana-wired.net/.

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http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2007b/071010SmithWIRED.html

Sources: Mark C. Smith, (765) 479-6058, smith96@purdue.edu

Christy Bozic, Indiana WIRED, (765) 491-2200, cbozic@purdue.edu

Writers: George Piper, (765) 337-2208, gepiper@purdue.edu

Steve Leer, (765) 494-8415, sleer@purdue.edu