With more than 900 research and development professionals employed by Amway, discovery is job #1.

In fact, more than 1,000 patents have been secured during the company’s history and over 800 more are pending. Many of these discoveries are driven by customer demands, feedback from distributors or advances in the market.

But some of the best discoveries happen simply by accident.

Take, for example, the company’s invention of non-chlorinated automatic dishwasher detergent. In the 1980s, there was not a non-chlorinated product on the market and Amway wasn’t trying to develop one. But, while testing a potential product for soil removal, our R&D professionals noticed that the product eliminated spots. Upon further testing, it also seemed to clean plates, plastic and other flatware better than anything else.

Quickly, a new product was born.

“It was all just serendipity,” Amway Scientist Ernie Brumbaugh said. “The result of observation and the understanding that something unique was happening in front of our eyes.”

What came to be known as Crystal Bright Automatic Dishwashing Detergent is just one of many discoveries made by Brumbaugh, who’s been with Amway for nearly 43 years.  It’s also one of the reasons the company recently honored him with induction into the Amway’s new R&D Distinguished Scientific Leadership Society – the highest honor bestowed by the R&D division.

Today we spend 5 minutes with “Dr. B,” also known as Rohan Fernando. Rohan has worked in Quality Assurance for Nutrilite for 20 years.

His team tests our B vitamins for potency, making sure they meet our standards and do what we want them to do. And, if you’ve ever toured our Nutrilite Center for Optimal Health, you may have met him. He’s the one who shows the tour groups around his department.

When did you first know you wanted to be a scientist?

In high school I was strong in science and math. With math I thought I could be a CPA or something like that, which didn’t interest me as much; I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with numbers all day. But I realized that science would be a broader field to pursue, so I studied microbiology and chemistry, which led me to my job here at Nutrilite.

What’s the funniest thing that’s happened on a tour?

Well, people see me in my lab coat and they think I’m a doctor. And people love to take pictures with me. When they go back and share their pictures, other people who come visit recognize me, and they’re excited to see me. It’s a good feeling. They call me “Dr. B” because I handle B vitamins. People feel they know me, which is nice.

What do you like most about your job?

It’s just nice to work for a company you believe in and can be proud of. I like to wear my Nutrilite logo gear out and about and have people recognize who I work for.

What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in the 20 years you’ve been here?

Our QA lab has really grown. It was 7,000 square feet when I started here in 1993. Now it has grown to 37,000 square feet.

What keeps you busy when you’re not at work?

I like playing basketball with my kids, and I’m into cars so I like going to auto shows. I stay in shape and jog every day. I preach staying healthy, so I need to stay fit. I enjoy exercising.

When cofounders Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos started Amway in 1959, they did not stop with their initial product offering or American footprint. They kept growing by asking themselves, “What if…?”

That same question is still asked each day by our Business Innovations team. Glenn Armstrong, head of the team, talks about it in this video, the first of several we will be posting.

“If you continue to ask yourself, ‘What if?’ it gets you thinking about the possibilities,” Armstrong said. ”What if we had this many distributors? What if Amway supplied these types of products?

“If you ask yourself, ‘What if?’ you find yourself getting used to being outside your comfort zone.”

vimeo Direkt

Would you like to own a piece of a Nutrilite Farm? Why stop there — how about a Nutrilite Lab? Amway Korea  has made it possible.

The more than 5 million users of a popular mobile game called Rule the Sky can purchase Nutrilite farms or crops, build Nutrilite structures and visit other users’ islands. It’s similar to Farmville, but in Rule the Sky users are on their own floating island in the sky called Flotia.

The marketing effort is called “advergaming,” and it’s not just a cool buzz word. When done correctly it can be a successful tactic with an immersive effect on players. Of the more than 5 million users of Rule the Sky, an average of 800,000 of them play 45-60 minutes more than once a day.

Rather than being exposed to a 30-second ad, a gamer’s attention is captured in a much more significant way. Advergaming also offers an additional measuring stick in the form of downloads: Nutrilite’s laboratory has been downloaded nearly 330,000 times. And Nutrilite’s El Petacal farm in Mexico? That’s been downloaded nearly 790,000 times.

So start tilling the virtual soil and rule the sky with your Nutrilite Farm!

Our wireless power research and development operation was one of the stars of the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show.

“It was a year of influencing wireless power,” said Dave Baarman, Fulton’s director of advanced technologies. “We were selected by CNET as one of the three finalists for Best of CES 2013. That was quite an honor given the competition.”

Also on center stage was Qi, the wireless power standard Fulton Innovation helped develop with the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC).

“It was an explosion of hundreds of products using Qi this year,” Baarman said. “The WPC booth was packed and loaded with all types of adapters, battery packs, hardware, devices and solutions, including the Toyota Avalon wireless charging solution in leather to launch later this year.”

Congratulations to Fulton Innovation!

Last week marked the fifth annual Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), the world’s largest celebration of the innovators and job creators who launch startups, bring ideas to life, drive economic growth and improve the human condition. Global Entreprenership Week is recognized in 120 countries.

From the Dutch government’s recognition of the important role played by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in its country to 17 connection meetings between Latina entrepreneurs in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Chile, each participating country designs local and regional events to inspire others and help them explore their own potential.

It was the first year Guatemala celebrated GEW, and proponents in Indonesia used the week as an opportunity to try to change and improve its country’s entrepreneurial culture.

Global Entrepreneurship Week happens only once a year, but here at Amway, we celebrate our distributor force – the entrepreneurs that inspire us– every day.

The Marketing and Consumer Packaged Goods Club at Harvard Business School had a powerhouse of speakers come to its recent Marketing Innovation Conference, including General Mills CMO Mark Addicks and ESPN CEO John Skipper.

Amway was honored to have our very own Mike Edwards invited to participate in a panel discussion about social media and ROI.

Edwards, Amway’s director of digital and experiential marketing, served on the panel with Jan Rezab of Socialbakers, Ken Mah of Danaher and Seth Diamond of Catapult RPM. The panel spoke in front of a crowd of about 50 Harvard Business School students.

Rather than identifying the shortest line between “likes” and profit, the discussion focused more on strategy and purpose. Edwards said social media at Amway is key for crowdsourcing innovation.

“It’s tremendous, and it’s proprietary for us,” he said.

That is one of the things that drives strategy, he said. He also commented on what doesn’t drive strategy.

“Getting fans and likes is not a strategy,” he said. “And planning your strategy based on content going viral is like planning your retirement based on winning the lotto.”

Panel members agreed that the definition of ROI in social media needs to be broadened.

“Social is about driving aspiration,” Diamond said.

The participants did not limit their topic to social media. After the official panel was over, they shared lunch with the business students where discussions turned to lofty matters of the Chinese economy, Indian infrastructure and issues in Pakistan. 

Combine that with their tour of campus and you could say the Amway team got a pretty nice Harvard education. Check out a photo album from the trip at our Amway Facebook page.

Our R&D experts are truly the gurus of skincare science. They combine science and global trends, with forward thinking technology based on cultural insights.

“It’s my job to find new products that are acceptable in all markets,” said our R&D Insider. “People across the world live, think, act, speak, and believe differently. That is why it is important to listen to them when we create our products.”

The process of development may sometimes be long, but it is studied, evaluated, tested, and vetted by technical appropriateness for world-wide distribution.

Watch this great video for more ways our R&D team looks at the development process of our products.

Finding a place to plant a garden can be tough in Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated places in the world. You could say it’s another example of having nowhere to go but up.

That’s why school children have been making their way to rooftops and getting their hands dirty planting lettuce, tomatoes and other vegetables as they learn how to care for them and about the benefits of organic and sustainable farming.

Aimed at promoting environmental protection in 18 school districts, the project is organized by Amway Hong Kong in partnership with the Hong Kong Organic Resource Centre of Hong Kong Baptist University.

Organic farming is relatively new in Hong Kong, where groups pushing for environmentally-friendly grown produce didn’t appear until the 1990s.

So far this year, children participating in the program have started organic farms at 10 primary schools in Kuiqing, Dapu, Beiqu, Kowloon and Huang Daxian, among others.

We’re extremely proud to know that our little farmers are spreading the seeds of organic farming among their peers! Check out this photo album on Nutrilite’s Facebook Page.

It’s been more than a decade since Amway launched the Executive Speaker Series, where interns can hear and learn from our most senior leaders about what it’s like to work here.

The series is unquestionably the highlight of our summer internship at World Headquarters.

Many of us are attracted to Amway because it’s a great place to work and has a strong global presence. But we also have this incredible access to Amway’s top leaders.

Recently, 100 interns gathered to meet the first of this series’ seven presenters: Amway President Doug DeVos. “We all have special gifts to contribute,” said Doug. “But success is not simple. It’s hard work.”

Not too many interns can say they met the president of their organization. But now we can say we did. Interns left the event feeling inspired and ready to face their internship head-on.

Stay tuned for future blog posts on the Executive Speaker Series. Our next speaker is Dr. Sam Rehnborg, president of the Nutrilite Health Institute.