Readings 20 November

The Art of Innovation: Chapter 4

• 70% of businesspeople in a recent Arthur Andersen survey say they use brainstorming in their organization
• Many people overlook the possibility that brainstorming can be a skill
• The more you brainstorm, the more it is woven into organizational culture
• If you want to keep in shape, you need to exercise brainstorming muscles more than once per month
• Sixty minutes seems to be the optimum brainstorming session length, though occasionally a brainstorm can productively stretch to an hour and a half
• Seven Secrets for Better Brainstorming:
• 1. Sharpen the Focus
• The session will get off to a better start if you have a well-articulated description of the problem at just the right level of specificity
• Describe you problem in a way that is tangible, so that participants can sink their teeth into it without limiting possible solutions
• 2. Playful Rules
• 3. Number your Ideas
• 100 ideas/hour indicates a good, fluid brainstorming session
• 4. Build and Jump
• High-energy brainstorms tend to follow a series of steep "power" curves, in which momentum builds slowly, then intensely, then starts to plateau
• 5. The Space Remembers
• Write down the flow of ideas down in a medium visible to the whole group
• When you return to the spot where the idea was captured, spatial memory will help people recapture the mind-set they had when the idea first emerged.
• 6. Stretch your Mental Muscles
• Warm up the group when the group hasn't worked together before, doesn't brainstorm frequently, or seems distracted by other issues
• One type of warm-up is a fast-paced word game simply to clear the mind and get the team into an outgoing mode
• Frequently utilize "show-and-tell" to help a brainstormer help visual the wide variety of options and materials that could be applied
• 7. Get Physical
• Work with 3 dimensional malleable products
• Brainstormers offer team members a change to shine in friendly competition
• Six Ways to Kill a Brainstormer:
• 1. The boss gets to speak first
  
• 2. Everybody gets a turn
• 3. Experts only please
• 4. Do it off-site
• 5. No silly stuff
• 6. Write down everything

After reading this article, I start to see that most organizations typically utilize a few of the brainstorming best practices. However, they also utilize practices that kill brainstorms as well. The most prominent brainstorm-killing technique is that of working off-site. Most organizations take their executive team off-site to discuss and brainstorm strategy. Granted, one does need to be able to brainstorm in the existing environment. However, a change in environment can often stimulate the subconscious parts of our brains. Brilliant solutions come in external environments. Sometimes the change of scenery acts as our personal shower and stimulates ideas. Maybe organizations need to implement different locations, both on-site and off in order to better stimulate different kinds of innovative ideas.

The Art of Innovation: Chapter 10

• As you step through the innovation process, try thinking verbs, not nouns
• Everybody is in the business of creating experiences, so focus on the verbs, the actions. The goal is not a more beautiful store, it is a better shopping experience
• To gain finer detail, it is beneficial to write down all traditional process step. Break the customer journey into component elements and ask yourself how you can deliver a better experience
• Innovation sometimes starts with a small improvement. However, a better-designed experience often comes about when you can transform a niche product to something broader that resonates with your customers
• Companies such as Nike, Disney Store, Warner Bros. Studio store, and Steelcase transformed their bricks and mortar store into an experience to gain consumer interaction and increase sales.
• Companies can learn from the Las Vegas and create a customer experience
• Breaking the mold of standard aisles, Central Market created a yellow brick road-like path that winds through the store, creating more shelf space and giving customers a grander view of its bountiful product, diverse foods, and lavish displays
• We all crave good experiences. By turning your product/service into an experience, you might find a market you didn't know existed
• Designing new experiences is usually about figuring out a way to connect to people
• Tell a story. The best stores draw us in with "stories," whether romance, nostalgia, or mystery
• Provide a solution to an existing problem
• Designing new experiences is about striking a balance. Be careful not to toss in to many new features
• The best products and services aspire to the classic design principles: "Make simple things simple and complex things possible."
• By studying badly designed experience, you can find a solution called the "small d." These designed experiences don't have to be about primary products or services. They are just solutions to badly designed experiences.

When I recently listed my list of top 10 target companies for which to work, I realized that I was attracted to all of them because they created an experience. In an increasingly competitive market, an experience is difficult to duplicate. It can be a sustainable competitive advantage even when products are duplicated. Experiences interact with consumer emotions. These emotions may not introduce the customer to your company, but it will keep them returning. One of my target companies, Lush, has done just this to the fresh handmade cosmetics industry. The others, Starbucks and Google, have quickly developed due to the unique experiences that they provide. A lot of this deals with viewing problems as verbs rather than nouns. Perhaps this is why MBAs do this with items such as 'actionables' and 'deliverables.' It may not reflect innovation, but it creates a mindset better attuned to innovation.

The Art of Innovation: Chapter 13

• When real innovation stalls, feature creep often sets in
• We're all in search of the "Wet Nap Interface." We want products built to be used as simply as the directions on Wet Naps: "tear open and use"
• When design is done by committee or the goal is fuzzy, one can see that feature creep isn't far behind
• Try "driving" your own products and services as if you were trying them for the first time. You'll most likely find something missing you will want to incorporate in version 2.0
• Simplicity in design is like clear directions. Give customers fewer turns in the road and they'll most likely lock onto their destination
• Almost every industry has established thinking about which features are or are not necessary. To refine a product, one needs to challenge that status quo.
• Version 2.0 can be an ideal time to streamline instead of adding bells and whistles
• People want more integration and simplicity
• The best products understand the fundamental concept that you need to spend the most design attention at the place where you touch the product the most
• Jeff Hawkins of Palm V, handled a prototype Palm throughout the design period to fully understand its usage patterns and physical feel. This resulted in the discover that a slightly concave button felt better on your finger. He also designed to use aluminum for the Palm, but without using screws
• Genuinely new designs don't just challenge your customers' perceptions of what your product should or shouldn't, they also challenge your partners
• Refinement involves asking what you don't need, even if at a glance it appears that you might
• How to create great products and services:
• 1. Make a Great Entrance
• one of the hallmarks of first-class service is that people address you by name
• 2. Make metaphors
• 3. Think Briefcase: It's a great way to help you think about products that bridge the gap between work and home
• 4. Color Inspires
• 5. Backstage Pass: Let your customers know what's going on behind the curtain and they'll reward you with business and perhaps, even loyalty
• 6. One click is better than two
• 7. Goof-proof: Nearly every product could use a real or virtual "White-Out"
• 8. First, Do no Harm: Take the pain and struggle out of your products or services and you'll not only win over customers, but likely, you'll beat out the competition as well
• 9. Checklist: Fail a critical compatibility test and you'll flop. This is one element of product development that is unforgivable
  
• 10. Great Extras

Simplicity creates a complex conundrum. One wants to deliver a product that is easily understood and utilized by consumers. However, consumers want several features. Sometimes, innovation requires seeing beyond the standard and removing unnecessary items. It is much like removing the problem's appendix. Does the appendix do something? Sure it does. Do we really need it? While developments are being made, we probably don't. Every innovator is also a consumer. I fully believe that every innovator should 'drive the wheels of his own car' and then have his family drive it as well. This allows you to hear other people's opinions of what they like and dislike about products. However, I do believe that the experience needs consistency. Granted, attention should be spent on the most-touched point. However, I have visited many websites, like www.nd.edu, where the face page looks amazing, but the supporting pages do not. Give a backstage pass that is consistent with the front-page's excellence. It is the innovative aspect of Integrated Marketing Communications.

Mind of the Innovator

• In a room of bomb squad detectives, not a single one considered themselves an innovator, but all considered themselves problem solvers


• People need to stop thinking about innovation as an outcome and start thinking about innovation as a process


• Great ideas and viable solutions are chased down from the ground up


• Seven Sings of Solutions are traps of traditional thinking applied to the expensive shampoo case


• #1: Shortcutting (Leaping to Solutions)


• This method almost never leads to an elegant solution because it does not address deeper causes


• Shortcut in doctor diagnosis after 2 symptoms leads to 20% of medical errors


• #2 Blindspots: assumptions, biases, mind-sets, and reflective thinking


• When our brains make their pattens based upon experience, we have to really focus to consciously break the pattern and 'think different.'


• If you spend more time thinking about the 'why?' behind the what, you would have been better able to frame the problem properly without making unwarranted assumptions


• #3 Note Invented Here (N.I.H.): lack of perspective. We do not trust other people's solutions.


• #4 Satisficing: The space between conflicting goals, causing creative tensions. Too often people think that the optimal solution is a luxury.


• The ability to properly frame an issue or problem goes far in avoiding the typical pitfalls that limit our ability to reach the elegant solution. Sometimes you need to hold the tension.


• #5: Downgrading: Twists the facts to suit our solution. The second option is the 'revised stimulate.' Each solution gets us most of the way there and then sells the upside and downplays the downside.


• #6 Complicating: We are hardwired to complicate things and cost as a first course of action. Let limitations drive creativity; it will eliminate complications


• #7 Stifling: Seniority prevents those with ideas from stepping forward. We second guess the ideas of others in favor of our own.


• IDEA Loops: Investigate, Design, Execute, Adjust


• Hansei is the Japanese word for reflection and the rigorous review conducted after action has been taken. It is a sobering reality check of the project's outcome. It fosters real learning and insight about the outcomes.


• The key to innovation is a quiet mind. This stimulates neural workings of our brain that are hidden from our awareness.

Everybody brings a different perspective to the table. The difficulty in innovation is adjusting that perspective and personality to contribute to a wider solution. I know that I am guilty of seeing tension between conflicting goals. For me, the only way to find a solution that will inevitably ease that tension is to quiet the mind. It is also difficult to keep a 360 perspective with necessary constraints that help guide the innovation process. Perhaps group meetings need more practice than assembly. Group meetings should practice innovative thinking. It is too easy to follow instructor directions, which can inhibit innovation. I know that I have reeled in those who are off topic or not quite on the 'A' path. Practice may help generate 'A' paths that productively result from off topic thinking

Documentary: Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry has changed the look of a very conservative feel. Mixing the free-wheelingness of arts with the laws of physics to form creative architecture

• Artists take risks that nobody has done before


• Provide personal expressiveness in industry's that make stringent commercial demands


• Not too many architects mixed with artists. Many of Frank's colleagues made fun of him.


• Frank suddenly found happiness when he stopped creating projects he did not like


• Frank uses art as inspiration for architecture. One example includes the concept of 'compositions.' Its disconnect provides inspiration.


• Most architects feel restricted by rules. If you do something, it is no longer architecture.


• Sometimes ideas come from "flipping the plan" or seeing another perspective. In architecture, everybody has a distinct role, but that role generates ideas and results in teamwork. Teamwork then results in great ideas.
• The architect/client discussion does not involve questions. It involves experiencing the client: smell, expressions, preferences. Frank is always molding sculptures
• The concept of multiple models often shows up with Frank. The basic idea is to have multiple ideas in prototypes in various forms. It is more illuminating to look at a variety of views. The model is constantly undergoing change. See the model as a direction, not as the status quo.
• Frank says that they will be in a "liquid stage" for a lot of the time in order to take advantage of opportunities that evolves with client and world inputs.
• If you freeze or refine an idea too quickly, one becomes attached to it. The crudeness of initial models is deliberate to prevent attachment and stimulate constant refinement

As I watched Frank Gehry in action, I was reminded of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. In that book, the main character combines Frank Gehry's non-traditional style with the previous articles emphasis on simplicity. Why should a building be build with unnecessary but ornate fixtures? It is interesting that architects normally do not explore outside of the 'white building.' Buildings are art and I find it interesting the Frank Gehry gains composition ideas from art. The arts have long been related in this manner. Music would reflect literary concepts, such as the Byron hero, in Wagner. Literature reflects politics. Art reflects music. Looking outside of the realm for inspiration often creates it in a more productive way then rules ever will.