GUEST POST from Drew Boyd

This is the third of several ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘Thinking about the future: what big innovation do you expect within 10 years?’. Here is the next perspective in the series:

My crystal ball is no better than others. Rather than predict innovations, I predict what characteristics they will have and how they might be invented.

1. Mobility: Future products will incorporate some degree of mobility and integration into the mobile lifestyle. Smart phones fuel this. But mobility is not all about communications. Future products will take advantage of the data created by people as they move through their day. The innovation templates, Task Unification and Attribute Dependency, are excellent tools for identifying these opportunities.

   An MIT team is researching the feasibility of using cell phones as a unique tool to identify any emerging disease outbreaks. The team, led by Anmol Madan, said that a disease changes the mobility pattern of a cell phone user and by developing a software that tracked movements, phone calls and text messages of 70 students who were also daily surveyed for their health, the software was able to identify those suffering from an ailment. Students who came down with a fever or full-blown flu tended to move around less and make fewer calls late at night and early in the morning. When Madan trained software to hunt for this signature in the cellphone data, a daily check correctly identified flu victims 90 per cent of the time. Public health officials could also use the technique to spot emerging outbreaks of illness ahead of conventional detection systems, which today rely on reports from doctors and virus-testing labs. Similar experiments in larger groups and in different communities will have to be done first though.

2. Adaptiveness: Future products will adapt and morph depending on the situation of its use. They become “smart” by changing their characteristics in a way that is most beneficial to the user at that moment. The templates, Multiplication and Attribute Dependency, are useful for creating adaptive products.

   The Cybertecture mirror has an infographic display, measures 800 x 500 x 50mm, has stereo speakers, a WiFi connection and even fog-resistant glass. The mirror will connect with a cloud based digital profile so it can relate contextual information such as the local weather before you leave in the morning – or readings presented from a scale will help you monitor how your weight watching program is doing (via a display on the mirror or a web-based portal).

3. Simplicity: People value simplicity. Products and services of the future will attract “more with less.” Simple means simply this: Would a child understand it and be able to explain it back to you? The innovation templates, Division and Subtraction, are great for simplifying products and services.

   Australian student designer Robert Dumaresq recently took Gold at the Australian International Design Awards, Dyson Student Category for his ‘Switch Commuter Bike‘. The bike which folds up to the size of a wheel in “one smooth motion,” was designed in response to the Victorian government’s move to ban bikes on public transport. Claiming to be one of the fastest folding bikes around, the Switch Commuter is both durable and light-weight, manufactured using carbon fibre and aluminum.

4. Specificity: The most innovative products are those that look into the “Closed World” of the problem and take unique aspects of it to use as the basis for the solution. Parts of the problem become the solution. All five templates of the S.I.T. method can uncover these opportunities.

   Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology in Germany are creating a vehicle-based system called Eyetracker that monitors a drivers face for signs of drowsiness. When certain patterns in eye and facial movements that indicate a lack of awareness are detected, the system triggers warnings to keep the driver alert. Debuting at the VISON trade fair in Stuttgart next month, the system is driven by two separate, small cameras mounted in the car, linked to a small matchbook-sized processor.

5. Ideality: Future products will be unique because their solution to a problem only appears when needed. When the problem arises, the solution is also there. Again, all five templates of the S.I.T. method can lead to products with this characteristic.

   Using a unique blend of augmented reality, app technology, and social media, Macy’s and LBi have re-invented the dressing room experience for New Yorkers visiting Macy’s Herald Square store through November of this year. Customers enter a dressing booth outfitted with with a 72-inch multi-touch mirror and an iPad. The customer then selects clothing from the iPad application and transfers the items on their body’s image on the mirror with a flick of the wrist. Naturally, photos of customers in various outfits can be shared on their social network using emails or SMS (with the purpose of getting live feedback from their friends). This innovation demonstrates how retail can be a primary driver in furthering the integration between digital and physical space.

Special thanks to psfk for the examples.

You can check out all of the ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles from the different contributing authors on ‘Thinking about the future: what big innovation do you expect within 10 years?’ by clicking the link in this sentence.

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GUEST POST from Drew Boyd

An idea stands a better chance of surviving if it is not attributed to the individual who conceived it. Otherwise, the idea carries with it all the baggage and perception of its owner, good or bad. During idea evaluation, people struggle separating their feelings about the creator from the idea itself. If they like the person, they like their idea… and vice versa.

What this means in practice is that you don’t want to give credit for good ideas. In facilitated ideation sessions, you need to get ideas out of people’s heads in a way that no one will know who it came from. This is contrary to the popular notion that organizations need to reward people for their ideas to stimulate innovation. Rather than reward their ideas, it might be better to reward their participation in innovation as Stefan Lindegaard points out.

This insight comes from the work of Tanya Menon at the University of Chicago. She describes the paradox of an external idea being viewed as “tempting” while the exact same idea, coming from an internal source, is considered “tainted.”

“In a business era that celebrates anything creative, novel, or that demonstrates leadership, “borrowing” or “copying” knowledge from internal colleagues is often not a career-enhancing strategy. Employees may rightly fear that acknowledging the superiority of an internal rival’s ideas would display deference and undermine their own status.

By contrast, the act of incorporating ideas from outside firms is not seen as merely copying, but rather as vigilance, benchmarking, and stealing the thunder of a competitor. An external threat inflames fears about group survival, but does not elicit direct and personal threats to one’s competence or organizational status. As a result, learning from an outside competitor can be much less psychologically painful than learning from a colleague who is a direct rival for promotions and other rewards.”

How do you strip away the credit for an idea when it is conceived? First, have people ideate in small teams of two or three. When an idea is offered, make sure these sub-teams share their ideas with the larger group without mentioning who actually created it. It’s harder to overlay subjective feelings on an idea when it eminates from two or three people. Credit for the idea gets diluted.

Second, have teams share their ideas in digital form. Set up a group wiki site or other collaboration tool such as Google Docs where teams can enter their ideas in real time. Make sure the idea collection software does not track who entered it. Use team numbers instead of people’s names.

Finally, have all ideas evaluated by a completely separate team than the one that generated the ideas. Use an objective, weighted decision model to assess the the value of ideas. Use scoring criteria that are relevant to the issue the team is facing. Assign a weighting to these criteria based on the importance of that criteria. Be sure to test the model not only on past successful ventures, but also on past unsuccessful ventures.

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GUEST POST from Drew Boyd

People can improve their innovation skills by mentally simulating the use of innovation tools. Chip and Dan Heath in their book, “Made to Stick”, talk of the importance of mental simulation with problem solving as well as skill-building:

“A review of thirty five studies featuring 3,214 participants showed that mental practice alone – sitting quietly, without moving, and picturing yourself performing a task successfully from start to finish – improves performance significantly. The result were borne out over a large number of tasks. Overall, mental practice alone produced about two thirds of the benefits of actual physical practice.”

Mental simulation is the imitative mental representation of some event or series of events. It is our brain conjuring up scenarios and imagining how they will play out. We do it all the time. We mentally simulate driving to the grocery store, talking with our boss, or getting a back rub. It prepares and sharpens us for things that lie ahead. Mental simulation can also be used to practice activities that you do or want to learn.

Here is how I use mental simulation to strengthen my innovation skills with the S.I.T. method:

1. Observe Novel Ideas: I take note of new and interesting things that I see throughout the day and I try to imagine how they were invented. I look for one of the five S.I.T. patterns that might explain the invention. If I can spot the pattern, I try to mentally simulate using the pattern to create the novel object. I make a mental list of the components. I select the component that might lead to the invention. I apply the template. I use Function Follows Form to work backwards to the new idea. The most interesting of these end up as a blog post in the monthly feature called “Innovation Sighting.”

2. Pick Objects Randomly: I look for mundane things and try to mentally simulate applying an innovation tool to it. For example, I might select a bottle of ketchup or a mailbox. I also look at services like mail delivery or shoe shine. Then I mentally work through the steps of the S.I.T. method using one of the patterns. I break it into components (in my head), apply a template, etc.

3. Pick Tools Randomly: I pick one of the five S.I.T. patterns (Subtraction, Task Unification, Multiplication, Division, and Attribute Dependency). This is a bit tougher, but it builds deeper mastery of the templates. I look around my surrounding environment and imagine using that template on some activity that is going on at the moment. For example, if I am in an airport going through security, I imagine using Attribute Dependency to create a connection between two independent variables around me. What if the speed of the line varied with the experience of the security agents. Could they set up a line with just the most experienced agents and perhaps charge a premium to go through it (to save time)? Or, imagine using Task Unification. I create the Virtual Product: travelers have the additional task of screening other travelers. How would that work? What would be the benefit? Who might want such an invention?

Creativity is a cognitive task. Simulating the task in unfamiliar, random situations builds “innovation muscle” for when I need it in real situations. Practice makes perfect.

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GUEST POST from Drew Boyd

How do you create the most innovative TV commercials in the world? By using patterns embedded in other innovative commercials. Professor Jacob Goldenberg and his colleagues discovered that 89% of 200 award winning ads fall into a few simple, well-defined design structures. Their latest book, “Cracking the Ad Code,” defines eight of these structures and provides a step-by-step approach to use them.

Here are the eight tools:

1. Unification
2. Activation
3. Metaphor
4. Subtraction
5. Extreme Consequence
6. Absurd Alternative
7. Inversion
8. Extreme Effort

Consider this example from Dairy Queen:

This commercial was created with the Extreme Effort tool. It works by conveying the attractiveness of the product or service by showing the extreme effort one must go through to use it. There are two versions: 1. what the customer must do to use the product, and 2. what the company must do to provide the product. As with all eight tools, Extreme Effort yields commercials that are highly innovative and memorable. This tool is particularly useful when your brand is well established and the category is well understood. It is an easy way to promote your product or service in a general sense when there is nothing more specific to say.

Try this exercise. Imagine you want to promote your blog site to attract new readers. You want to use the Extreme Effort tool. First, visualize three ways to show how current readers go to extreme efforts to read your blog. You have to portray it in a way that is absurd and so exaggerated that the viewer knows you are being funny. You don’t want them thinking they really have to go to this effort to read it. Otherwise you will scare them off.

Now visualize three ways to show potential readers the extreme effort you go to write and produce your blog, again with the intent of being somewhat silly and exaggerated to make this point in a memorable way: “I want you to read my blog so badly that I go to this effort to bring it to you each week.

To be most effective, select the simplest one to understand. For example, in the Dairy Queen ad, we see the mother on the hood of the car reaching out the Dairy Queen truck. We instantly “get it.” There is nothing more that needs to be said or explained.

Also, look for ways to create fusion between the exaggerated effort and the brand promise. In the Dairy Queen example, the mom and dad are participating in the age-old kids game that their children were playing. Dairy Queen is about having fun. The ad fuses that idea with the parents acting like children and having fun thanks to Dairy Queen. Clever.

Does anyone out there go to extreme effort to read Blogging Innovation?

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GUEST POST from Drew Boyd

This is the fourth of several ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘How should firms identify innovation opportunities and predict market potential at very early stages and in new areas (“green fields”) and ambiguous environments?’. Here is the next perspective in the series:

Here are three green field innovation approaches:

1. Find Innovation Adjacencies:

Adjacent markets are an attractive way to grow. Adjacent markets are not too far away from your core business in terms of channels, technology, price point, brand, etc.. To find them, I recommend The Big Picture framework developed by Professor Christie Nordhielm at The University of Michigan. The Big Picture outlines four quadrants that completely define any market category. To find “green fields”, consider each quadrant one at a time and imagine extending beyond the bounds of the category in some close by, adjacent way. The key is to stretch, not leap beyond your inherent business model. Ask yourself these questions:

• Quadrant 1 Adjacencies: What substitute products are non-category consumers using to fulfill the need. Where are they buying it? What complementary products go along with these substitutes?
• Quadrant 2 Adjacencies: What other products do your loyal customers buy, perhaps at the same price point or to fulfill the same or similar brand promise?
• Quadrant 3 Adjacencies: Why do multi-brand customers use several brands? Is it time-dependent? Situation-dependent? Why does it vary? What other products are used when the competitive brands are consumed?
• Quadrant 4 Adjacencies: What other category of products does your competitor sell? How do those fit into their product line? How could they fit into yours?

Once you identify potential adjacencies, apply an innovation method to create new-to-the-world concepts.

2. Cooperate with the Competition:

Co-opetition is an idea described by Barry Nalebuff and Adam Brandenburger in their book, “Co-opetition.” It means cooperative competition – when industry participants behave in a way that benefits all. They coopetate rather than compete. The trick is to apply innovation templates to the Value Net model of co-opetition. Here’s how. List the activities of each Value Net participant (Company, Supplier, Customer, Complementors, Competitor). Rotate each specific company in the Value Net model so that each takes a new role (competitors become suppliers, suppliers become complementors, etc). Use each template on the new list of activities, starting with Task Unification. Using Function Follows Form, envision how the new role creates a “green field” market.

3. Listen to the “Voices”:

Here are three less obvious sources of “green field” opportunity.

• Voice of the Product: Products have enormous amounts of information coded into them through years of design improvement. A corporate innovation method such as S.I.T. lets you “interrogate” the product to find new, undiscovered market benefits.
• Voice of the Brand: Brands also have information coded into them. The key is to extract the information and data that contributes to the brand promise to see hidden assets and market potential. For this I recommend the semantic search engine, Goldfire.
• Voice of Serendipity: Many products are invented accidentally. Serendipity led to the microwave oven, corn flakes, Teflon®, penicillin, fireworks, Viagra®, chocolate chip cookies, and the most famous of all accidents…the Post-it® note. While serendipity is unpredictable, there is value if you can unlock its hidden secrets.

You can check out all of the ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles from the different contributing authors on ‘How should firms identify innovation opportunities and predict market potential at very early stages and in new areas (“green fields”) and ambiguous environments?’ by clicking the link in this sentence.

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GUEST POST from Drew Boyd

“Innovation is and will always be a major driver of business and societal success, and business schools are doing much to foster innovation worldwide. The opportunities to do more to support innovation are many and the potential to create value is high.”

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) released a new report, Business Schools on an Innovation Mission. The report addresses what is meant by innovation, describes how managerial talent contributes to innovation, and outlines ways business schools support innovation.

Business schools must focus more on specific skills that support innovation, reinvent curricula to be more integrative, and convene executive programs that create new ideas and networks. Business schools must promote interdisciplinary research and recognize that innovation can come from advances in the theory, practice, or teaching of management. “Through outreach activities, such as business plan competitions, student consulting projects, and business incubators, business schools’ activities contribute directly to innovation in the communities they serve.”

The AACSB report recommends the following:

1. Blend innovation with other themes, such as sustainability, vertical markets (e.g., health care), leadership, and ethics. Schools should not be afraid to combine themes to create new and valuable niches.
2. Do even ordinary things differently. For example, one way to support innovation is to break down functional silos and disciplinary barriers in learning and research.
3. Focus on developing skills to support innovation, not just on knowledge transfer. Think deeply about how best to develop these skills.
4. Give special consideration to non-degree executive education. These programs allow for more current, research-driven content consistent with innovation to influence management practice quickly.
5. Convene the key players in relevant innovation systems. They produce network benefits that boost creativity and facilitate the diffusion of innovation.
6. Understand and leverage the importance of alumni networks and engagement in driving innovation. Alumni organizations can provide the networks and trust to make innovation more likely.
7. Bear in mind that research does not have to be revolutionary to have an impact on innovation. Innovation also benefits from the testing, codification, and synthesis of what works and does not work.
8. Explore partnerships with other academic units to develop outreach activities that most directly impact the innovation capacity of relevant communities.

The report emphasizes that “business schools do not and should not support innovation in the same ways; what each school does should depend on its context, mission, and other factors—which can differ significantly among schools.” It is clear that business schools should approach creating value at the “intersection of different perspectives and proactively advocate for their role in innovation.”

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GUEST POST from Drew Boyd

An innovation tool is a cognitive prosthetic that helps individuals and groups overcome their human limitations to innovate more capably. Just as an artificial limb or hearing aid compensates and augments a missing or impaired part of the body, a thinking tool does the same – it compensates and augments for a variety of cognitive deficiencies in all humans.

Yet there is an aversion to using a structured tool to be creative:

• The Arts: Musicians, poets, and graphic artists shun the idea of using a standard tool or template because it makes them appear less creative to their fans and the public. But consider Paul McCartney who sold more albums in the U.S. than anyone. In his biography, he confided: “As usual, for these co-written things, John often had just the first verse, which was always enough: it was the direction, it was the signpost and it was the inspiration for the whole song. I hate the word but it was the template.” Listen carefully to artist, Jackson Pollock, describe his approach:
• The Sciences: People in deep scientific fields such as pharmaceuticals and nano-technology are skeptical of thinking tools because it diminishes their sense of intellect and brainpower. Given their heavy emphasis on research and discovery, this is not surprising. They default to the Scientific Method. But consider a rather successful scientist named Albert Einstein. He used a thinking tool called mental simulation to discover the special theory of relativity. He imagined traveling through space next to a beam of light:
• The Corporations: High achievers resist the use of structured techniques because it makes them appear weak to their intra-firm rivals. Executives prefer to use their intuition. They trust it because it has gotten them far. But more executives are recognizing the value of educating their intuition by using patterns and thinking tools to augment their experience. They use a prosthetic:

For practitioners, using an innovation prosthetic is a no brainer.

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GUEST POST from Drew Boyd

A survey from IBM’s Institute for Business Value shows that CEOs value one leadership competency above all others – creativity. It is therefore timely that the City University London formed its Centre for Creativity with a goal of becoming the UK leader in the teaching, research and transfer of creativity in professional practice, ranging from informatics and engineering to business and the arts. City is already a world-class centre of applied creativity research through activities in informatics, business, psychology, music and the arts.

To achieve this objective it aims to achieve the following three sub-objectives:

1. Create cross-institutional collaborations for inter-disciplinary research opportunities related to creativity and innovation
2. Develop new high–engagement, experience-based approaches with which to learn about creativity good practices, techniques and tools, drawn from science, business and the arts
3. Research and develop new activities, tools, techniques and resources that enhance and support creative problem solving in a range of professional practices that draw on City’s unique disciplinary mix

What caught my eye about the center is its new Masters in Innovation, Creativity and Leadership, or MICL for short. The MICL offers a rare, perhaps unique, opportunity to study Innovation, Creativity and Leadership from a fully rounded, interdisciplinary perspective, learning from leaders in each of the disciplines. The subjects studied are:

• Delivering Innovation – Turning ideas into action
• Creative Problem Solving and Leadership
• Creative Writing
• The Psychology of Creativity and Innovation
• Leading Creative Design
• Technologies for Creativity and Innovation
• The Law, Creativity and Innovation
• Creativity and the Creative Industries

This video shows how techniques learned in the MICL can be applied to tackle ‘impossible questions’ like the current financial debt and asking if ‘The City Needs Rehab’ to help solve the problem.

Congratulations to Roger Neill and the rest of the faculty and staff at the Centre for this unique program.

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GUEST POST from Drew Boyd

Many products are invented accidentally. Serendipity led to the microwave oven, corn flakes, Teflon®, penicillin, fireworks, Viagra®, chocolate chip cookies, and the most famous of all accidents…the Post-it® note. The problem with serendipity is it’s not predictable. It is not an innovation method one would count on for corporate growth. But there is value in serendipity if you can unlock its hidden secrets. How?

In 1891, a physical education teacher named James Naismith invented the game of basketball by nailing two peach baskets to the gymnasium walls. After the ball was thrown into a basket, someone climbed a ladder to get it out. This was annoying, so the bottom of the basket was altered to allow a stick to poke through and knock the ball out. After many games and many successful shots, the bottom fell out…literally. The peach basket bottom weakened and broke loose allowing a ball to fall completely through after a shot. The result? This simple, serendipitous invention allowed the game to be played continuously without the interruption of retrieving the ball. Basketball advanced to the worldwide game that it is today.

It seems obvious now, so why was it hard to see that cutting the bottom of the peach basket would yield such an important feature? The answer lies in a condition called Structural Fixedness – the tendency of people to see things as a whole, a gestalt, not as a collection of individual components. Fixedness blocks us from seeing non-obvious innovations in virtually any product or service. Traditional “Voice of the Customer” market research methods attempt to discover these opportunities but fail due to fixedness.

What if we could tap into the “Voice of Serendipity” instead? What would it tell us? Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management, describes the process of design thinking in three steps he calls the knowledge funnel:

1. Mystery – At the top of the funnel, humans stare into a mystery – which contains the random and chaotic ‘situation’ in which we find ourselves much of the time – and is of course where opportunity lies.
2. Heuristic – In the middle of the narrowing funnel, humans come up with a heuristic, or rule of thumb, that allows us to address the mystery and manage it in some way
3. Algorithm – And at the thinnest point of the funnel – the most codified part of the continuum – systematizing and automating the solution – The Algorithm.

Peach basket Let’s apply this to the peach basket. We observe the mystery of how a “broken” peach basket suddenly yields a tremendous improvement. We form a heuristic that this phenomena can be repeated if we can “break” other products or services the same way. We create an algorithm that says: identify an essential component of a product or service, then remove it from the whole and see what benefit the remaining entity brings. Let’s try it on Teflon®. This product derived serendipitously when a chemist attempted to make a new refrigerant. A batch accidentally hardened when iron inside the container contaminated it. Our heuristic is: adding foreign or unwanted contaminants will create a benefit. Our algorithm is: add non-intuitive aspects to a product or service and see what benefit the new entity brings.

Here is the key message: Every serendipitous invention can be reduced to a heuristic and ultimately to an algorithm or pattern. If we listen to the Voice of Serendipity over and over, we will hear certain patterns repeat themselves. If we capture these patterns and codify them into a set of templates, we have an effective way to innovate to achieve growth, on demand.

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GUEST POST from Drew Boyd

Here is an example of two innovation templates in one product. The Double Down sandwich from KFC removes the traditional bread slice (demonstrating the template, Subtraction), and it assigns the additional job of “sandwiching” to the two slices of fried chicken (demonstrating the template, Task Unification).

What I like about this idea is that it shows the power of innovation templates to break fixedness. Sandwiches have been around for a very long time, yet this idea transforms us to consider other components than bread for this critical role of “sandwiching” – bread slices holding one or more fillings between them. The use of the Subtraction template in this example is obvious – remove the bread. But then giving the additional role of holding the other components of the sandwich between two slices of chicken is quite novel. This pattern is called Task Unification.

How would you extend this idea? Consider applying a third template such as Division. Take one of the components of this product and divide it one of three ways: functional, physical, or preserving. Look for additional consumer benefits, markets served, or new efficiencies.

Special thanks to my graduate student, Luke Kim, for sharing this example.

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