Design & Innovation

I just finished reading The Medici Effect. Although it wasn’t included on our course reading list, it focuses on innovation and reiterates a lot of the lessons that we took away from our Design Tour.

Below are a sampling of the ideas I found most relevant and interesting:

• The Intersection, where different fields and disciplines intersect, is the best place to seek new ideas and to innovate.
• Innovative doesn’t just mean “cool” or “new” or “different.” In order for something to be considered truly innovative it must be NEW, VALUABLE to society, and REALIZED.
• “In order to fully understand something, view it from at least three different perspectives.” - Leonardo da Vinci
• Hire people who aren’t like you; people who make you uncomfortable. Having a heterogeneous workforce will increase diverse thought and breed innovation.
• Innovators are highly productive. Generate a HUGE quantity of ideas and pursue the best of them.
• Brainstorm MANY ideas before evaluating any one of them—set a numerical brainstorming goal.
• Brainwriting—try it!

I have to admit that I find the “Dyson man” mildly annoying and get a kick out of the commercials where he says that he has devoted his life to developing the perfect vacuum. Now really? Devoted your life … some people devote their lives to curing cancer, others to helping address world hunger, and Mr. Dyson man …. the perfect vacuum. Joking aside, I must say that I appreciate the design thinking that has gone into Dyson’s products. The newest product that they are promoting is the roller ball vacuum …

In case you haven’t seen the commercial, the roller ball platform is designed to increase the range of motion and enable the vacuum to have greater maneuverability in relationship to standard vacuums like the ones we all know and love.

I have to admit that this innovation seems to make a ton of sense and am surprised that vacuum manufacturers have not considered it before. You see plenty of minor “upgrades” to vacuums like HEPA filters and additional attachments, but rarely do you see a “disruptive” innovation like the Dyson’s ball vacuum. Couple this innovation with the extra strong suction power (sometimes almost too strong - I know someone who works in the flooring industry and says it can actually suck so hard it starts to pull the fibers right out of your carpet!) and we can see why the Dyson is becoming such a hot item on wedding registries and homeowner’s lists!

With the summer around the corner, residents of Philadelphia are buying many patio furniture and in order to put them out. We have recently bought chairs from Home Depot and I was more than surprised to find out how difficult it was to build them. While concentrating on the poorly designed instruction manual packed with a picture that is hard to follow and unclear instructions, I couldn’t stop but think how ahead of the game Ikea was with their instruction pamphlet. It is not only about Ikea selling its product, it is also Ikea selling their philosophy that customers should be involved from the self service to the self assembly process. You only need one set of instructions to assemble an Ikea furniture store wherever you are in the world. I have been introduced to Ikea since I was able to read, and even though it is possible to build a furniture in a wrong way, the combination of the little pictures and the customer service solves the problem and allows customers to buy furniture that is easy to carry in their flat-pack card boxes.

Recently I came across an article that Ikea was researching how to incorporate microchips in the furniture which would let you know which piece to fit next and alert you if you have done something wrong. Scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich fitted sensors to an Ikea wardrobe which worked out where all pieces go in relation to one another, reported New Scientist magazine. At the moment the sensors are wirelessly connected to a PC but researchers hope eventually to build LED-displays into the parts themselves. It could even be incorporated into screwdrivers to let DIY enthusiasts know if they have over-tightened screws.

A spokeswoman for Ikea told the BBC ’smart’ furniture had a good future. “We think it is a great idea,” she said. “It’s always possible. “You never know when new innovations are going to take off. “Ikea have always been known for their new ideas and innovations. “We have a huge research department, but I can’t tell you what goes on there. It’s all top secret,” she said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2238676.stm

I recently read an interview in Audi Magazine with Paul Saffo.  I never heard of Mr. Saffo prior to the article but he is a professor at Stanford that specializes in “forecasting the future”. In the interview Mr. Saffo talks about the high tech future and some areas of technolgy that are expected to take some dramatic leaps. He talks about the concept of the world being covered by an electronic nervous system, along the lines of “RFID everywhere” that we heard at Yahoo on our tour. He also has some interesting views on the near future of robotics for consumers; in other words, the availability of robots for every day people. Unfortunately, the magazine was a printed copy and I haven’t been able to find the entire article online, however, his site has an interesting mix of essays, interviews and trend info that is worth checking out: http://www.saffo.com/index.php

As I type this, I’m soaking in the early summer sun’s harmful UV rays.  While the warmth feels great and it’s always nice to have a bit of color, I’m also knowingly damaging my skin.  But to what extent, I don’t know.  How strong are the sun’s rays at 5:30 pm on a cloudless day?  Should I apply sunscreen? 
Sun overexposure and skin damage are dilemmas faced by everyone who enjoys being outdoors in the summer.  While we’ve all been educated about the harmful effects of the sun and the benefits of sunscreen, we often STILL need a reminder to cover up and wear sunblock.  Kids and teens especially need an extra reminder, a little incentive to stay sun-smart and skin-healthy.
Patricia Swanson, an long-time elementary school teacher, has educated countless children on UV awareness and skin cancer prevention.  Ms. Swanson put her teaching experience and ingenuity to work and developed UV Sol Beads, a fun teaching tool and cool accessory for kids, teens, and adults.  UV Sol Beads, which come in a variety of styles for every age and gender, change color from clear to rainbow when hit by UV light.  The more intense the color, the higher the intensity of harmful UV light hitting your skin. 
UV Sol Beads are a great innovation because they take the end user — kids and teens — into account.  Kids and teens are crazy about fun, fashionable accessories, especially those that change colors (hense the popularity of mood rings).  UV Sol Beads are an attractive bracelet that can be worn all summer long, on the wrist or ankle, as an accessory to summer shorts and swimsuits.  It is cheap, so if it gets lost (which it most likely will at some point) at the beach or at summer camp, no big deal.  Kids will love watching the beads change color and compare with friends, thus continuing the word-of-mouth marketing of UV awareness AND the product itself.  UV Sol Beads are a fun, kid-friendly alternative to constant nagging from Mom to reapply your sunscreen.

I read an article in this week’s Businessweek about a new digital tool that HP created, called WaterCooler. WaterCooler basically files everything that employees say on their internal and external blogs. Employees can opt in or opt out of this, but already about 11,000 workers have chosen to share their opinions. Users can click on the most “talked about” topics to see what’s hot each week.

It doesn’t exactly say what the company is using it for exactly besides the usual gossip, but I could also see it having sort of an entrepreneurial and innovative side to it. People are able to not only post their ideas, but also easily look up other employees’ ideas. This way they can build off of each other ideas, and collaborate going forward. Again, I’m not quite sure if this is the purpose of these blogs, but it might be a good meeting point for employees to brainstorm their “craziest” ideas to come up with something feasible.

TED.com is a website that hosts “Inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers.”  It is a great place to go to see intellectually stimulating discussions on subjects ranging from technology, to design, to business, culture, and the arts.

I watched a video of Johnny Lee giving a demo of a hacked Nintendo Wii controller and software that he developed and shares for free that turns the control into a digital white board.  It is a very cool idea and exemplifies innovation as a form of bricolage.  Bricolage was discussed in “Rethinking Organizational Design” by Karl Weick and means the creation of something new from other already available items.

www.ted.com

I recently read a McKinsey Review interview with Brad Bird, who is an Oscar winning director for Pixar which discusses his approach to nurturing innovation and creativity.  It is a general management overview that has interesting cross business aspects.  Bird discusses the need for the top executives to allow crazy ideas to happen and let the people with “other” ways of doing things have the opportunity to try their theories.  By doing this at Pixar and motivating through the use of scare tactics, Bird was able to produce inherently more complex movies for less.  He also mentions the need for team involvement in the development and design process so that team members can learn from each others mistakes while also offering solutions.  In addition contrary to what many companies say regarding focusing on the customer as the sole purpose of design inspiration, Bird states that to get others to be interested and believe in your product it needs to also be something that you believe in and want to use.  And the most important point of the article was “The first step in achieving the impossible is believing that the impossible can be achieved.”   

To read the article you will need to sign up to be a member (which is free).  It is definitely worth it, there are a lot of interesting and insightful articles.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/home.aspx