Heads-Up! on Organizational Innovation

Von Oech's "Whack" 25 Years Later

It seems like yesterday that I picked up a book on creativity and said, “Wow! I wish I’d written this book.”  It was fun, practical and wise.  Actually however, it was twenty-five years ago and the book was Roger von Oech’s, A Whack on the Side of the Head.   The fact that it has sold a zillion copies in 17 languages and spawned the extremely popular “Creative Whack Pack” card deck only added to my writer’s envy.  However, after meeting Roger in online chat rooms and later in person, I’m convinced that no one but Roger could have written this book … his mind is a labyrinth of curiosity and questions and he has deeply explored subjects that I had never heard of until I met Roger … one tongue-tangling example … rhombic triacontahedrons... something Roger calls “geometry’s most beautiful shape” and forms the basis of his new “Ball of Whacks,” a three-dimensional, magnetic creativity stimulator that fascinates people of all ages. 

As you read Roger’s book, you’ll find examples and stories unlike any other business or management book you’re likely to pick up.  Where else would you read that if you’d lived 5,000 years ago you would have had a different North Star?  When Paul Williams of http://idea-sandbox.com asked me to participate in the virtual tour for the 25th Anniversary Edition of Roger’s book, I was delighted to have the opportunity to ask Roger some questions that had been lurking in the back of my mind.
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Q:  Roger, think back to before your book was written.  There were very few books on creativity, much less on the practical application of creativity.  And none of the existing books had achieved any level of general popularity.  What were you thinking?  Why did you write the book and what were your expectations for it?

A.  Back then, most "creativity" books were fairly boring. I felt that a book about creativity should be fun, informative, and interactive. That's what motivated me to write "Whack." When I began writing it in 1981-82, I had already been doing creative seminars with corporate America for five years. Thus, I had a pretty good sense of what ideas would resonate in a book. In addition, I picked up a lot of stories and examples from seminar participants. These helped to give the book additional vitality.

"Whack" was originally self-published (the big publishers turned it down). After it sold 30,000 copies in about four months, I was able to do a deal with Warner Books. They did a first printing of 110,000 copies and sent me on a 27-city book tour in 1983. It's been a consistent seller ever since. I'm particularly excited about this new 25th Anniversary Edition. I hope it reaches a new generation of creative thinkers!

Q:   When did your interest in creativity and the principles of creativity begin?  Is there a particular event or person in your life that fostered that interest?

A.  Ever since I was little, I've been interested in ideas and how people get them. I'd have to thank my parents for giving me support and encouragement when I'd try some "odd-ball" project. That helped give me the self-confidence that every creative person needs. Having a creative teacher every couple of years or so also helped.

Q:  You’ve said one way your thinking has changed over the past twenty-five years is your increased appreciation for constraints and limits in stimulating creativity.  I’ve found this to be one of the hardest areas for people to deal with and they often push back with the cliché, “Think outside the box.”  How do you get people to focus on constraints and limits in a way that stimulates creativity rather than shutting it down?

A.  I think anyone can write "free-verse" poetry. But to write a 14-line sonnet with its rhyming rules really forces one to look more deeply for ideas. Similarly, new products with no "real-world" constraints probably aren't going to go very far.  A new idea or product has to conform in some ways to existing manufacturing or distribution protocols. These constraints force the innovator to think and look more deeply for opportunities.

Here's an example from an outside area. The other night I watched Roman Polanski's 1962 film, "Knife in the Water." One of the DVD's special features had an interview with Polanski and his screenwriter. They both said that by forcing themselves to stick with Aristotle's "three unities for a good tragedy" (all action takes places within 24 hours; all action occurs in the same place; limited number of characters), they had to think more deeply about plot and character rather than taking cheap cinematic shortcuts. They felt these limits helped to produce a better film. I agree with them.

Q:  There are lots of techniques and tools for stimulating creativity these days but most people find a few that are most powerful for them.  When you start a new project or want to really open up your creativity, what tool or technique do you find yourself using over and over again?

A:  I use this simple strategy: "Look for the second right answer." That's become my mantra over the years. This technique allows me to play with a problem or idea until I find something I'm really passionate about.

Another strategy I try to follow is: "Don't fall in love with ideas." I find that when I'm working on a project (writing a book, designing a product, etc.) and if I'm "in love with" a particular part of it, that's a sure sign I'm not looking for alternatives. "Kissing" ideas "goodbye" is a great technique to open up your thinking. As Mark Twain put it, "One of life's most over-valued pleasures is sexual intercourse, and one of life's least appreciated pleasures is defecation." There's a real joy to "letting go," and this certainly applies to ideas.

Q:  You’ve expressed a continued fascination with the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, even to the point of writing a book about him (“Expect the Unexpected”).  If Heraclitus were with us today and thinking about all of our challenges such as global warming, international conflict, and financial imbalances, what would he say?

A:  He'd say something along the lines of: "Stop whining. Don't be so arrogant to think that your problems are unique. There will always be conflict. The universe runs on conflict. Human beings have always been faced challenges and they always will be. Use these challenges to come up with some new approaches."

Q:  What’s next for Roger?

A:  I'm currently in the midst of designing a followup product to the "Ball of Whacks." It's close to being finished. I'm working with my Chinese manufacturer on the tooling right now. It's been a kick to enter into a whole new business (creative mind manipulative tools; http://creativewhack.com ). I've learned a lot more about manufacturing, dealing with the USPTO, distribution, etc. It's been quite a learning experience. Plus, the Ball of Whacks has helped me reach a whole new audience.

I'm still doing some speaking and seminars as well. When you post this, I'll be in London working with a client. That's one of the neat things about my work: it allows me to meet a lot of interesting people around the world.

Thanks Joyce for the opportunity to share a few of my ideas with you. Best wishes to you and your many readers!
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Roger von Oech

Productive Thinking

From: Joyce Wycoff

With all the talk about INNOVATION going on today, there's still relatively little talk about THINKING.  And yet, thinking, creative, rational, strategic, collaborative thinking is the foundation of innovation.  Tim Hurson's new book "Think Better" is an important addition to the innovation literature.  Tim has kindly given us some chapter excerpts to whet your appetite.  We highly recommend that you check out the entire book.

When you read the excerpt from Chapter 3, think about "fossil ideas" that are lurking in your life and in your organization.

Better Thinking (your company's future depends on it ... and so does yours)  by Tim Hurson

From Chapter 1 ... Why Think Better

To create the future, you have to be able to imagine it. Productive thinking is a way to help you do that. It’s not magic. It’s a disciplined approach to thinking more creatively and more effectively. You can actually train yourself to think better. The more you practice it, the better you’ll get. The better you get, the more opportunities you will have to make a better world, a better company, a better life.

The power of productive thinking lies its potential to increase your chances of finding, developing, and ultimately implementing unexpected connections. Although I’ve been helping people and companies discover unexpected connections for years, I am consistently astonished when they appear  ... sometimes in an instant, sometimes after months or even years of searching. They seem to be in limitless supply: an infinite number of AHAs waiting to be discovered.

From Chapter 2 Monkey Mind, Gator Brain and the Elephant's Tether

There’s an interesting biological yardstick called the RMR, which stands for resting metabolic rate. Your RMR is the amount of energy your body needs just to stay alive. Your brain, that mysterious cluster of ganglia, neurons, axons, dendrites, gray and white matter, lobes, synapses (and empty space!), represents about 2 percent of your total body mass (to get a sense of that ratio, imagine one teaspoon of sugar in a standard cup of coffee). Just to keep you alive, your brain requires a disproportionate amount of energy. At rest, it consumes about 20 percent of the oxygen you breathe and the calories you burn (imagine your coffee with 10 teaspoons of sugar!). That’s more than your heart (10 percent), your lungs (10 percent), and your kidneys (7 percent). And that 20 percent gobbled up by your brain is just in a resting state. When you’re really thinking, that proportion can go way up. Chess masters, for example, have been known to sweat out between 7 and 10 pounds of fluid during a two-hour chess match.

So thinking ... truly focused thinking, which includes mental activities such as observing, remembering, wondering, imagining, inquiring, interpreting, evaluating, judging, identifying, supposing, composing, comparing, analyzing, calculating, and even metacognition (thinking about thinking) ...is hard work. Which, as Ford said, is probably why so few people actually do it.

You may be saying to yourself, "Don’t be silly. I’m thinking all the time. I never stop thinking. I think while I work, while I talk, while I drive. In fact, I’m thinking while I read these words."  Well, it probably seems as though you’re thinking all the time, but like the rest of your body, your brain uses a variety of strategies and tricks to minimize the energy it requires, and its most effective strategy for conserving brain energy is actually not to think at all. In fact, most of the time your brain is involved in just one of three activities: distraction, reaction, or following well-worn patterns...

... Like the distraction of monkey mind and the split-second reaction of gator brain, the tethering effect of following well-worn patterns can be a major barrier to thinking. In India, elephant wranglers, or mahouts, prevent elephant calves from wandering by chaining one of the animal’s legs to a stake deeply embedded in the ground. Try as they might, the young elephants aren’t strong enough either to break their chains or dislodge the stake. Attempting to do so is not only fruitless but uncomfortable as the chain tightens around their legs. Pretty soon they stop trying. As adults, elephants are kept in place with a length of woven hemp (much cheaper and more convenient than a chain) tied to a stake hammered into the ground with a few strokes. Full-grown elephants can pull away from their tethers easily, but they don’t. They have a deeply ingrained pattern that tells them that escape is impossible. For the elephants, the pattern has become more powerful than the data.

This book is about harnessing monkey mind, taming the gator, and cutting the elephant’s tether.

Make Your Ideas Sticky

Ideas are a dime a dozen ... but *everything* starts with an idea.  ... So how can you make your ideas "stick"?

Marketing guru, Guy Kawasaki makes the following prediction for Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath: it will join The Tipping Point and Built to Last as a must-read for business people. The book explains why some ideas stick and some don’t--and I’ve been on both sides of this equation. A warning though: If you read this book, you’ll revamp a lot of your marketing material (as you probably should).

Chip Heath will be one of the featured keynote speakers at the 13th annual Innovation Convergence:  Innovation Immersion, held October 15-17th in Scottsdale, AZ.  (More information and registration:
http://www.iirusa.com/convergence.)

Here’s a selection from an interview  Guy conducted with the authors (full text can be found on Guy’s blog: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/the_stickiness_.html.)

Question: What separates ideas that stick from those that don’t?

Answer: We spent lots of time researching sticky ideas--ideas that people understand, remember, and that change the way people think or behave. The ideas we studied ranged from the ludicrous to the profound, from urban legends (no, there is no kidney theft ring) to great scientific theories (yes, the land we walk around on does ride on giant tectonic plates and when they collide they cause mountain ranges and earthquakes). We found there were six principles (SUCCES) that link sticky ideas of all kinds. Sticky ideas won’t always have all six, but the more, the merrier.

For example, JFK’s idea to "put a man on the moon in a decade" had all six of them:

1.      Simple -- A single, clear mission.

2.      Unexpected -- A man on the moon? It seemed like science fiction at the time.

3.      Concrete -- Success was defined so clearly -- no one could quibble about man, moon, or decade.

4.      Credible -- This was the President of the U.S. talking.

5.      Emotional -- It appealed to the aspirations and pioneering instincts of an entire nation.

6.      Story -- An astronaut overcomes great obstacles to achieve an amazing goal.

Join us at Convergence for even more about how to make your ideas stick ... it could make all the difference in the success of your ideas ... and your personal success.  You'll also get a chance to hear from:

-- Gunter Pauli, Founder & Director of ZERI (Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives Foundation
-- Arkadi Kuhlmann, CEO of ING Direct
-- Mary Cullinane, The Technology Architect for Microsoft's School of the Future
-- Jane Stevenson, Managing Partner, Heidrik & Struggles
-- Michael Chai, Sr. V.P. Leapfrog Enterprises

Also learn from a host of other innovation practitioners from major organizations such as:  HP, Carlso Hotels Worldwide, Kimberly-Clark, Church & Dwight Co, NineSigma, Motorola University, General Mills, Adobe Systems, Mayo Clinic, Dow Corning, Ping, Inc., Mondi Business Paper Services, The Yankee Candle Company, Dunkin' Brands, Inc, Visa USA, Intel and more.

Listening: the Spark of Innovation

by Diane Berenbaum or Tom Larkin

The importance of listening--careful listening--can’t be overstated. Listening doesn’t mean merely hearing words. It’s hearing what they signify. But listening is not merely a physical process, it is very much a learned skill...one that goes well beyond bending an ear in someone’s direction and looking as though you’re engaged.

There are really four levels of listening:

1. Level One -- Here, the dialogue itself is largely transactional - focused on the task.
2. Level Two -- Rapport building characterizes this level of listening. You ask more questions to gain a greater sense of the other person’s meaning.
3. Level Three -- The dialogue is characterized by a sense of warmth and perception. The focus at this level is on empathy.
4. Level Four -- This is the deepest level. Your attention is often intuitive and you remain largely silent.

Much of our communication--particularly in a business setting-- occurs at levels one and two. It’s largely an empirical process, dominated by an exchange of facts and figures. That’s not to say it’s "bad" -- just, perhaps, not as effective as the level of listening that we would like to establish.

By contrast, Level Four focuses on letting the other person talk and typically only occurs in close relationships where there is trust and mutual respect.

Level Three listening is attentive, nonjudgmental, and genuinely recognizes the other person’s feelings and perspective ... it’s in a word, empathic. This is the level you want to achieve in your interactions with customers.

HOW TO LISTEN AT LEVEL THREE

However desirable, listening at Level Three is often difficult. We may be preoccupied with other concerns, distracted by what’s happening around us or simply eager to address the problem.

If you have a tendency to listen at Level One or Two (listening for facts and details), then you will not "hear" what the customer is really saying. You need to listen to his words and tone in a different way ... in a way that goes beyond the facts. Level Three is about listening for and acknowledging their feelings and the significance of the issue. Then and only then are you really connecting with the customer, and thereby, building or restoring the relationship.

So, what do you do when you listen at Level Three? First, listen for the big picture and be careful to not get bogged down in the words and details that are coming at you. Provide a space for the customer to share what’s on his mind, without interruption.

To be truly empathic, choose a non-judgmental attitude. Watch your tendencies to make assumptions, judge what you are hearing or project how you would think or feel in that situation. Just recognize how the person is feeling and accept what she shares.

Level Three listening is distinctly different from what we tend to do in our customer interactions. But if you get it right, it will help your conversations with your customers go more smoothly because your customers will respond to you differently. They will recognize that you care and have the ability and willingness to help.

When you choose to listen at Level Three, you influence your customers’ perception of you and your ideas. They’ll be more receptive and open to collaboration.
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The above is an excerpt from the book "How To Talk To Customers" by Diane Berenbaum and Tom Larkin, Senior Vice Presidents of Communico Ltd., a customer service training and consulting company. You can order your copy of the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Jack's Notebook

Jack’s Notebook by Gregg Fraley is the first business parable written about creative problem solving It reveals the CPS process, a proven method that helps people develop greater access to their own imagination, creativity, and innovative skill.  CPS is also known as the Osborn-Parnes model of creative problem solving, it’s been used effectively for many years, mostly by a select few who have been lucky enough to get the training.  Unfortunately, training in CPS is usually expensive and is not available to the people who need it most, small business people, entrepreneurs, younger people just starting their careers, and those in charge of difficult innovation efforts within large organizations.  Jack’s Notebook is not your typical business parable.  It’s a fast-paced story worthy of Elmore Leonard about things far outside business cubicles.  Reviewers say it’s hard to put down.  They also say it is effective in teaching CPS.  One reviewer, Paul Gronki says,

“(CPS) is an approach to solving problems that is not popularly understood…(in Jack’s Notebook) it’s explicated and demonstrated in an intriguing and fun way. Gregg Fraley has presented a very approachable guide to creative problem solving that anyone looking for more creative approaches to everyday personal and business challenges should read."

Gregg hopes this book will be to innovation what The Goal was to process improvement, a way to quickly learn powerful concepts about creative thinking.   Fraley states:

“I wrote this book for people who have a dream but don’t know how to get it.  And for people who would not ordinarily pick up a book about creativity.  For me, that’s why it had to be a story.  Stories create an emotional connection of the reader to the material.  It makes learning fun.  Yes, it is a “business book”.  I define that as the business of life.  More creative thinking improves everything you do, whether it’s starting a business, improving your relationships, or realizing a dream.  So if you are a bartender like Jack wondering what to do with your life, or a business person looking to create something innovative, the process is the same.” 

More about innovation and creativity expert Gregg Fraley at http://www.greggfraley.com/

Great New Book

In 1982, a book changed the way I looked at business and my career.  The book was In Search of Excellence and, while I’ve read many great business books since then, none excited me as much as that classic until I received a pre-publication copy of a book that will be released on October 2.  The book is Mavericks at Work, Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win by William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre.  Bill is one of the founding editors of Fast Company magazine and Polly was one of its incredible writers.

I’ve been reading and living with the book for several weeks, waiting until the time was right to share this find with you.  In that time I’ve tried to decide why this book is so energizing and it seems to boil down to two things: fresh, incredible stories and an emphasis on individuals and values.  In the past several years the dozens of innovation books that poured onto our bookshelves were primarily focused on tools, techniques, processes and organizations as a whole.  I’ve learned a great deal from those books but seldom felt that surge of excitement that happened with almost every page of Mavericks.  The authors set the expectations on the first page of the introduction when they state:  “… this is more than a how-to book.  It is also a what-if book.”

The best way to give you a sense of the book is to share a snippet of one of the maverick stories … that of Arkadi Kuhlmann, founder of ING Direct USA, one of the fastest-growing retail banks in the country.  To the banking industry he is a bad guy.  He was the only CEO of a U.S. bank to oppose the “laughably misnamed” Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, comparing it to “using a cannon to kill a mosquito.”   He also created a business model around saving and thrift rather than spending and debt, the mainstay of banks and credit card companies.  ING Direct charges no customer fees, requires no minimum deposits and offers a savings rate averaging four times the industry average.  Kuhlmann is on a mission to “lead Americans back to savings.”  “One way or another,” he states, “most financial companies are telling you to spend more.  We’re showing you how to save more.”

The book is filled with mavericks who challenge the values and strategies of their industries … a process that delivers bottom line value as well as great stories. “Money celebrated its 30^th aniversary by identifying the best-performing stock over the magazine’s three-decade history.  The winner wasn’t General Electric, IBM, Merck, or some other revered name.  It was Southwest Airlines, a maverick force in one of the least attractive industries in the world.”  ($10,000 in 1972 was worth $10.2 million thirty years later.)

One of the most powerful parts of the book is the Maverick Messages that follow each section.   These messages summarize the principles and ask questions that could be very powerful conversation starters for you and your associates.  Questions from the first section include:

1. Do you have a distinctive and disruptive sense of purpose that sets you apart from your rivals
2. Are you prepared to reject opportunities that offer short-term benefits but distract your organization from its long-term mission?
3. If your company went out of business tomorrow, who would really miss you and why?

You can pre-order the book at amazon.com now -- I would suggest buying enough for your associates and make it the focus of a book club.  It will be the focus of the October Innovation Bookclub, starting mid-October to give people a chance to get the book and start reading it.

Innovation Book Club: The Medici Effect

If you were an architect in the capital of Zimbabwe and a potential client asked you to build an attractive, functioning office building ... without air conditioning, would you jump at the challenge or decline politely knowing that it's a crazy idea?

Mick Pearce is the architect who accepted the challenge and successfully developed Eastgate, a large commercial/retail complex which maintains a steady temperature of 73 to 77 degrees and uses less than 10 percent of the energy consumed by other buildings its size.  The client saved $3.5 million immediately by not having to install an air-conditioning plant.

Why was Mick Pearce willing and able to create such a ground-breaking design?  Because he had an edge.  He didn't have to have a "new" idea ... he only had to apply understanding he had from a different field to the current problem.  His interest in ecology led him to the study of termites which keep the internal temperature in their mounds at a constant temperature of 87 degrees (in a climate that ranges from over 100 degrees during the day to below 40 at night). Mick used this knowledge to design a self-regulating building.

Frans Johansson's book, "The Medici Effect," the Innovation Book Club selection for August, advocates the concept of deliberately using intersections as a prime method of generating exceptionally powerful new ideas.  As Johansson states it, Mick Pearce "stepped into the Intersection, a place where he could combine architectural designs with processes in nature."

This is a powerful book that helps us think about generating new ideas ... not from a blank slate but rather from a process of combining things that already exist in a way that creates a new and better answer to an existing problem or opportunity.

Highly recommended reading.  New book club groups can sign up at http://thinksmart.com/library/bookclub.html.

Innovation Book Club: Punished by Rewards

"For the anthropomorphic view of the rat, American psychology substituted a rattomorphic view of man." -- Arthur Koestler, "The Act of Creation"

If everyone is doing something, does that mean it’s right?

Perhaps not.  But, it makes it darn hard to convince people to change.  That’s the challenge Alfie Kohn has taken on in his highly readable and thought-provoking book,"Punished by Rewards, the Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes."  Here’s the opening two paragraphs:

"There is a time to admire the grace and persuasive power of an influential idea, and there is a time to fear its hold over us.  The time to worrry is when the idea is so widely shared that we no longer even notice it, when it is so deeply rooted that it feels to us like plain common sense.  At the point when objections are not answered anymore because they are no longer even raised, we are not in control:  we do not have the idea; it has us.

"This book is about an idea that has attained just such a status in our society.  The idea is that the best way to get something done is to provide a reward to people when they act the way we want them to."

We invited Alfie Kohn to speak at Convergence in 1999 and have written frequently about his work since then.  Yet, one of the most common questions we still receive is, "How can we reward innovation?"  I think this question springs from a natural desire to stimulate innovative behaviors in people, yet, if we really listen to Alfie, the impulse to reward those behaviors could actually *reduce* innovation.  However, rewards and individual incentives are such an ingrained way of thinking, that changing that approach takes a great deal of courange and commitment.

"Punished by Rewards" is the Innovation Book Club selection for July.  It’s now time to buy and start reading this book.  Alfie's a great writer so he brings the subject alive and will stimulate your thinking long after the book is done.

If you work with other people or are a parent, do yourself a favor and read this book.

Let My People Go Surfing

"He not busy being born is busy dying."' -- Bob Dylan

Imagine working for a place where you were *expected* to have fun ... where you were celebrated for surfing when the surf was up, skiing when the powder was fresh, or kayaking when the river called.

Imagine focusing on being the best company, offering the best products rather than focusing on quarterly results.

Imagine working in an environment of trust and respect, where the bosses work in offices that look just like yours, where your children are part of the mix as they progress from day care to after school care offered onsite. 

Imagine working in an environment where you and your co-workers are the ultimate customer.  Imagine going to work everyday seeing yourself as part of the world's environmental solution rather than as a contributor to the world's pollution.

If you have any difficulty imagining the above, it's because you haven't experienced working for a place such as Patagonia, the outdoor equipment and clothing company.

The Innovation Book Club selection for June is "Let My People Go Surfing, the education of a reluctant businessman," by Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner.  Part biography, part management text and part environmental summons, this book reflects a different way of doing business.  The founders' (Yvon and his wife Malinda) dedication to the environment and a life close to nature requires a careful balance of philosophies and profit.  While they measure their bottom line by the amount of good they do in a year, profit is what allows them to contribute to the environment.

Buy the book

Patagonia's environmental philosophy guidelines have a definite personal behavior quality about them:

1.  Lead an examined life.
2.  Clean up our own act.
3.  Do our penance.
4.  Support civil democracy
5.  Influence other companies

Taking the first guideline:  Lead an examined life, Chouinard calls our current environmental crisis a failure of imagination and states, "Uncurious people do not lead examined lives; they cannot see causes that lie deeper than the surface.  They believe in blind faith, and the most frightening thing about blind faith is that it in turn leads to an inability, even an unwillingness, to accept facts."

This is an inspiring book that eventually asks,us to reflect on our own personal role ... are we part of the problem or part of the solution?

Innovation Book Club: The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point, How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

This is the Innovation Book Club selection for May and I’m on my third trip through it.  Unlike most non-fiction books, this one gets more fascinating with each reading.  It’s also interesting to read this following Steve Denning’s book on storytelling.  Few non-fiction writers can touch Gladwell for telling great stories that stimulate thought, not only around the story itself but how it relates to specific issues in our own world.  And, that is the power of story ... to transmit information in a way that it grabs onto our own little mental hooks and offers up new possibilities for thought.

In the Afterword to the latest edition, Gladwell offers us a tipping point story from a reader.  Since the primary challenge of this material is its application, this is worth sharing to see how ordinary people are engaging with the principle.

Sharon Karmazin, a New Jersey philanthopist, bought three hundred copies of the book and sent one to every public library in the state, promising to fund any ideas inspired by the book.  Within a few months "Tipping Point" grants totaling close to $100,000 had been given out to twenty-one different libraries.  One library with a hard-to-find entrance, used the money to put up signs around town to direct people to the library.  Another identified seniors as connectors and used the money for special programs to teach them to use the library and the Internet.  All of the ideas were modest and required no more than a few thousand dollars ... but, then, that was the point.

Here are a few of the questions addressed by the book ... and in each case, the answer is probably not what you might think it would be.

Why did 38 New Yorkers stand by while Kitty Genovese was brutally stabbed for more than 30 minutes?

Why is Big Bird such an important part of "Sesame Street"?

What is the big insight of "Blue’s Clues"?

Why did Paul Revere get all the credit and we barely hear about William Dawes who also made a ride on that fateful night?

This is a powerful book that offers a simple premise:  little things can make a big difference.  The challenge, of course, is to figure out which little things and how to change them in a way that makes the big difference we want.

Becoming a Trendmaster

Robyn Waters, Target's former executive trendmaster, has now distilled her wisdom into an easy-to-read guide titled "The Trendmaster's Guide, Get a Jump on What Your Customer Wants Next." (Robyn will be a keynote speaker at Convergence 2005.)

Here's a nugget from Robyn's book -- from "C is for Connect the Dots":

An interesting fact catches your attention.  A related tidbit pops up out of nowhere.  A random comment reinforces a budding thought. Hey ... pay attention!  Your trend dots are begging to be connected. Taken individually, each "dot" may not mean a lot.  Connected, a pattern emerges that often points to a developing trend--in time to do something about it.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about several "dots" – Monster Thickburgers, Enormous Omelet Sandwich and other high calorie offerings from fast food places.  We asked for comments about what this might mean and received several interesting responses which are listed below.

We didn't quite connect the dots, however, in a way that might be useful from an innovator's perspective.  What if you were a designer of automotive interiors and you looked at those dots?  Would you connect them into a trend of heavier people who need more support in car seats?  Or would you see it as an impulse toward small indulgences which would lead you to adding more sensory delight to the auto interior?  Or maybe you'd see these fast food monsters being eaten in the car and design a chin trough that would catch all the drippings.

** Challenge for next week -- here are four "dots" -- how would you connect them into a possible trend?  What businesses might be impacted by that trend and how?

- Netflix is wildly successful delivering movies directly to homes.

- According to ubercool.com, the hottest new community is “thefacebook,” aimed at college students. The site has exploded from zero members 14 months ago to more than 2 million today. That fast ride led venture capital firm Accel Partners to invest a rumored $12 million for an undisclosed share of the company.

- Hot hybrid, Toyota Prius, does not have an ignition key ... it has a "Power" button plus a videogame-like display reward for fuel- efficient driving.

- Apple iPod's latest offering is the "shuffle."  Gone are the display and choosing your tunes. The memory-stick sized iPod puts surprise and randomness back into music.

There are no right or wrong answers ... so, how would you connect the dots?  Send your thoughts to mailto:staff@thinksmart.com, SUBJECT:  Dots.

Have a great and innovative week ... Joyce Wycoff

Here are the responses to "Thick or Thin - What's the Trend?"

Blink - Malcolm Gladwell

Blink, the Power of Thinking without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell is an outstanding writer and storyteller and his new book offers interesting stories and food for thought.  However, it falls far short of his blockbuster The Tipping Point.

Blink is about the intuitive response, the pattern recognition that happens almost instantaneously, and allows us to recognize faces and complex, non-verbal communication.  Gladwell seldom uses the term intuition, referring to this phenomenon as the adaptive unconscious.  He offers a series of fascinating stories focusing on the process he calls “thin-slicing,” the process of recognizing and making a decision based on incredibly small amounts of data.  One example shows people accurately predicting which married couples will stay together based on only two seconds of videotape.

He offers the premise that decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.  However, he acknowledges that this same process can often result in bad decisions and offers little guidance on how to make the process more reliable.

The Medici Effect

The Medici Effect, Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts & Cultures by Frans Johansson, Harvard Business School Press, 2004.  Buy at amazon.com.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth century, the wealthy Medici family attracted artists, scientists, poets, architects and philosophers to Florence where their interactions and work stimulated a burst of creativity that changed the world.  Johansson uses this Medici effect as a metaphor for deliberately bringing together differing disciplines and cultures in order to find new intersectional ideas.

Even if you’re an old hand at creativity and innovation and know the theories and techniques that the author writes about, his compelling stories and clear approach will help you understand them at a deeper level.  And if you’re just getting started in this field, this is a terrific, solid place to begin. 

I particularly appreciate the focus on exploring the intersections of different fields and the great stories that demonstrate how truly unique innovations spring from explorations at the edges of disciplines.  There is still too often a tendency to respond to the call for innovation by gathering a handful of people and decamping to the nearest conference room for a rousing brainstorming session.  Unfortunately the blizzard of sticky notes that come out of these sessions seldom results in anything that makes a significant difference either in value to the customer or to the bottom line.

Deliberately putting together unrelated fields, however, can force thinking onto totally new paths where breakthroughs have a chance to reveal themselves.  Supermarket guru, Phil Lempert, reminded attendees of the recent Brand ManageCamp conference that out of 30,000 new supermarket products, only 100 are successful three years later.  Any normal person who was failing 99.7% of the time would think about changing the way they do things (assuming they were still around to make such a decision).   Exploring intersections may not guarantee success, but it will give you a chance to create something truly new and valuable.

The author calls these “intersectional innovations” and characterizes them as:

• Surprising and fascinating.
• Take leaps in new directions.
• Open up entirely new fields.
• Provide a space for a person, team, or company to call its own.
• Generate followers, which means the creators can become leaders.
• Provide a source of directional innovation for years or decades to come.
• Affect the world in unprecedented ways.

Here’s an example of one of the stories in the book.

Mick Pearce was challenged to build an attractive, functioning office building that uses no air conditioning in the steamy climate of Zimbabwe.  He succeeded … by studying termites who build mounds that keep a stead internal temperature of 87 degrees.  The complex saved an immediate $3.5 million by not having to install air conditioning.

Read excerpt from HBS Working Knowledge:  -- JW

Oxymoronic Paradox

This comes from Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools:

An oxymoron has been wisely described as "a compressed paradox." Looking at it the other way around, I think of a paradox as "an extended oxymoron." To me, they're close cousins because they both link up contradictory or incongruous elements. And they both play around in the most fascinating way with the difference between literal truth and figurative truth. For this reason, I include both oxymoronic and paradoxical observations (and a few others, as you shall soon see) under the rubric of oxymoronica.

Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit & Wisdom From History's Greatest Wordsmiths by Marty Grothe $10
Amazon

Sample excerpts:

The superfluous is the most necessary.
Voltaire

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone
else.
Margaret Mead

I shut my eyes in order to see.
Paul Gauguin

We learn from history that we do not learn from history.
Georg Hegel

We are never prepared for what we expect.
James Michener

To be believed, make the truth unbelievable.
Napoleon Bonaparte

The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusions.
Maurice Chapelain

What we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.
Sydney J. Harris

Seeing What’s Next

Somewhere in a dark cubicle in the bowels of the Harvard Business School, there is an Artificial Intelligence network gathering research both primary and secondary, grinding it through the known intelligence systems and spitting out page after page of useful guidance for the waiting minds of business people trying to make sense of a chaotic world.  Buy at amazon.com.

This is how it must be because surely one person (even with the help of willing graduate students and aligned consultants) couldn’t produce the ever-quickening flow of books that are being released under the name of Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and perhaps the world’s only real challenge to the legendary business-guru status of Peter Drucker.

The Christensen pronouncements began with the Innovator’s Dilemma in mid-1997, picked up steam with the Innovator’s Solution in the fall of 2003 and then amazingly enough tossed us another full meal to digest less than a year later in Seeing What’s Next, Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change. I loved the first book, was amazed that the second was even better than the first (a rare occurrence) and had no hopes for the third … until I sat down to read it.

While Dilemma and Solution tell us how to succeed by overcoming the barriers to innovation, Next shows us how to recognize the signals of change that could easily rock our world. Imagine confidently recognizing the potential of Google or Ebay (before the rest of the pack). Or what if you could read the signals being transmitted by the health care or telecommunications industies and understood how they might affect your industry or company? Just as importantly, what if you could use these signals to more successfully weave your way through the constantly changing landscape in order to develop products and services that create new value for your customers and for you?

It’s a tall order but as usual Christensen and crew deliver. This isn’t a simple, fun read but it is worth putting some time and thought into the theories and how they relate to you and your world. Next does boil down very complex thinking into three primary elements of a predictive model:

1. Look for signals of change
2. Evaluate competitive battles
3. Watch important strategic choices.

We will provide some additional thinking on each of these elements in future messages … but, for now, we suggest that you click on over to amazon and buy the book if you don’t already have it. It’s another must read for every manager’s bookshelf … and for all of you investment-types, this might help you spot the next Google. (The authors offer no guarantees along this line, of course!)

Book Club: Open Innovation

Henry Chesbrough

The first pick for the new Innovation Book Club is Henry Chesbrough's book which is part of the movement of "innovating innovation." It's also the source of one of my favorite quotes. John Seely Brown's lead sentence in the Foreward to this book, states: As a student of innovation for more than twenty years, I still find it amazing just how difficult innovation continues to be. My whole body relaxed when I read that ... If John Seely Brown still finds this difficult, it makes sense that the rest of us keep wrestling with the complexities of innovation.

Henry starts us off with an equally jolting comment: "Most innovations fail." Following that, the equally dire: "And companies that don't innovate die." But he doesn't leave us in this hopeless state for long. Using some excellent case studies, he spells out the new world of innovation, a world that rewards some of the same practices that were strictly forbidden not too many years ago.

Great Groups

Here is a bit of wisdom from Warren Bennis ... it is so powerful, it deserves the entire focus for this week. I've broken the paragraph into bite-sized chunks because there is so much food for thought here. Enjoy

"As they say, 'None of us is as smart as all of us.'

That's good, because the problems we face are too complex to be solved by any one person or any one discipline.

Our only chance is to bring people together from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines who can refract a problem through the prisim of complementary minds allied in common purpose.

I call such collections of talent Great Groups. The genius of Great Groups is that they get remarkable people -- strong individual achievers -- to work together to get results.

Gaining Customer Insights – the Creative Way

Finding out what customers want is a fundamental aspect of innovation. However, it’s one of those things that is easier said than done. Customer surveys and focus groups have proven ineffective in most cases and bad data can be worse than no data.

Gerald Zaltman in his book, How Customers Think states, “The correlation between stated intent and actual behavior is usually low and often negative.” He tells a chilling tale of a household appliance manufacturer whose market research showed that 60% of customers were likely to purchase the new appliance. A year later the actual results were that 12% had actually purchased and the customers were unable to explain their reasons for not buying. Imagine gearing up sales, marketing, manufacturing, distribution and service for a new product and being off by a factor of 5!

Click here to buy the book.

So how do you gain true customer insights? We thought this would be an interesting question to explore to see what you’ve done and seen done. One example we’ve seen recently is Staples’ InnovationQuest. The nationwide quest for simple new office products was launched in 2003 and prospective inventors had until November to submit their ideas. To enhance participation, Staples offered a $25,000 prize to the top winner and $5,000 for the other eleven finalists. Additionally, the winner would receive royalties if the product was produced and sold by Staples.

The very process of launching the InnovationQuest created positives… in addition to engaging people (and most likely, customers) with Staples, the inventions submitted would highlight perceived problems. This week Staples announced the twelve finalists out of 8,000 entries and invited the world to judge them. The voting process invites other customers into the mix and their votes are another way to get feedback. I’m not sure that the inventions include any blockbusters such as the Post-It Note, but the value is in the customer feedback rather than the actual new products ideas submitted.

So, tell us what you’ve seen in the way of gaining customer insights. Please add your experiences and insights to the comments section.

Creative Destruction

"We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future."
-- George Bernard Shaw

Recently, Dana Wolcott suggested that I read Peter Schwartz's book Inevitable Surprises. It took awhile to get to it, but I've just finished it and think it's an important read for our time and for anyone thinking about innovation and change. Peter Schwartz is the cofounder and chairman of Global Business Network who frequently consults with governments and large corporations. Schwartz and GBN are best known for their scenario planning process.

Schwartz argues that many of the big surprises ahead can be foreseen if we use scenario thinking to closely examining existing signs. He states that in a turbulent environment such as ours, there are three critical things to keep in mind:

First: There will be more surprises.
Second: We will be able to deal with them.
Third: We can anticipate many of them. In fact, we can make some pretty good assumptions about how most of them will play out.

There are many things Schwartz talks about in this book that are depressingly chilling (the inevitability of a global plague and the breakdown of law and order in Russia and large parts of Africa) but there are also positive notes (the long boom, the shift toward protecting the environement, advances in science and technology).

Perhaps most useful, however are his prescriptions for anticipating future changes, whether they are the global changes surrounding us or the changs in our own organizations and communities. Here are just a few of his recommendations ... you will want to buy the book to read the rest:

Strategic conversations -- "Build and mainain your sensory and intelligence systems. That doesn't just mean technological sysems. It means the continued kinds of 'strategic conversations' in which you and your cohorts and colleagues keep looking around to observe and interpret the interaction of forces that might affect you, your enterprises, and your communities."

Early warning indicators -- "Identify in advance the kinds of'early-warning indicators' that would signal that a change is rapidly upon you."

Creative destruction -- "Put in place mechanisms to enger creative destruction. The institutions, companies, agencies, political parties, and the values of the past may turn out to be moribund and couterproductive in a new historical environment. Are you prepated to discard them? What processes, practices, and organizations have you actually dismantled in the last year or two? If the answer is none, perhaps it's time to get some practice in *before* urgency strikes."

Let's take this question of creative destruction and see if we're practicing it in our own lives. What have you creatively destroyed in the past two years? What should you be looking at seriously and thinking about how to creatively destroy it? Please use the comment option below to reply.

Innovation Spectrum: The Trouble with Tribbles

If you remember this Star Trek episode, you’ll recall those cute, little furry creatures that everyone loved ... at least until fur- balls began spilling out of every nook and cranny, threatening the survival of the Enterprise. (It turns out that tribbles are born pregnant and hungry. The more they eat the more tribbles there are to have little tribbles who love to eat and have more little tribbles, who ... you get the picture).

The words we use are somewhat like tribbles ... they might seem bright-eyed and innocent on the surface, but they can often start multiplying and nibbling away at our understanding, creating misunderstanding and chaos before we recognize what’s gone wrong.

Clayton Christensen’s ground-breaking and award-winning series ("The Innovator's Dilemma" and "The Innovator's Solution") is a powerful guide to innovation; however, the basic terminology is somewhat like tribbles ... it’s a little fuzzy and can be distracting. However, we *highly* recommend both books.