Good Morning Thinkers!

The Power of Challenge

It’s a crazy idea, probably impossible ... but for some reason, it burrows into the brain and sticks.  What if it could be done? ... What if magic could happen?  And, sometimes -- not always, of course -- but sometimes magic does happen.  The challenge creates a vortex of energy and focuses it like a laser beam on the possibility. Resources appear and obstacles and barriers disintegrate.

It happened that way in 1890 when the idea for celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the New World took root in the minds of a group of people in Chicago.  Stung by the recent success of Paris’ world fair, and it’s stunning landmark, a tower -- the highest man-made structure on earth -- part engineering marvel, part lacy fantasy, designed by Gustave Eiffel, Chicagoans, and Americans in general, wanted a chance to out-do the French and out-Eiffel Eiffel.  Chicago wanted to prove itself ready and worthy of playing on the world stage.

The story told in Erik Larson’s extremely readable "The Devil in the White City," is a case-study in innovation and a primer in the transformative power of an energizing challenge, a vision that engages hearts and minds and makes magic happen.  The deck is stacked against the venture which involves building a city of the future from the ground up in a little over two years.  No one really believes it can be done but one by one, already overly busy architects, designers and planners get sucked into the vision and obstacles such as quicksand, tornadoes, bank failures, union disruptions, and deaths bow to the momentum of the vision.  Egos and politics among ten different architects recede and a unifying design emerges ... a vision of a "dream city,"  white, clean, classical yet futuristic.

And, magic happens.  A thirty-three year old bridge-builder from Pittsburgh happens to attend a Saturday luncheon where engineers are rebuked for not rising to the challenge to "out-Eiffel Eiffel" -- to create something other than a tower that would be the distinguishing feature for the fair.   While others at the luncheon take offense, an idea suddenly comes to the young engineer.  He sees a different type of tower ... a towering wheel that lifts people high into the sky where they can see the entire Dream City, Chicago and Lake Michigan before gently rotating back down again.  George Ferris eventually built his wheel which soared 264 feet into the air, lifting 36 luxurious wooden cars that held sixty people in each and attracting hundreds of thousands of fair goers from across the country and around the world.

The Columbian Exposition of 1893 launched hundreds of innovations ... from new ways of building on water-logged soil to shredded wheat; from a new appreciation of architecture and landscape to
sunglasses; from alternating current to possibly the beginnings of Disneyland (Walt Disney’s father, Elias, helped build the Dream City).

"The Devil in the White City" is a fascinating history of the Columbian Exposition, however, it is also the tale of a serial killer who lurks in the dark shadows of the great fair in a time when violence is more commonplace and young women disappear without creating a ripple.  It is a brilliant and thought provoking work.

Do Less, Have More

"If we want our world to be different, our first act needs to be reclaiming time to think."

In almost every conversation about innovation, "lack of time to think" surfaces as one of the biggest barriers to being more innovative and creative.  And, there's every indication that this perception is real, created by a decade of downsizing and trying desperately to "do more with less."  However, this cycle can only go so far.  Once we've sucked all the "fat" out of the system, we're left with a "lean machine."

This sounds good on paper and in cost-cutting meetings ... the only problem is that machines don't create innovation.  Innovation comes from people and only from people who have the time to think, time to tinker, time to wander through new territory, time to explore their curiosities and passions.

Time to Think Policy?

It probably doesn't make a lot of sense to wait for our organizations to develop a "time to think" policy ... even 3M's famous "15%" is more a myth than a reality.  So what are you doing or what could you do as an individual to create thinking time for your self and for the people who work with or for you?

Add your ideas and suggestions in the comments section below.

Your Choice: A "hit" rate of 4% ... or 70%!

"Innovation can be the submarine that you sneak into the safe harbor of an unwary competitor, or it can be the clever entreaty you use to begin a fantastic lifelong relationship with your customer." -- Larry Keeley, Co-Founder, Doblin, Inc.

Convergence 2004 speaker, Larry Keeley, is an innovation strategist who often wonders why people bother to listen to innovation "experts" at all. After all, since innovation fails about 96% of the time, it seems self-evident that the field has advanced to about the same state as medicine when leeches, liniments and mystery potions were the sophisticated treatments of the day. On occasions when Larry can get someone to listen, he is inclined to reveal pieces of the emerging science of innovation that is at the heart of Doblin's practice. By being obsessive about identifying the root causes of innovation failure and injecting better methods, it is now possible to systematically boost innovation 'hit rates' to between 35% and 70%. That still isn't perfect but it is an improvement of 10-15 times over the pathetic results people try to convince themselves is "normal."

How does Larry help people achieve higher rates of success in this field which will always be part science and part art? By doing extensive, in-depth research and synthesizing those findings into process models that can be used to guide innovation in any organization. Larry will be presenting his latest research and insights at Convergence 2004. He also has a new book being released by HBS Press early next year. Title: "Taming the New: The Emerging Discipline of Innovation." You can say you heard it first at Convergence 2004!

You can get an overview of some of his thinking by looking at the Ten Types of Innovation model .

On top of all of that, you can play music if you go to Doblin's website For all you musicians, send us the score for any tunes you can pick out and we'll all play along with Doblin.

We'd love to have you join us at Convergence This is the 10th annual conference of innovation practitioners and it's an incredible opportunity to exchange ideas with folks from organizations around the world.

Problems or Miracles?

"What if instead of seeing organizations as problems to be solved, we saw them as miracles to be appreciated?" -- David Cooperrider, Professor of Organizational Behavior, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University

What if you could spend time with someone who is actively involved with the process of helping the world's top religious leaders better understand each other ... as well as helping top organizations make giant leaps in effectiveness and profitability? That describes only a small part of the spectrum of activities that Convergence 2004 keynote speaker, David Cooperrider, is involved in.

He is also the founder of a radical new movement in management -- Appreciative Inquiry. The term Appreciative Inquiry (often abbreviated to AI) was created in 1986 by David in his doctoral thesis: 'Appreciative Inquiry: Toward a Methodology for Utilising and Enhancing Organizational Innovation.' He developed the methodology with a team of colleagues including Suresh Srivastva and Diana Whitney.

Appreciative Inquiry is the cooperative search for the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them. It involves systematic discovery of what gives a system "life" when it is most effective and capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system's capacity to heighten positive potential. It mobilizes inquiry through crafting an "unconditional positive question" often involving hundreds and sometimes thousands of people. In AI,
intervention gives way to imagination and innovation; instead of negativity, criticism, and spiraling diagnosis there is discovery, dream, and design. AI assumes that every living system has untapped, rich, and inspiring accounts of the positive. Link this "positive change core" directly to any change agenda, and changes never thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized.

We'd love to have you join us at Convergence This is the 10th annual conference of innovation practitioners and it's an incredible opportunity to exchange ideas with folks from organizations around the world.

Innovating Innovation

"What we need is a new logic of innovation. The era of developing innovative technology solely for your company's internal use is over." -- Henry Chesbrough, Exec. Director, Center for Technology Management, UC Berkeley, author of "Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology"

Occasionally someone innovates the very discipline of innovation. Convergence 2004 keynote speaker, Henry Chesbrough, is one of those innovators of innovation and it's a gift to have him join us at Convergence.

The following is an excerpt from an interview with Optimize Magazine.

Q: What is open innovation, and how does it differ from closed innovation, which is what you say most companies do?

A: The basic idea is that in closed innovation, the model is one of discovering things yourself, then transferring them into development, production, distribution, service, and support within the four walls of your company. The logic is: If you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself.

But the idea behind open innovation is that there are too many good ideas held by people who don't work for you to ignore. Even the best companies with the most extensive internal capabilities have to take external knowledge and ideas into account when they think about innovation. So good ideas can come from outside as well as inside. And they can go to market not only inside your company, but also
outside, through others.

The Language of Innovation

"Prototyping is the language of innovation." -- Tom Kelley,Managing Director, IDEO

Tom Kelley wowed us at Convergence 2000 and we're delighted to have him back to speak at Convergence 2004 to share his latest insights (before they wind up in his upcoming book!). In the four years since we last heard from Tom, IDEO has continued to develop as theh premier design firm in the world. They were splashed across the cover of the May 17, 2004 issue of BusinessWeek with the statement: "This tiny firm called IDEO redefined design by creating experiences, not just products. Now it's changing the way companies innovate."

Here are some of the highlights Tom shared with us in 2000 and in his book "The Art of Innovation."

Innovation begins with an eye -- Identifying innovation opportunities by watching real people in real-life settings and understanding their latent human needs

Prototyping is the language of innovation -- Sustaining a culture of continuous innovation—not by aiming for perfection the first time but by creating lots of rapid prototypes—and building on many small failures to ultimately reach a market success

Verbs not nouns -- Building brand loyalty and creating market "buzz" by designing great customer experiences

Being a visionary by living the future -- Informing short-term decision-making by having a long-term point-of-view on technology and market developments

Space is the final frontier -- Using the physical office environment as a tool to shape the attitude and behavior and performance of your creative team.

We'd love to have you join us at Convergence This is the 10th annual conference of innovation practitioners and it's an incredible opportunity to exchange ideas with folks from organizations around the world.

Spark, Fuel or Flame?

Question: Which is most important: the spark, the fuel, or the flame?

Faux Fact (one that we can accept even when we can’t prove it): all innovations (great and small) carry only a faint resemblance to the original idea that sparked them.

Insight: Owning and rewarding ideas is counterproductive. Imagine that you are camping with friends on a cold winter night in the woods. All of you had spent a good part of the day gathering wood but then discovered that no one had matches. After arranging a tiny nest of dry tender, you are all striking rocks together to create a spark. Finally, one catches and Bill says, "That was my spark, I get the steak tonight and the rest of you can eat beans."

Hmmmm. Does it make any sense to recognize and reward people who had the initial idea but not recognize and reward all the people who made the fire possible?

Insight: Building, molding, shaping, refining, crafting, testing and reworking ideas are just as important as stimulating and capturing the original idea spark.

Insight: Gathering enough fuel to keep the fire burning is just as critical as the spark. And, what’s the fuel for innovation? New information and connections, stories and metaphors, conversations, understanding customer needs, working together collaboratively, and deliberately focusing the energies of people with a diversity of perspectives, experiences, skills and talents and thinking styles.

Insight: Striking rocks to create sparks is great ... but wouldn’t it be better to have a match? And, what’s the match that creates a possibility whenever it’s struck? People with energy and
passion for a challenge. Not all matches light fires: some flicker out before reaching the fuel, some are blown out by harsh judgments, some fall on barren ground. But the potential for fire -- for innovation -- is always there.

Defining Innovation

For years we’ve been quite happy with our definition of innovation: PEOPLE implementing new ideas to create value. It seemed to hold four critical elements together:

-- the fact that only PEOPLE innovate, systems and tools may support the process but only people can produce the magic that is innovation.

-- the understanding that innovation is about taking something new into the world.

-- the truth that all innovations spring from new ideas.

-- the reality that innovation must create new value for customers (internal or external) and the organization.

Recently, however, we’ve been working on a more prescriptive definition to help people avoid two prevalent thinking gaps we’ve noticed. While it seems that we are making great strides in
understanding innovation, there still seems to be a tendency to jump into brainstorming sessions as our first step in being more innovative. This actually may be progress, because what we’d really rather do is pick an answer, fix the problem and get on with the program!