Make Any Surface a “White Board” Surface

I really like dry-erase whiteboards.

They’re great for brainstorming, sketching up ideas, keeping track of deliverables in projects, and they’re wonderfully, (though sometimes too easily and other times impossibly) erasable.

Now you can turn any surface (usually a wall) into a dry-erase whiteboard with Idea Paint (Thanks to the W5 Blog!).

While I may paint a wall in the office, this has gotten me thinking beyond usage on walls…there’s some cool potential here.

How can you see this being used?

Guy Kawasaki and the Art of Innovation

Found this great video over at Joe Lafferty’s blog.

Guy’s ten points are:

1. Make meaning

2. Make a mantra (not a mission statement)

3. Jump to the next curve

4. Roll the dice

5. Don’t worry, be crappy

6. Let 100 flowers blossom

7. Polarize people

8. Churn, baby, churn

9. Follow the 10-20-30 rule

10. Don’t let the bozos get you down

I like them all and I think most bigger companies have problems with #3.

What are your thoughts?

Want an Example of an Elegant Idea? Watch The Soaps

 

When a design has it, it’s clear. 

There’s something special and wondrous about a solution that has it. 

It’s what we strive to achieve when problem solving.

It’s the hallmark of all great innovations…

It’s Elegance.

How does one define elegance? 

Matthew May, in his book, “In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing” lists four attributes of elegance.

1. Symmetry – It allows us to fill in gaps, to find and experience order, it provides a type of comfort as we naturally seek and prefer it.

2. Subtraction – Less is more.

3. Seduction – An alluring power to attract attention and mobilize the imagination.

4. Sustainability – A system or solution in which symmetry, seduction and subtraction are applied repeatably with success.  It also means that the solution itself has staying power. 

In general I like these definitions, so I began to look for an example of an elegant something that has these four traits, and I found it.

Soap Operas.

 Yes, you read correctly.  Soap Operas are elegant in their implementation and now, I see them as a thing of beauty.

So, why are soap operas elegant and what can we learn from them?  Let’s look at the attributes.

Symmetry – Since humans naturally look for, and prefer symmetry, in soap operas we have a tendency to look for balance (this also works hand-in-hand with seduction as we’ll see in a moment).  The writers of soap operas are brilliant in balancing justice/injustice, good/evil, what should be/what is, youth/elderly, life/death, what we don’t experience in life/what we do experience.

Subtraction - Soaps are masterful at using less to achieve more. Dialogues are short and to the point.    During the course of a show, the overwhelming majority of scenes last less than minute before moving to a new scene.  Interestingly, the majority of scenes contain two people and when a third appears often one of the other characters leaves.  It’s also not unusual for characters to get killed off or eliminated in some way from certain chunks of a show or season. It’s also not unusual for one actor to play multiple parts.

Seduction – Not even counting the obvious seduction from the sexual side, the tantalizing views of symmetry glimpsed through moments of asymmetry seduce our imaginations and make us speculate about how something will be resolved. Scenes cut out at just the right time so that we need to keep watching to find the resolution- we crave and want the symmetrical solution- we want justice for the characters- we want to be right in our predictions of where the show will take us.

Sustainability – The success of soap operas is staggering; in fact, if the soap opera isn’t an example of sustainability, I’m not sure what is.

Okay, so soaps are elegant, what does that mean? 

It means that elegant innovations/solutions don’t need more procedures or more features; they simply need to capture the imagination,  and appeal to human nature’s sense of symmetry, simplicity and beauty. 

Before any of this can be accomplished, however, we need to observe the world within and without.  It is in observation that the seeds of elegant solutions are born.

Invention the Mother of Economic Recovery

Great Op-Ed piece over at the New York times.

Thomas Friedman, inspired by a conference he recently attended,  waxes about ways of getting out of the current economic crisis.  He paints an interesting picture of Russia as a one-trick pony, economically speaking – in essence, oil is Russia’s only business and when oil prices are low, they’re in trouble.

He ends with this great quote:

Lately, there has been way too much talk about minting dollars and too little about minting our next Thomas Edison, Bob Noyce, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Vint Cerf, Jerry Yang, Marc Andreessen, Sergey Brin, Bill Joy and Larry Page. Adding to that list is the only stimulus that matters. Otherwise, we’re just Russia with a printing press.

Humans are inherently creative-they want to create and express themselves in some way.  One of the best countries (if not the best) for people to express their creativity and make a living from it is the United States of America.

Seems to me that with the right environment, an environment empowering people instead of rewarding colossal failure,  recovery would be on the way.

What do you think about these perspectives?

Some Insights into Office Max’s Innovation

(pic courtesy of businessweek.com)

Please check out this excellent article over at Business Week about Office Max’s innovation efforts.

There are some great insights into how they chose to redefine how and what they sell.  Some great guidelines for innovating as well:

 

• Focus on Unspoken Needs

Needs represent market opportunities, but consumers are unlikely to come out and say, for instance, “I want a better way to label file folders.” Researchers read between the lines to uncover real needs.

• Study customers in their environment

You’ll learn far more observing people’s everyday behaviors than you ever would by asking them questions in a focus group.

• Watch for Contradictions

When someone says one thing and does another, that’s often the sign of an opportunity.

• Identify Your Target Customer

In-depth ethnographic studies usually involve no more than a dozen subjects, so make sure they are the right ones. Depending on the project, it might be important to include subjects from different regions or countries, or to get a mix of urban and rural participants. A food company, for instance, needs to understand regional differences in eating habits, while a pet food maker might want to study the differing needs of city dwellers and out-of-towners.

• Use Multiple Tools to Record Material

In addition to written notes, the researchers used video, which allowed them to capture rich detail. Audio is useful when researchers want to be less obtrusive. An advantage of still photographs is that they are easy to sort later as researchers review materials looking for common problems and other valuable insights.

Anything else you could add to this?

When Innovation Isn’t Really All That – Bringing Back Cow Diets from the Past

Cows Supping at the Flannery Farm (Michael Plishka, 2009)

 

“What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun.”

-Ecclesiastes 1:9

According to a recent press release  from Stonyfield Farm , they’ve pioneered a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from dairy cattle while improving the nutritional value of the milk.

By removing things like corn and soy from the cows’ diet and replacing it with a mixture of grasses, alfalfa, and flax, the cows burp substantially less methane and create better quality milk.  According to Stonyfield:

“(We have) been able to reduce the enteric emissions from the cows by as much as 18%, an average of 12%. If every US dairy were to adopt this approach, in less than one year , the amount of greenhouse gas emissions we could reduce would be the equivalent of taking more than half a million cars off the road!”-Nancy Hirshberg, Stonyfield V.P. of Natural Resources and the director of the Stonyfield Greener Cow Project

This is an amazing feat and hats off to Stonyfield for taking the lead in doing this.

There’s only one problem…

It’s not really new or innovative.

Small family farms (like the Flannery Farm pictured above) have been feeding their cows diets without corn, soy and other non-cowlike additives, for years!  It’s only in the world of mega-farming that corn and soy (and wonderful things like rendered fat, fish and blood) and have found their way into the guts of cows whose stomachs evolved with a preference for grasses.

While on the one hand we could bemoan the fact that cows (and our atmosphere) have been subjected to assault from diets of corn and soy (and other things), the real lesson here is that sometimes we really don’t have to reinvent the wheel, or the diets of cows. 

When mega-farms started treating cows like machines instead of animals that have an evolutionary history, they lost sight of the bigger, sustainable picture.  Yes, they were able to up the output of milk but, in the long run, it was a costly undertaking and not a very elegant solution.  Ramping up production and creating higher ”efficiencies”  is not necessarily indicative of technological advancement or innovation.

It could be indicative of poor design – on mega-farming’s part, not the cows’.

Need Innovation Inspiration? Step Aboard the USS Benfold

There is a common perception that the military is all about procedures, about doing things by the book, doing things the way they’ve always been done; you simply don’t make waves.

Waves are something Navy Commander D. Michael Abrashoff lives with, thrives upon, and even fosters.

This Fast Company Articleis well worth reading in its entirety.  In it Commander Abrashoff shares what he and his crew have done to make the USS Benfold a flagship of innovation. 

Some key points:

• “All I ever wanted to do in the navy was to command a ship. I don’t care if I ever get promoted again. And that attitude has enabled me to do the right things for my people instead of doing the right things for my career. In the process, I ended up with the best ship in the navy — and I got the best evaluation of my career. The unintended benefit? My promotion is guaranteed!” – Commander Abrashoff
• When Abrashoff took command: “I pulled the string on everything we did, and I asked the people responsible for — or affected by — each department or program, ‘Is there a better way to do things?’ “
• Always be concerned about morale
• Retaining your people in tough times is not an option but a necessity.  Commander Abrashoff has 100% retention for his career enlisted people (54% is the average)
• Get answers to the following questions from each new member of your team: Why did they join the team? What’s their family situation like? What are their goals while they’re on the team – and beyond? How can I help them chart a course through life?
• Ask each person to answer the following three questions: What do you like most about your workplace? What do you like least? What would you change if you could? Take their answers seriously and work to improve.
• A culture of trust must be the operating norm
• Treat people with respect and dignity; take care of them
• People need to feel good about what they do
• Use technology to help solve problems
• People need to be owners of what they do

In short, when leaders empower their people on the grassroots level, the results will be nothing short of amazing.

Innovating by Removing Constraints

When searching for a solution there is a tendency to try and constrain our solution by imposing rules and guidelines.

However, when dealing with people, especially people who are interacting with each other, sometimes the best rules are those which aren’t really rules at all. 

In other words, the best rules are those which are simple and force people to use their brains -to think.

Granted, people often don’t want to think; we’d rather abrogate our responsibilities and kick into automaton mode. Nonetheless, we should be open to the fact that  those very rules meant to make things safer and more efficient actually might be preventing a more innovative solution from surfacing.

In the video above I want you to see what happens when traffic lights are absent and all types of traffic intermingle.  In particular I want you to look starting around the 00:32 mark at the person  shown in this frame capture (who looks like he is about to become a statistic):

It’s amazing!

This great page on Intelligent Traffic Design by Matthew May, shows even more examples of how traffic works better without signals!

Can you think of other examples where removing constraints results in innovative solutions?

Do you think this technique would work on US streets?

Do you think this type of solution might have merit in manufacturing facilities?

Want to Take Courses From MIT?

This is really cool and a great resource.

MIT is providing lecture notes, exams and videos for many courses for free.  Yup. Not one cent.  You don’t even have to register!

Just show up and start learning. 

While you can’t receive any type of certificate or degree, it’s worth diving into these courses to broaden your horizons.  They also provide suggestions for reading materials.

To get more out of this experience, I recommend you call together some friends and pick a class.  Learning together is more fun and a great way to learn.  Plus, you can take your virtual class in the direction you want it go.

If you go that route, let me know - I just might join you!

People of Hope are More Creative

 

Came across this interesting blog post over at “Innovation in Practice”.

There was a study done which showed that people with hope filled perspectives were more creative (and hence are more innovative as well.) 

The goal then, for management, should be creating and instilling hope through the ranks of the organization.

How does one instill hope? 

While that can be difficult to pin down, there are some great perspectives and suggestions in this article on instilling hope:

1. Managers should lead by example and be hopeful
2. The workplace should be a positive place to work
3. The workplace shouldn’t have an environment of fear
4. Blame shouldn’t be part of the environment
5. Everyone should be treated with the same respect regardless of  ‘rank’
6. Help employees to do the best job possible
7. Include employees in the goal setting process
8. Create a common, shared vision

To this list I would also add:  Instill a culture where constant improvement is the goal and empower the employees to be able to make those changes.

What else would you say should be done to create a culture of hope?