One thing is clear: Chef/Restaurateur Joanne Chang cares about the people that work at her Flour Bakery snd Cafe .
She realizes that if they are happy, if they’re free to give their best, if they know they are cared for, then that vibe spills over into their work.
The result?
Customers will be happy!
And that means good things to the bottom line.
The ability to execute on creativity- innovate- is a function of how much team members feel that someone has their backs.
When people trust, people explore. They dream together, create. An organization’s vision becomes shared and incarnate. It resonates- waves of creative energy ripple into the world.
Innovation becomes a fountain of life, of goodness.
One thing is clear: Chef/Restaurateur Joanne Chang cares about the people that work at her Flour Bakery snd Cafe .
She realizes that if they are happy, if they’re free to give their best, if they know they are cared for, then that vibe spills over into their work.
The result?
Customers will be happy!
And that means good things to the bottom line.
The ability to execute on creativity- innovate- is a function of how much team members feel that someone has their backs.
When people trust, people explore. They dream together, create. An organization’s vision becomes shared and incarnate. It resonates- waves of creative energy ripple into the world.
Innovation becomes a fountain of life, of goodness.
This wisdom from Chef Emeril Lagasse pairs well with the observation from Carl Jung.
Creativity, innovation, has its start in play.
I commonly hear engineers say something like, “when the parts come in I’ll play with them and see what I find.” (In fact, I find myself using the phrase very often.)
Mathematicians play with numbers. Artists Play with color. Fashion designers with fabric, and chefs…
Chefs play with ingredients, time, temperature, color, aroma…
Play is liberating, it’s flow inducing, it’s enchanting and powerful!
It’s okay to play with your food.
In fact if you are being creative, it’s a necessity.
I grabbed the handle not realizing I wasn’t supposed to grab it. I obviously didn’t read the sign.
Affordances are possible interactions made possible by the properties/attributes of an object. Signifiers point you to the affordance that creates the desired action.
This handle has both. The shape affords pulling, but the first urge is to use my hand. The instruction pic says to use my wrist/arm. (and it’s not even an accurate illustration but I digress 😁)
I tried the door again as per instructions.
I don’t like it.
The handle is uncomfortable which goes against the suggestion that it be opened with an arm/wrist. A painful affordance gets ignored even with instructions.
What I (and I noticed others) do, is pull with left or right hand, get the door mostly open while letting go. They then use the other hand/arm/elbow/leg to open the rest of the way.
When I open this door ”properly’ it requires a slow and deliberate set of actions to minimize the discomfort. Maybe it would get easier as I continued to do it, but it requires too much practice. It’s not like I’m regularly using this bathroom at Target.
I can just pull.
The lessons?
1. If you need a sign, it’s bad design. At least mediocre. Something’s probably not intuitive. Plus, people in a hurry (a bathroom might qualify) won’t read a sign. 2. If you won’t get opportunities to get good at an action, don’t expect people to use it even if you put up a sign. (See #1) 3. Uncomfortable, unnatural motions will lose in favor of comfortable, familiar motions. 4. An object that has a similar affordance to something else, will get misused. This handle still screams “Pull ME!!” A sign may not help. (See #1, #2 and #3)
What do you think about this handle? How else can you create a cleaner door opening experience?
How are you looking at the world right now? How are you looking at a problem?
Are you looking at it as a wall to climb, a mountain, a puddle to step over, a puddle to jump into?
We all get used to seeing the world through what’s comfortable. But we can miss details when take what we see for granted. Doctors who can’t see something they suspect is hiding in plain site will turn x-rays over to look at them from a different perspective.
Humans are hardwired for stories. Stories engage the emotions. What is the story your product is telling? That story can make the difference between an engaging product/service and just another widget.
It’s a story that gets support and funding for your project. Not recipes.
If you’re creating an innovation pipeline, it’s not about a recipe of best practices as much as an approach, a disposition, a collection of beliefs (and thus actions) that we live by.
Undergirding all philosophies is a disposition of learning, seeking to understand the theories that explain and guide our beliefs and actions.
Why two tablespoons and not two teaspoons of an ingredient? Why injection molding and not 3d printing?
Why reward the ingredient combo that resulted in inedible slop?
Because it creates knowledge for next time!
Innovation: a philosophy, not a recipe!!
Every creation, every experiment that falls short is a stepping stone of knowledge- another building block for your Innovation philosophy. It also means the path is smoothed for future product launches.
But this willingness to engage, explore, develop, carries a profound element of risk.
Sometimes you get burned..
But that’s ok…
You’re one step closer – and there’s always burn creme.
ZenStorming 