Yearly Archive for 2009

SITE SEEING no. 2 | NPD @ Leeds, UK


As part of what may be called our daily “routine” we find ourselves leading innovation processes with various companies all over the world - from Cincinnati to Melbourne, from Tokyo to Stockholm, and from La Pas to Moscow.
These innovation processes are usually very intense, and leave little time for anything other than work. But those of us who like photography take advantage of those few free moments for exercising our hobby. In our SITE SEEING posts we want to share with you some of the photographs we took, and some of the stories behind them.

The photos in this album have been taken in Leeds, UK during a weeklong New Product Development process with Unilever. The high profile of the brand, coupled with other unique aspects of the process, made it a very interesting project. We were lucky to work with a group of talented and friendly people, that were kind enough to show us around Leeds despite the intensity of the project.

As we reached the final phases of the project we realized that although the participants were very passionate about some of the ideas, there was no agreement around which ideas we should be passionate about… So, before the formal rating of the ideas, we decided to use a tool called “Articulating the WOW”.


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What do cloud watching and new product ideas have in common?

When’s the last time you did some cloud watching?

Now there’s a creative, relaxing activity to do with the kids! Think about a kid who looks up at the sky and sees a cloud in the shape of a camel. The shape of the cloud is, of course, determined before the child attributes it with the function of being a camel.

How does creativity change in the transition from a process that begins with a function to a process that begins with a form? The cognitive psychologist, Finke, examined this in an interesting experiment:

A test group was given the task of creating an idea for a new product. The invention had to be made up of 3 items (or forms) out of a collection of 15 items that were presented to them. The items included a circle, a cone, a rod, wheels, string, and … additional 10 shapes.

Each person was asked to create a new, useful, product out of 3 items.

To keep the thinking process more focused, a general category was chosen - toys, for example, and their invention had to fit in to this category.

Continue reading ‘What do cloud watching and new product ideas have in common?’

Mission: Impossible

Members of Amdocs senior leadership got together for an innovation camp that began with an impossible mission - to create the Creativity and Innovation Center in Sderot, in the south of Israel, all within less than 20 hours!


The center in Sderot is now part of the “Tachlit Center“, which serves over 70 youth at risk that have dropped out of conventional educational establishments, and through this work exerts positive influence on the entire community in various ways.

SIT was the prime facilitator for this innovation camp.

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Talk or Walk?

As specialists in creative processes and innovation, we have worked with many companies over the last ten years, giving us many years of real experience in creating innovations and actually implementing them on the market. And, after talking to thousands of managers, the situation is clear to us:

Most everyone strongly feels a need to continuously renew their commercial offering and working methods to keep competitive in the market. They follow the modern mantra of ‘differentiate and create value’ and to achieve this, everyone wants to be more innovative.

Indeed they all like to talk the creativity and innovation talk. Most managers agree that innovation is the last stronghold for competing in a global economy. Moreover, they are interested and fascinated by the thought of working systematically with innovation in order to gain a breakthrough to create growth and profitability for their organizations.

We all agree about all this… intellectually. But very few translate this talk into action.

Continue reading ‘Talk or Walk?’

SIT goes webinar: “Houston, we have an opportunity!”

Join us for a free Inventive Thinking webinar on Tue, Dec 1, 2009 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM EST.

This one-hour, free webinar introduces you to the concept of “cognitive fixedness”, a major barrier to innovative thinking. We’ll delve into one specific type of fixedness and learn how to overcome it using Task Unification, one of SIT’s innovation tools.

Task Unification offers a new way of observing surroundings, identifying resources and using them creatively.

This webinar mixes hands-on practice and fascinating examples from the world of product innovation, MarCom and problem solving.  At the end of this webinar, you’ll find it easier to view challenges as golden opportunities.

The webinar will be conducted by Shlomit Tassa. Shlomit manages SIT Western Europe Operations, which includes some of SIT’s most strategic clients, such as Bayer, Nestlé, Shell, and Unilever. Additionally, she leads SIT’s Sustainability expertise, working with corporate clients that choose to become greener. Shlomit holds masters degrees in Computer Science and Product Design, and before joining SIT, worked in high-tech companies in Israel and in the US, and later as an independent usability consultant.

Register now by clicking here

Once registered you will receive an email confirming your registration with information you need to join the Webinar.

Just How Innovative Are You? Take Our Quick Self-Test

A. How much time each month do you dedicate to innovation?
1. About 5 minutes
2. 1-3 hours
3. 5-10 hours
4. Should I also include sleeping and weekend time?

B. How many innovation books have you read over the last year?
1. They write books on this stuff?
2. 1-3
3. 2-6
4. I lose count

C. How many Innovation companies are you familiar with?
1. Ooh, an innovation company!  What’s that?
2. 1
3. 5
4. All of them

D. How many innovation conferences did you attend over the last 2 years?
1. I’m sure I’ll visit one some time soon…
2. 1
3. 2
4. Attend… or speak at?

Continue reading ‘Just How Innovative Are You? Take Our Quick Self-Test’

SITE SEEING no. 1 | Shanghai Soup

This is the first in a new series of posts in which we will try to share with you the more colorful side of SIT…
As part of what may be called our daily “routine” we find ourselves leading innovation processes with various companies all over the world - from Cincinnati to Melbourne, from Tokyo to Stockholm, and from La Pas to Moscow. These innovation processes are usually very intense, and leave little time for anything other than work. But those of us who like photography take advantage of those few free moments for exercising our hobby. In these posts we want to share with you some of the photographs we took and some of the stories behind them.

The photos in this album have been taken in Shanghai, China, during a week long innovation processes with the local branch of Campbell Soup. One of the most interesting aspects of this project was learning about soup, soup making and soup consumption in China. Of course we had to try some soups (and other dishes) to get a more tangible sense of what we were talking about.

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Lucky Engineering Accidents

Many classic, successful products have been invented “by accident” – by an unintended mishap that just happened to turn out to be a brilliant stroke of R&D genius: Penicillin, the microwave, chocolate chip cookies and more. And the stories behind these incidents are always so fun and surprising that they catch our attention and stick in our minds for good.

Here are just a few of the classics. You have no doubt heard them, or similar versions of them, numerous times.




Ivory Soap

In 1878, in a Procter & Gamble soap production factory, one of the employee’s lunch breaks took longer than expected. The whole thing would have gone unnoticed, if not for a malfunction that got out of hand. Continue reading ‘Lucky Engineering Accidents’