Creative people seem to be able to generate and evaluate ideas on the fly. They often describe a surge of thoughts that are developed and filtered almost as soon as they are generated. This brief process allows them to come up with ideas that are not only original and interesting, but also feasible and realistic. Colleagues, friends, and “innocent bystanders” may look at this with the same admiration that is usually reserved to virtuosic musicians, circus acrobats and masters of martial arts. Continue reading ‘Ideation Tai Chi’
Archive for the 'Ideation' Channel
December 1, 2010
Ideation Tai Chi
September 26, 2010
When innovation isn’t implemented, is it still innovation?
If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?”
This well-known phrase becomes very relevant when we talk about the results of an innovation process in a company. I would like to tell you about an SIT - Systematic Inventive Thinking workshop which had great results but failed the implementation test.
In 1996, SIT conducted a project with a company called Vitco Detergents. At the time, Vitco had a small selection of products, including a perfumed laundry detergent. The purpose of the project was to expand their product line. A project of this sort is called in the SIT language NPD - New Product / Promise Development - in which the target is to expand the company’s product offering.
The inventive thinking tool that yielded the most interesting idea was the SIT Subtraction tool.
Continue reading ‘When innovation isn’t implemented, is it still innovation?’
August 17, 2010
Resources at your fingertips, and at your toes
Spring has already passed and the lack of inspiration that accompanies the heat of July and August is upon us. Now is the time to internalize a principle that will help us pass the summer in peace: “Use resources that exist in your surroundings and make new things with them.” Why? Because it is efficient, respectful of the environment, and many times more likely to lead us to creative and surprising ideas.
Take, for example, the Wind Light - a light source system designed by Lior Yisrael that was chosen to be used on promenades and beaches. The Wind Light does not rely on an external electricity source; rather, it makes use of wind energy in order to produce electricity. The energy that is produced by the wind is conserved and stored in the light post, and serves as the post’s sole source of electricity. By doing this, Yisrael found a creative way to harness a resource that exists in abundance – the breeze at the beach – and to assign it an additional task: that of serving as the energy supply for the light post. And if that is not enough, indeed there is another surprise latent in the product: the body of the light post produces light according to the intensity of the sun, so that after the sun sets, the intensity of the light increases.
Continue reading ‘Resources at your fingertips, and at your toes’
May 20, 2010
Dew-mocratic Innovation
I have to admit that I am generally a late adopter of buzz-words (poor form I know for someone who works in an Innovation company). One of the latest buzz words that I’ve encountered late-ly is Open Innovation. Now I’m ahead of the game, welcome to: Dew Mocratic Innovation.
If you read the Wiki link, you’ll see that Open Innovation has its roots in technology. Yet, the concept is fast gaining traction in many FMCG companies from P&G to Kraft. (Skeptics might say that OI is just a formalization of existing practices, namely: for years consumers-with-something-to-say have been sending companies “great ideas for the next best thing”. When I worked on advertising for BMW, we’d get ad ideas sent to the agency every few weeks, not by copyrighters but by owners.)
Mountain Dew, the US soft-drink brand aimed at teenagers, are busy taking the Open Innovation trend into new and exciting places.
Smartly packaged, their latest marketing campaign “Dew Mocracy” sees the company getting their 13-25 year old ‘fans’ to:
1. Invent new products and flavors
2. Come up with a catchy name
3. Create an advert to promote it
4. Vote for the best idea.
The chutzpah/brilliance here is that Mountain Dew has managed to get a whole lot more than just a bunch of cool new flavor ideas.
Join us for a free Inventive Thinking webinar on Wednesday, June 9, 2010 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM EDT.
Space is limited.
Register now by clicking here
For those who know SIT
For those who don’t
For those who joined our previous webinar
For those who couldn’t make it
For those who are bosses
For those who have bosses
For those who have participated in SIT workshops
For those who haven’t
For those who deal with products
For those who deal with services
For those who think alone
For those who think together
For those who admire symmetry
For those who wish to break it
For innovation in your job
For innovation in your home
For you, for your friends, for your colleagues – for everyone!
Inspired by SIT’s Attribute Dependency tool and Coca Cola TV commercial
Part 2 of our Inventive Thinking series looks at Attribute Dependency - one of SIT’s most powerful and misunderstood innovation templates. At its heart, the Attribute Dependency tool is about breaking the symmetrical thinking patterns that can block new thinking.
Continue reading ‘Attribute Dependency: An Inventive Thinking Tool You Can Depend On’
February 24, 2010
To be or not to be?
I decided it was high time I got on the LinkedIn boat. I had a vague memory of opening an account, once upon a time. (Alright, I’ll admit it. Maybe I was trying to spy on someone. But we all do that. Isn’t that the point?) So, just to be sure, I went on to the website and searched for myself. I did not appear. Not terribly surprising news so far. Fresh out of maternity leave, I’m well aware of my memory not being as sharp as it once was.
No worries though. I filled out the form, clicked “join now”, and waited to become one of the 60 million professionals. LinkedIn was quick to inform me in bold writing “Unable to add robyn@sitsite.com. Email address is associated with another LinkedIn account.” Voila! I exist!
While it’s quite possible that when searching for myself I misspelled my own name, I chose to ignore this option and instead, found it humorous that there were parallel worlds in which one of them I existed, while in the other I did not. It got me thinking - why should LinkedIn do this? What’s in it for them?
The first thing that came to mind was “Limit Rather than Delete”, a possible spinoff of the SIT principle “Limit Rather than Dilute” in which we implement ideas in a limited version rather than diluting them due to constraints. But more on that another time.
What do you get when you mix systematic inventive thinking, a funky digital 
interface and a little party fun? You get the PIG - Party Idea Generator - SIT’s first ever iPhone app. Eight months in the making, PIG is the “baby” of SIT’s Futures, the team responsible for extending SIT’s know-how into exciting new areas, in collaboration with developer Vevent.
The PIG developed from the idea of finding a way to use SIT’s thinking methodology to apply innovation to everyday tasks. This new application helps users unleash their imagination and generate original ideas for their next party.
Using a series of fun triggers based on the Subtraction and Multiplication tools, PIG users can “invent” with everyday party items (e.g. Guests, Drinks, Music), transforming them into wild and wacky themes and activities for their party.
Continue reading ‘“99c? I’m investing in a million” - Marren Buffet, on SIT’s new iPhone app’
December 25, 2009
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?’
