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.

Speed aside; there are obviously substantial differences between martial arts and creative idea generation. The difference I want us to focus on, however, may not be the first one that comes to mind. As wonderful as the ability of the martial arts master seems, we know that there is a way to become one. It may be a long and challenging way – demanding a certain amount of talent and a great deal of dedication & persistence – but it is there, ready to be embarked upon for whoever chooses and dares to take it.

Is there a similar way for the wannabe ideation master? Can we offer such a person a step-wise process that would lead to the cognitive Kong-Fu-like abilities of the creative people we started with? The answer is a bitter-sweet YES & NO …

When we contemplate the light speed cognitive processes that take place in the mind of the ideation master it is hard not to be dismayed. How can we hope to analyze these processes, formalize them, and presume to teach and train others to do the same? Each of these steps seems daunting. A useful analogy and a possible approach can be found with one of the most interesting martial arts, namely – Tai Chi.

There is a lot to say about the unique and esthetic art of Tai Chi, but what arguably is most interesting about it is the fact that much of the training is done in “slow motion.” If you recall a person, or a group of people, practicing martial arts at a pace that reminded you of running under water – what you saw was Tai Chi. Now, I’m not a martial arts masters (regretfully, if I may say so), but the point of this ‘slow motion’ mode is very simple – it allows you to pay much attention to every little detail about each movement. Thus, when you do have to perform it in ‘regular speed’ you will do it in the ultimate way (maybe that is why the meaning of the name “Tai Chi” is “Supreme Ultimate Fist”). Since I have never learned Tai Chi I cannot testify to the validity of this approach, but you must admit that, at least in theory, it makes perfect sense.

Now, how do you Tai Chi ideation? How can you break down the cognitive surge that happens spontaneously in the mind of selected individuals, and practice THAT is slow motion? The bad news is that we don’t know exactly what happens in those selected minds. But the good news is that SIT (Systematic Inventive Thinking) provides a Tai-Chi-like ideation process that actually works.

Taking a closer look at the name of the methodology it’s easy to identify one word that seems out of place: “Systematic”. Using the adjective “Systematic” to describe a methodology for innovation is almost as strange as using the word “Slow” to describe a martial arts practice. However, the former is just as logical as the latter. The systematic approach facilitates the breakdown of the intuitive and amorphous process that takes place in the mind of the ideation master into distinct and well defined phases. It is the systematic nature of SIT that allows ‘regular’ people to come up with innovative, sometimes breakthrough ideas that might otherwise be reserved to ideation masters. It is the systematic steps of the methodology that allow us to develop ideas that are not only novel but also actionable. And it is the systematic process that allows us to really think together as a group.

SIT might not earn you a ‘black belt’ in ideation. It will, however, open up a road that will allow you to get to the result you need. That road may not be as wonderful as that of a Kong-Fu master, flying in mid air, punching 3 opponents at the same time – but it does not need to be. Given the illusive nature of creative idea generation it is wonderful that such a road even exists, and can be embarked upon by whatever organization or individual that chooses to.

Amit Mayer is a Senior SIT Facilitator, and a creative & didactic manager at Medidactic Ltd.

Amit and the rest of us at SIT would be happy to talk to help you innovate.

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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.

A quick reminder - Using the Subtraction tool we’ll develop a product idea by removing an important component from our existing product.

The original product was the perfumed laundry detergent and the components removed were the active ingredients (detergents). After applying the Subtraction tool, identifying benefits and markets, putting it through the feasibility test and making adaptations, the team came up with a scented liquid with almost no active ingredient, which could make the products smell nice, but could not be used for doing laundry.

Can you think about a target audience for such a product? (This is an interesting point about developing new products using SIT: You develop the product BEFORE identifying the target audience.)

This product was intended for people who wash their clothes frequently, often not because they were dirty, but only because the clothes did not feel “fresh” after a one-time wearing.

The new product would give a fresh and clean feeling to the wearer without having to wear down the clothes by frequent laundering.

Up to that point, everything seemed to be going great, the product looked good; the chemical engineers said it was possible to produce, and the marketing people already found the target consumer group.

The project seemed like a success in every parameter, but (there’s always a but…) in the same year the project took place, 60% of Vitco’s shares were bought by Unilever.

After the acquisition, Unilever started shifting some of the products they had in their development pipeline into Vitco’s (which had its name changed to Lever following the acquisition) production lines. As a result, the product concept was discarded.

Nevertheless, four years later (in 2000) Proctor & Gamble launched a new product line under the brand of Febreze® which they termed “Clothing Refreshers”, followed by some other companies selling “Laundry Fresheners”. The concept is the same - detergents with substantially less cleaning elements.

From an SIT point of view, the described innovation process was not complete.

Being a result-oriented company, there’s as much significance in the production of the new products as to the innovation process that led to them. Products that are direct results of an innovation process set the path for other innovation processes to come.

When practicing or leading innovation you should ask yourself, “What am I aiming for? Will I settle for proof of concept of the innovation process or will I insist on seeing results?” These questions should help you define the characteristics of the innovation path you are about to take.

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.

 The same principle is also found at the core of Soccket – a soccer ball that serves as a portable charger. The soccer ball takes advantage of the energy produced when children play, and uses that energy as electricity for the community. In the reality of our lives, in which electricity flows abundantly and electrical appliances in the home are turned on non-stop, it is easy to forget that in many parts of the world electricity is still not available at all times. The Soccket, therefore, improves the situation in several ways. It provides enjoyment for children, portable and available electricity, and a sense that there is a stronger feeling of community (in places where the game played is providing the electricity).

 Behind these two ideas hides one shared principle: the principle of the “closed world”. This principle dictates that whenever possible, with new product development or with problem solving, one must use resources that already exist in the product itself, or in its nearest surroundings.

 
 The “closed world” principle is not a random strange thought; it is one of the thinking principles from the SIT – Systematic Inventive Thinking method for generating new ideas. This is a creative thinking method, at whose core stands the assumption that creative products and solutions share common patterns. Therefore, it is not surprising that a principle that has proven itself useful with one idea will repeat itself again and again in different applications.

 Many people believe that it is not possible to innovate and preserve the quality of the environment at the same time. This is due to the fact that when we attempt to innovate, we usually do so by adding: more functions, more buttons on the portable phone, a bigger television screen. This almost always requires more resources, bigger batteries, more electrical power, etc. Proper use of the closed world principle directs us towards solutions of a different type: instead of adding external resources to our product, we are encouraged to think anew about those resources that are already at our disposal, and to use them in a new way.

 The use of an existing resource for a new mission or task is not only more efficient and less expensive, and usually more considerate of the environment – it also expands our thinking capabilities.

So, put on your creative sunglasses and look thoroughly around you: what resources are at your disposal? For what other tasks can they be useful? By thinking this way, you, too, will be able broaden the range of your creative thinking and thus be able to develop new ideas more efficiently and resourcefully!

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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.

Essentially, they’ve outsourced their whole R&D and Marketing to a bunch of teenagers, while creating buzz, building brand affiliation and consumer engagement at the same time!

In the name of Democracy (sorry Dew Mocracy) every customer has been given the ultimate chance to make their mark and take control:
YOU come up with the product you’d like to drink, YOU give it a name you’d like to see on the label, YOU create an ad campaign that you think is really cool (we’ll give you the techie resources to make it look good), and then YOU vote for the one you want to see make it to the shops!

For someone new to Open Innovation, I like the way that Mountain Dew have harnessed their customer’s collective intelligence not just to products – where it seems to exist today – but expanded it to also cover marketing, advertising and research (why not?!) in the same campaign.

So, yes, I think the campaign will likely win accolades from peers and award committees for its creativity.

But, I hear some innovation conservatives/skeptics say: Is this really an effective way to do new product innovation? Will the new flavor make it in the market or will this be just another fad or flop? Are the home-made ads watchable or irritating? Will MD fans go out and buy Mountain Dew’s latest consumer-generated product?  Dear readers, let’s wait and see. For the time being at least, the Dew-ry is out.

Space is limited.

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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.

In the webinar we’ll show how you can use Attribute Dependency to create new products and develop new promises on demand.

This webinar is free. Duration: Approx. 1 hour.

The webinar will be conducted by Tamar Alterman and Nurit Cohen from SIT.

About Tamar Alterman

Tamar is an account manager and facilitator at SIT, with an emphasis on New Product Development, Implementation Strategy and Marketing Communications. Tamar studied for two Masters’ Degrees at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in both Cognitive and Social Psychology.

About Nurit Cohen

Nurit is a senior facilitator of SIT workshops for Strategy and New Product Development.  Nurit’s years of experience running innovation projects for Johnson & , Kimberly Clark, Bayer, Pearson Publishing, and many others have made her a specialist in new product implementation and in working with sales forces.  Nurit taught SIT to MBA students at the Ben Gurion University in Israel. She holds an MBA with special focus in Marketing and Organizational Behavior as well as a BA in Business Administration, Anthropology and Sociology, all from the Hebrew University.

Register now by clicking here

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.

Giving it some more thought, the LinkedIn episode can be compared to the Parking Lot Concept that we at SIT advise our clients to employ. Through SIT sessions, organizations come up with a robust list of potential ideas. However, when it’s time for implementation, ideas are chosen based on a pre-determined set of criteria – time to market, level of investment, technology required, and so on. While the more feasible ideas get pushed forward, ideas that spark our interest initially often don’t make the cut for not meeting one criterion or another. 

This is where the Parking Lot Concept comes in to play. We tell our clients – don’t throw out those ideas you felt so passionate about, but don’t spend time on them either. Make a note of what prevents them from making it to the project’s idea list, and then - park them on the side. With the right conditions, those ideas might turn out to be a clandestine pipeline just waiting to emerge. So for now, leave them be. Set a date to go back and review them. Six months from now, your technology may have changed. That budget could come in. You want to have those ideas within arm’s reach, but you don’t want them obstructing your vision.

It appears that LinkedIn has a Parking Lot of its own. They may have looked at me and said: “She’s not that interesting, certainly not as active as our other users. But there’s something about her that in the future might just work out. Let’s park her on the side, invisible to the naked eye. But we know she’s there. And when she’s ready to step up to the plate, we’ll gladly let her swing”.

Robyn Taragin-Stern is the Knowledge Manager at SIT. She is now available on LinkedIn.

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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.

Here are two examples of different kinds of triggers generated when the user chooses to work with the “food” item – one is more open and the other is more directional:

a.    “Trigger for Thought: At your party everyone will be eating their favorite food. How can you make this happen?”

b. “Retirement Party- The theme of your party is going to be an elderly party. Everyone will have to come dressed up as an old person, only soft foods will be served and the party will end at a reasonable time…”

“As well as being a useful tool for spicing up your party, we also want the PIG to leave users with the realization that they can be really creative and inventive thinkers”, said a source close to the PIG.

To experience the PIG in action, you can either download it at iTunes App Store or visit the PIG’s website.

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.

Here’s an example: the rod, string and cone could be used to create a mobile. We’ll hold the rod horizontally and tie the string to the rod (not in the center) from which the mobile will hang. We’ll then hang the cone on one end of the rod (the end closer to where the string is tied) and this will balance the other side of the rod when the mobile is hanging up. (OK, I know this isn’t the idea of the century, but I needed an instant example!)

Now let’s get back to Finke’s experiment. According to the usual procedure in these experiments, the test group was randomly divided into two sub-groups. One group was told to choose 3 items out of the 15 items presented to them, and the second group was given 3 items that were randomly chosen by a computer without the individuals themselves having any choice.

As mentioned previously, each individual had to create an idea for a new product. The ideas were to be evaluated by a panel of five judges (who, of course, were not aware of the source of the ideas.) The judges were asked to evaluate each idea according to two criteria - originality and applicability. (The idea was to be considered creative if it had a high score in originality and applicability)

And now the question we’ve all been waiting for: Which group produced more creative ideas? Was it the group whose members could choose freely or the group in which the items were chosen for them? I’m sure you know the answer, but I’m going to keep you in suspense a little longer!

The participants of the first group (those who could choose three items) are in a position to allow themselves to think about an idea (function) and afterwards to choose the item (form) to support this function.

The participants in the second group needed to make do with the three items that were given to them. Most likely, this group played with the items until they came up with a form that seemed to fulfill a useful function.

As you probably realized, but in complete contradiction to the intuition of most people regarding creativity, the participants of the second group (the ones whose freedom of choice was taken away from them) produced more creative ideas by far (almost double).

This is how Finke proved that people tend to me more creative when a form is dictated to them and the function is open. Paradoxically, a more constrained situation proved to be more successful in allowing people to be more productive and creative.

It is also further proof of the importance and effectiveness of the Closed World condition! (Sorry, I had to put this in…)

Incidentally, the producers of the comedy TV show, ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ which is based on ‘real time’ improvisation, are well aware of this. That’s why, in one of the segments, the comedians are given an object for which they need to come up with various uses.

For a detailed information about Finke’s experiment and other very interesting experiments related to creativity read the book:

Creative Cognition : Theory, Research, and Applications by Ronald A. Finke, Thomas B. Ward, Steven M.Smith

The book is highly recommended - one of the very few real good books about creativity.

See you all in my next post,

Roni

Roni and the rest of us at SIT would be happy to talk to you about innovation.

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Visit Roni at the start2think website