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.

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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

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. One of the soap-mixers had kept on spinning all through the long lunch break. The result became evident a few days later: the soap bars emerging from the production line were peppered with tiny air bubbles and they were lighter than usual. The perplexed P&G executives, in what can only be described as a bold… gamble, decided to market the soap as is, hoping the consumers would not notice the difference.

A gamble they took, indeed. A few days later, letters started piling up in the customer service department. Surprisingly enough, the consumers did not use the letters to express their dismay over the faulty soap, but rather to express their satisfaction with P&G’s new remarkable soap invention.

P&G’s executives were flabbergasted: Could they have inadvertently invented a new product? The consumers commended P&G for the new clever soap that did not sink in the tub, was easy to use and lasted longer.

The commercial success of Ivory soap continues even today and it is available on shelves around the world.

Potato chips/crisps
In the summer of 1853, George Crum was employed as a chef at an elegant resort in Saratoga Springs, New York, where French-fried potatoes were a favorite on the menu.

One evening, a particularly fussy diner, railway magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, repeatedly refused to eat the fries he had been served with his meal, complaining that they were too thick and too soggy. After he had sent back several plates of increasingly thinly-cut fries, Crum decided to serve the guest fried wafer-thin slices of potato in grease, hoping to annoy the extremely fussy customer.

The plan backfired. The guest initially protested that the chef’s latest efforts were too thin to be picked up with a fork, but upon trying a few, the chips were an instant hit. In fact, other guests began asking for them as well, and soon Crum’s “Saratoga Chips” became one of lodge’s most popular treats, before later being sold all over the world.

Yet again, this success was not planned. Never in his right mind did Crum believe that these greasy slices were something people would actually pay for! And, had he asked his customers what new and interesting concoction he should whip up, this certainly wouldn’t have been one of their answers!

Post-It Notes

The story begins in 1968 with the inadvertent discovery by 3M research scientist, Dr. Spence Silver, of a highly unusual new adhesive that did not stick very strongly when coated onto tape backings. In 1973, Art Fry, a fellow 3M employee, applied some of his colleague’s low tack adhesive to some scrap paper and began using these as bookmarks for his church choir hymnal. Since then, the Post-it® Note concept has become one of 3M’s best selling product lines.

Interesting how such a popular innovation among consumers was, in fact, the product of a failed attempt at something else whose value was only discovered five years later.

But is there another moral to this tale?

In addition to the understandable drive to find solutions to problems, there may be a benefit to looking at what you hold in your hand and searching for the problems that it could potentially solve.

No question about it! These stories are wonderful – and may we all be so lucky to have our next accident make us our next million…

But, the real question still remains: Should we wait for good fortune to bring about a lucky accident that will awaken a latent need we were not previously aware of? Is that how we should plan our new product development pipeline?

Or is it possible to generate an imaginary malfunction and explore its potential consequences and benefits?

By using a structured procedure, called Function Follows Form, which works by (virtually) manipulating an existing product to create mutations similar to those created in accidents, we can produce a variety of interesting new forms. Then, through a series of filters (marketing and implementation) we can determine which of these forms could have real market value.

So, whoever said “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”?

Go ahead, break it – ruin it – let it get moldy – fill it with air – fry it in grease! You never know where you may end up – but it is surely worth a shot!

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

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What is more challenging: coming up with an innovative idea, or sharing it with a group of people that may love it or hate it? Most of us will agree that this is a simple question. We might, however, disagree on the answer… In the previous post in this series I called the group of barriers relating to the act of coming up with innovative idea “Cognitive Barriers.” The complementary group of barriers – those that have to do with sharing innovative ideas with others – were labeled “Psychological Barriers.”

Although people differ in their “susceptibility” to these different barriers, most us will agree that objectively (whatever that means..) the cognitive barriers to innovation are harder to overcome. The importance of the psychological barriers is due, to a great extent, to the fact that some of the best ideas come up during group discussions. The worn-out saying goes: “none of us is as smart as all of us.” While I have several issues with this approach (as, I suspect, you may as well) – there is some truth to it, especially when it comes to ideation sessions.

It is the bouncy nature of idea development – starting with a raw thought shared by one participant, developed further by another, taking an interesting turn in the mind of a third, and landing in the end zone by a fourth – that makes the ability to voice imperfect ideas so crucial for innovation. It is the fact that the innovative and cognitively-flexible members of the group are not necessarily the most outspoken – that makes the creation of a ‘speaker-friendly” atmosphere so important. And it is the fact that at the core of so many innovative ideas lies something that will, at first, seem strange, illogical, or even stupid – that makes the culture of respect for each other’s thoughts so vital.

There is no doubt – psychological barriers decrease the efficacy of group discussions. They skew the discussion towards certain group members and certain types of ideas. They push the discussion towards the “safe side”, the “more of the same” zone, and the “let’s not rock the boat” approach. Mark Twain said once that: “‘It’s better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.” This quote beautifully exemplifies one of the key elements in this set of barriers – our fear of being wrong.

In his wonderful TED talk , Sir Ken Robinson discusses the importance of being prepared to be wrong as a prerequisite for creativity. “If you’re not prepared to be wrong,” he says, “you will never come up with anything original.” For those of you who might find this statement a tad too radical – just think about this: any idea that is truly original and innovative has elements in it that are new to the world. These elements might be “wrong”, and it is exactly the fact that they are so new that devoids us of the ability to safely asses their rightfulness. Sir Robinson also claims that our education system trains us to fear mistakes; that “we are running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.” Whenever an ideation session is run, anywhere in the world, it takes place in a room full of people that have graduated from these education systems! That fear – that reluctance to be wrong – will hold us back if we do not address it.

It was in the late 1930s that Alex F. Osborn introduced a creativity methodology that was designed to do exactly that. This methodology was published in a book called “Applied Imagination” and is widely known as “Brainstorming.” Although there are mixed opinions about the efficacy of brainstorming, there is no doubt that it enjoys a very wide fan-base. Many of these fans are not fully aware of the principles of the methodology, and may use a distant version of the original methodology. It is, however, exactly these principles that are relevant to our discussion regarding psychological barriers.
The first principle of brainstorming is that quantity breeds quality. The basic idea is that the more ideas we generate – the higher the chances that some of them will be valuable. Regardless of the validity of this assumption, think about the atmosphere it fosters. “More ideas..,” “come on..,” “what else..” are typical phrases you may hear from a brainstorming facilitator. This atmosphere helps in convincing, motivating and even peer-pressuring participants into sharing their thoughts and ideas.

The second principle is deferred judgment. Simply put, participants are asked to withhold their criticism of ideas, and focus on expending and developing. By postponing criticism to a later stage in the process we can create a supportive atmosphere where participants feel more comfortable and more likely to voice unusual ideas.
The third principle endorses exactly that by claiming that unusual ideas are welcome. This direct invitation to steer away from the mundane and the expected helps in supporting an atmosphere that encourages (even celebrates) unorthodox thinking. This principle takes advantage of our sensitivity to our role description. We want to do well in any assignment we receive, especially when others are present. “If the facilitator and the methodology want unusual ideas – I’ll give them unusual ideas.”

The forth principle of brainstorming asks us to combine and improve ideas. We are meant to understand that there is no be-all and end-all idea that we are waiting for. That the best results will come from putting our heads together and developing interesting starting points into fuller, more robust ideas. This approach is valuable regardless of its positive impact on the discussion’s atmosphere, but it also strengthens the type of atmosphere supported by the previous principles.

In the conclusion section of Wikipedia’s article about Brainstorming you can find the following statement: “Although it does not appear to provide a measurable advantage in creative output, brainstorming is an enjoyable exercise that is typically well received by participants.” I believe that the main reason it is so well received is that it addresses the psychological barriers that affect us in “regular” discussions. Sitting is a brainstorming session is safe and nice – where else are you so safe from making a mistake? However, as we have discussed some 1,000 words ago – it is one thing to create a supportive atmosphere, and something very different to inspire the creation of innovative ideas.

To achieve that, however, we will have to address our cognitive barriers. If we can understand these barriers, and successfully address them, we may well be on the right track to an effective ideation methodology. We will further discuss these cognitive barriers and the potential ways to overcome them in the next post of this series.