Report 103

Your newsletter on applied creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business.

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Wednesday 18 January 2012
Issue 201

Hello and welcome to another issue of Report 103, your twice-monthly (or thereabouts) newsletter on creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business.

As always, if you have news about creativity, imagination, ideas, or innovation please feel free to forward it to me for potential inclusion in Report103. Your comments and feedback are also always welcome.

Information on unsubscribing, archives, reprinting articles, etc can be found at the end of this newsletter.

 

FOLLOW THE LEADERS OR LEAD THE FOLLOWERS

If you want to be innovative, you need to be a leader. No individual or organisation has become an innovative one by copying the actions of their competitors or peers. That may seem obvious, but evidence shows that most people fail to realise this critical fact.

This is not only true in business. After JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books and films became a sensation, the world was deluged with children’s fantasy books as everyone was asking “what will be the next Harry Potter?” The answer of course, was: “there is no next Harry Potter. Ms. Rowling’s books became huge hits initially because of their creative freshness. The next big thing in children’s literature will doubtless be something completely different.”

It is also true of people. After Steve Jobs died and his biography was published, many men started taking to dressing like him (inblack turtle-neck shirts and blue jeans) and, it has been reported, some senior managers even tried to be obnoxious like him in hopes of emulating his innovative success. They don’t seem to realise that Mr. Jobs was an innovative leader on his own terms, not because he dressed or behaved like another innovative leader.

Most People Prefer to Be Followers
As obvious as it is that you need to be a leader in order to be innovative, most people prefer to be followers. Not only is it safer that way, but the world needs followers to keep the economy going as well as give the innovative leaders a chance to stand out. Without competing products to the iPad, for instance, Apple would not be pressured to keep their own product competitive. Without other company’s copying their products, Apple would not need to bring out innovative new products in order to maintain leadership in their field.

Moreover, being a follower is generally less risky than being an innovative leader. As a follower, you can watch the innovative leader. If they fail, it is their loss. If they succeed, you can mimic their success. Of course, you won’t earn as much income (in the case of business) or prestige (in the arts) as the leader who was willing to take the risk. But you avoid the worst consequences of the risk. Once Apple demonstrated that there was a market for touch-screen pad computers, other companies knew it would be less risky to introduce their own, similar touch-screen pad computers to that market. Once Dan Brown, author of the best-selling Da Vinci Code, demonstrated the public thirst for conspiracy based thrillers, other authors could jump in and fill that market with their own similar novels. Sure, they were unlikely to achieve his level of success. But they could feel more assured of moderate success.

Leadership Is Risky
Worse still, there are two big challenges with being an innovative leader. The first is risk. Here’s an example. Are you familiar with Wang Word Processors? They were innovative word processor computers that were first launched in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, all-purpose PCs, which were introduced shortly after that, made the product redundant. Although Wang also made PCs, its focus was on the word processors and this is thought to be a key factor in the company’s bankruptcy in 1992 (note: the company emerged from bankruptcy in the mid 1990s and was sold to Gentronics a few years later) 1.

Likewise, Ms. Rowlings manuscript for the original Harry Potter book was repeatedly rejected before being accepted by Bloomsbury. Had she been less persevering, the famous book and film series might never have seen the light of day. Moreover, this suggests that there are probably many more highly creative book manuscripts languishing in their authors’ desks because the authors did not persevere after the first rejections.

Finding the Ideas
The second big challenge, of course, is developing the idea that turns you into an innovative leader. Mr. Jobs and Ms. Rowlings had incredible visions. His were for innovative variations on existing product types and hers were for a remarkable alternative world populated by intriguing people and non-people. Not everyone has the advantage of such visions.

Of course there are all kinds of ways you can generate and develop creative ideas for products, services, books, musical pieces or anything else. The archives of this newsletter and the creativity and innovation library on jpb.com are both full of suggestions about boosting creativity.

Ironically, one thing you can do in order to be an innovative leader is to copy someone else’s idea.

Yes, you’ve just read that sentence correctly. However, there is a catch. You must copy someone else’s idea and apply it in a different context. A very blatant example of this is Starbucks, which revolutionised the way Americans go out for a coffee. Starbucks offered Americans a good, strong Italian style coffee in a comfortable setting where they could chat with friends, get a bit of work done or read a book without worrying about being rushed out of the shop. To most Europeans, however, such cafés have been around for a couple of centuries – albeit without the laptops on wifi! That does not matter. Starbucks was an innovative concept in America which has been further developed in an American way and is even now being introduced to Europe!

Software as a service (SaaS) is another example of copying ideas. Although several companies toyed with this concept in the early days, Salesforce arguably pioneered it as a business model. However, SaaS as a concept was largely a matter of copying the typical structure of a business lease and applying it to the provision of software. It was a very old idea applied to a different kind of product.

Leadership Can Be Built on Small Ideas

Of course, being an innovative leader is not only about making major, breakthough innovations. It can also be about smaller things, like applying a new business model to the selling of an existing product, taking an unique approach to marketing communications or providing a standard of customer service far above your competitors.

In the arts, being a leader is a matter of not copying the latest best sellers, most popular paintings or the current trendof pop music. Rather, do not be afraid to go out on a limb and create something that is truly your own. It need not be as elaborate as the world of Harry Potter. Indeed, your creative novel idea may all take place in a block of flats in a big city. The television series Sex and the City was a creative concept in spite of being about a very commonplace set of characters. What made it creative is that no one had done it before.

The important thing to remember is that if you want to be innovative, you need to take the lead and all the risks associated with that. But if it pays off, it will be worth it!

References
1) “Wang Laboratories”, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories

 

A JOURNEY THROUGH YOUR IMAGINATION WITH BACH

At the Brussels Imagination Club next Wednesday (25 January), I am teaming up with concert violinist Olga Guy to try out something very new and experimental for both of us. We will facilitate a workshop in which we will take you on a journey through your imagination, led first by voice and then by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach performed live by Olga. Together, we will combine relaxation techniques inspired by Buddhist meditation, story-telling and live music to create the journey.

The aim of the workshop is to inspire the imagination of each participant and enable them to find their creative spirits.

If our experiment is successful, we plan to develop it further and provide it as a professional workshop offering from jpb.com. In the meantime, if you are in Brussels next week, do join us! http://www.imaginationclub.org/brussels/event20120125.php

 

GET CREATIVE WITH JEFFREY

In addition to writing Report 103, I also facilitate anticonventional thinking workshops, do trainings and speak at conferences. If you think I am interesting in Report 103, you’ll be very impressed at my ability to lead an audience on a workshop or through a talk. Contact me to discuss.

 

PROVOCATIVE CREATIVE CHALLENGES

Last week I led an impromptu anticonventional thinking (http://www.creativejeffrey.com/act) workshop with about 30 participants. The sponsor of the workshop had given me an issue that they wanted to work with. After a brief introduction to anticonventional thinking, I focused on deconstructing the issue in order to understand the underlying problems. I did this by asking the group a series of questions starting with the famous five whys (ask why a problem is a problem five times). After this we took a break. When I returned, I looked at the information we had captured and in a few minutes wrote down four provocative creative challenges that addressed the key problems. When I did this, a very intelligent member of the audience asked me a simple question: “How did you do that?”

The truth is, it comes easy to me, as it does to most creative thinkers. That’s because we know that if you want creative ideas, you need to invest your creative energy not in ideas, but in understanding the problem and formulating provocative challenges. Once you’ve done this, creative ideas are remarkably easy. However, if you are not used to doing formulating provocative challenges, or you need to facilitate an idea generation group, it is useful to have a structured approach to work with.

Deconstruct the Issue

The first step to formulating provocative challenges, as you surely know, is to deconstruct the issue at hand in order to understand it better. I have covered this in the past, you can look at the 7 July 2009 issue of Report 103 or my booklet on anticonventional thinking for more information on how to do this.

How to Devise Provocative Challenges

Once you have deconstructed an issue, the underlying problems become more obvious and you can begin to formulate creative challenges based on these problems. However, be careful, a common mistake at this point is to frame what I call “wussie” challenges. These are uninspiring, boring challenges that will lead to uninspiring, boring ideas. Such ideas may useful for incremental innovations, but they are neither creative nor fun.

However, if you can make your challenges provocative, then you, members of your team and anyone else involved in idea generation will be inspired to be far more creative. Indeed, with suitably provocative challenges, stunningly creative ideas will spew forth like magic!

Let us look at a few tricks you can use to make your challenges more provocative.

Use Superlatives

Superlatives are the best. If you’ve forgotten your English grammar, a superlative is the form of the adjective that indicates the highest quality, degree or quantity. Superlatives include words like “best”, “fastest”, “biggest” and so on.

Putting a superlative into your challenge can transform it. Compare: “In what ways might we improve the quality of our customer service?” with “How could we provide our customers with the best service in the world?” Or, compare: “How might we simplify the user interface on our product?” with “How might we make our product the world’s easiest to use?”

Connect with Powerful Emotions

Emotions or feeling-related words such as “love”, “adore”, “crave”, “desire” and “hate” are all very powerful and can elicit strong feelings in all of us. Incorporating these words into challenges can make them very provocative indeed. Challenges that appeal to the emotions might include, “How could we make our customers love us like their mothers?” or “How could we make the user interface on our product sensuous?”

Change the Perspective

Since most creative challenges are about improving our businesses or ourselves, we tend to look at them from our own perspective. Changing the perspective to that of our customers, our enemies or a completely different industry can bring new insights to a problem. For example, “Imagine you are one of our customers. What would make our customer service incredible for you?” If your company is a high-end consulting operation looking to expand its market, look at a completely different service industry. Ask, for example, “How would McDonalds [fast food restaurants] expand their market in this situation?” or “What would a McDonalds regional manager suggest we do to expand our market?” And, of course, there is this classic challenge you should ask yourself from time to time: “What could our chief competitor do tomorrow that would put us out of business by the end of the year?”

Calls to Action

Instead of posing a challenge based on a question, frame a call to action. Demand that participants do something, design something or perform some specific action that will lead to creative results. “Design a user interface that is so easy your grandmother could use it with no instructions!” or “Devise a services based business model!” or “Prepare a short performance demonstrating how our help desks can solve problems faster!”

Bring in Someone or Something Unexpected

Adding an unexpected person or object to a challenge is a good way to make it more provocative. If you are dealing with complex technologies, a grandmother can be useful. Many, albeit not all, grandmothers are not familiar with new technologies. Neither of mine (both of whom have passed away, one only last year) ever touched computer to the best of my knowledge. Asking, as we did above, “Design a user interface that is so easy your grandmother could use it with no instructions!” is a good example.

If your company designs personal grooming products for men, you might ask “How might we make our products more appealing to women?” This is not because you want to increase your market share, rather it is an acknowledgement that many men will use beauty products in order to make themselves more attractive to women.

Metaphors

Metaphors are a variation on the above tip. A metaphor is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language as “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable:” For example (but at risk of a sexual harassment lawsuit), you might ask: “How could we make visiting our shops as pleasurable as making love?” Less riskily, you might ask, “How might we ensure our production line runs as smoothly as a fine Swiss watch?”

Extremes

Extremes are always good. Framing challenges as extremes is almost always a great way to provoke creative thinking. For instance “How might we make our customer experience absolutely incredible?” or “How might we make our products a joy to use?”

A Word about Humour

Humour is great, but it is challenging in a couple of potentially dangerous ways. Most people are not as funny as they believe themselves to be. And if the humour does not work with the audience, it can be a disaster. Moreover, a lot of humour can seem abusive, racist, sexist or cruel. What might seem funny to a group of white, wealthy, executive males could seem crass to low income women. If the latter group is part of your customer base or part of the group generating ideas, what seems to the the male manager a funny challenge can come across to the women participants as cruel or sexist. When this happens, you generate far more bad feelings than useful ideas.

That said, humour can be effective for provoking creative thinking. Better still, it relaxes people, so they are more likely to be less censorious of their more creative ideas. So, do use humour in your provocative challenges, but be sure that the humour is not going to be offensive to anyone, and especially to no one who will be involved in the idea generation or implementation.

Keeping the Creativity

By using one or more of the techniques above, you can turn problems or goals into provocative challenges that will ensure creative ideas are generated. Indeed, as I stated before, if you focus the bulk of your creative energy on devising relevant, provocative challenges, you will get far more creative results than if you focus that energy on generating ideas for vague, challenges or problem statements.

It is also worth bearing in mind that some of these techniques – such as the use of superlatives or extremes – may push people to generate more radical ideas than you actually want. However, in most organisations, creative ideas lose their creativity as they are reviewed by numerous risk-adverse committees and managers. So, if you start with an extremely creative proposal, there is a good chance that a moderately creative project will be approved at the end. Whereas, if you start with a moderately creative proposal, there is unlikely to be any creativity left after it has been diluted and approved by the various committees. So, even if you need only moderate creativity, you need to push for highly creative ideas!

 

THE RISE OF THE NEW GROUPTHINK

A fascinating article recently appeared in the New York Times, headlined “The Rise of the New Groupthink”, by Susan Cain, the article argues that in today’s world, employees, schoolchildren and even churchgoers are being corralled into collaborative groups. However, argues Cain, this is detrimental to members’ individual creativity. She further argues that our most creative people tend to be introverted artists who are most productive when working alone. We are stifling the creativity of such people by forcing them to work in collaborative groups.

Unfortunately, although Susan refers to a lot of research vaguely, she does not reference actual papers, making it hard to verify or learn more from the cited research. This is not to say that I doubt the research. The New York Times is usually demanding in that respect. Only, that I would have liked to have been able to review some of the research myself.

Moreover, a lot of research I have seen over the years has demonstrated the value of collaboration in creativity and innovation. Keith Saywer’s book, Group Genius, goes into a lot of research in this field. And, indeed, many writers, jazz musicians and actors would probably argue that they are more creative when working in collaborative groups to develop projects than when working alone.

I expect, based on my own experience, that of friends and the research I have read, that the truth falls somewhere in the middle. Many very creative people do indeed need time on their own to develop ideas. I certainly seem to have more creative ideas on my own. However, the further development of those ideas into products, services, plays and musical pieces often (but not always) benefits from collaboration.

If it is true, as the author argues, that workers and schoolchildren are being forced to live in inescapable collaborative working environments throughout the day, this is doubtless hindering their creative potential. Surely, a combination of solo work and collaborative work is best.

It is also worth noting that people work differently. Some of us are more introverted and need time on our own in order to be most productive. Others are more extroverted and thrive in collaborative groups.

Susan is the author of an upcoming book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. I expect this article is related to, if not a part of, this book. I also expect this book will be worth reading if only because it goes against the current convention of group work, team work and collaboration.

Meanwhile, you can read the article here...

 

COMPETITION: BEST INNOVATION DISSERTATION OF 2011

Do you know someone who completed their doctoral studies in the field of Innovation Management in 2011?
In order to stimulate the next generation of innovation researchers, ISPIM and John Wiley & Sons are offering prizes worth over EUR 4000 to the authors of the three best innovation dissertations from 2011. The deadline for submission to the ISPIM-Wiley Innovation Management Dissertation Award is 31st January – so act quickly!
Full details of how to apply can be found at http://ispim.org/files/ispim-wiley_dissertation_award.pdf

 

THE WAY OF THE INNOVATION MASTER

If you enjoy Report 103, you’ll love my book The Way of the Innovation Master, which explains everything you need to know in order to launch an innovation initiative in your company. Not only is it a great read, but it makes for a wonderful Christmas present! Learn more and order yours in print or digital versions from http://www.creativejeffrey.com/books/ – or ask for it at your favourite bookshop.

 

MORE SERENDIPITY

In an intriguing article in Intelligent Life magazine, Ian Leslie argues that thanks to the Internet, Google, Facebook and a tendency to follow our friends as well as look for information that fits our preconceptions, there is today less room in the world for Serendipity than there was in the past.

One example he sites, which is close to home for me, is that when you go into a bookshop, you may not find the book you were looking for. But you end up buying three books you did not know you were looking for. Reading these unexpected books can widen your horizons and provide new perspectives. Whereas on Amazon, you will almost certainly buy the book you were looking for – but will never see the unexpected gems that are in no way related to the desired book.

He also points out that many innovations over the years have been the result of serendipity, or fortunate accidents. Now that so much information we receive is tailored to our expectations, he believes there will be fewer inventions discovered through serendipity.

It’s a though provoking article and one I recommend reading. Then ask yourself, how do you make room for serendipity in a world that only delivers the information you want it to deliver.

http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/ian-leslie/search-serendipity

 

WORLD INNOVATION DIVERSITY INDEX

Artes Calculi Ltd., a Croatian company specialized in software engineering and numerical analysis solutions, has published Artes Calculi World Innovation Diversity Index (AC WIDI) for Q3/2011. Index measures national diversity of the world innovation dynamics.

The value of the index for Q3/2011 is 15.4613.

As expected, the difference between the current value of the index and the value for the preceding quarter (15.4410) is quite small. This difference is consistent with the historical data which shows that the index has continuously risen in the last decade, albeit in very small steps. The average yearly growth rate was 2,92%, with marked periods of decline lasting no more that three consecutive quarters in 2001/2002, 2004/2005 and 2008. The periods of decline roughly correlate with the downturns in worldwide economic activity.

So far, the index is still growing in 2011, despite the current economic situation and the negative or, at best, stagnant outlook for the near future.

The index is based on data provided by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – the number of patent filings in the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system. WIPO publishes this data monthly, sorted by countries and past data is available all the way back to the year 1985. The value of the index for Q3/2011 is calculated with the PCT data for July, August and September of this year.

The Index includes all countries worldwide. The number of patent filings is averaged on a yearly basis to correct for seasonal effects. The modified Gini method for measuring statistical dispersion is then used to calculate the index. The result – given on a scale from 0 to 100 – measures national diversity of the world innovation dynamics. Compared to the previous quarter, we see that the influence of China, USA and Sweden on the AC WIDI Index has somewhat weakened, while the influence of Japan, Germany and India has grown somewhat stronger. As before, there are roughly two dozen "Tier 1" countries, which contribute disproportionately to the index, because they have unusually high number of PCT filings per resident.

"It is encouraging to see that the AC WIDI Index is still growing in 2011, despite the current economic challenges, because this growth indicates that the worldwide innovation diversity and the total levels of innovation worldwide are also rising. It will be interesting to see if this trend will continue in the last quarter of the year," says Hrvoje Abraham, Managing Director at Artes Calculi Ltd.

About Artes Calculi Ltd

Artes Calculi Ltd. is a software engineering company from Croatia. We specialize in CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) off the shelf software solutions and in custom solutions in the field of numerical analysis. Contact: http://www.artcalc.com, call +385 1 4552-943 or send an e-mail message to info@artcalc.com

 


Happy thinking!

Jeffrey Baumgartner

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Report 103 is a complimentary eJournal from Bwiti bvba of Belgium (a jpb.com company: http://www.creativejeffrey.com). Archives and subscription information can be found at http://www.creativejeffrey.com/report103/

Report 103 is edited by Jeffrey Baumgartner and is published on a monthly basis.

You may forward this copy of Report 103 to anyone, provided you forward it in its entirety and do not edit it in any way. If you wish to reprint only a part of Report 103, please contact Jeffrey Baumgartner.

Contributions and press releases are welcome. Please contact Jeffrey in the first instance.

 

 

 


 

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Jeffrey Baumgartner
Bwiti bvba

Erps-Kwerps (near Leuven & Brussels) Belgium

 

 


 

My other web projects

My other web projects

CreativeJeffrey.com: 100s of articles, videos and cartoons on creativity   Jeffosophy.com - possibly useful things I have learned over the years.   Kwerps.com: reflections on international living and travel.   Ungodly.com - paintings, drawings, photographs and cartoons by Jeffrey