Say it with Pictures

I truly enjoyed Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam, and since have been exploring visualization quite a bit. His book walks you through a 4 step process that helps you solve problems with pictures using 5 questions and showing it in 6 ways. For those who dread the whiteboard, it is an excellent resource to help pick up the pen. The more I practice the better I get. I can't stop drawing!

For those who would like to explore an encyclopedia of visual maps take a look at the interactive visual periodic table and the visual-literacy.org. For those who would like to delve into a variety of ways to interpret information.

Management vs. Business Skills

Haworth - Customer Intimacy Through Partnering

Haworth is a manufacturer of office furniture products transforming into a workspace company in Holland Michigan that just celebrated it's 60th Anniversary. I recently toured Haworth's new corporate headquarters. The project won the 11th annual "Good Design is Good Business" international competition awards by BusinessWeek and Architectural Record magazines as well as local Deals of the Year Sustainability Award in Grand Rapids. The building truly amazes the eye and neither pictures nor the virtual Internet give it true justice. The tour, thanks to press contact Julie Smith at One Haworth Center, enabled me to stand in wonder at the front desk and view a sea of floors and workspace protected from a rainy afternoon in West Michigan. I felt sure the tour would show off their design capabilities and expertise in light of the new workspace but was surprised to find more than my initial thought.

Companies offer 3 core value propositions:

• Providing best product
• Providing best total cost
• Providing best total solution

The new One Hayworth Center showcases great products, no doubt. Hayworth's SAP project addresses operational efficiencies, as any conscious company must do in this tough market. Julie referenced more than once that many companies can no longer afford to "build the Taj Mahal" which shows sensitivity to current market realities. The story of customer focus goes beyond pricing strategy. Haworth illustrates total solution through the headquarter's showcase.

During the tour I peeked at CEO, Franco Bianchi's office. Mr. Bianchi ran the Italian operations and later came to the US and took the role of CEO in 2005. His transformational focus on partnerships with Architects, Designers and Developers reinforces Haworth's commitment to solutions. His office, which I peeked at during the tour, could be ripped out of the pages of Wallpaper Magazine, and reflects a European disposition and sensibility to materials and design.

The customer intimacy and partnership runs deeper than identifying with a core group of customers. Solving problems, a key aspect of total solutions, demands a deeper understanding of combination of customer needs, processes, experience, and value adding aspects of their business, day to day lives, and aspirations. I viewed wonderful products as part of the tour including materials and even exhibitions of product not manufactured by Haworth. Julie explained that Haworth is partnering with other companies to show materials that can be used in combination with their lines of products. We looked at countertops. We looked at wall surface materials. We looked at lighting options. We looked at a cork suit, believe it or not. We looked at temperature sensing material. We visited a material sample showcase by Material Connexion, a materials partner. Now visiting architects, designers and developers can explore more than just Haworth products, but how they can interact with other innovative materials at their disposal. Now that is partnering with partners to support customer group partners.

Identify unfulfilled aspects of your customers' needs and if not your competence, ask who can help you out?

House Remodelling sidebar

We are putting a master bedroom addition on our house. I wanted soft floors in the kitchen. I have had tiled kitchen floors before. It's very hard on the knees if you spend any amount of time standing. I looked at vinyl as an inexpensive option. I went to the commercial flooring store to look at samples. They had hundreds of selections. Hundreds and hundreds of samples of versions of fake stone or fake tile or fake concrete and they were all atrociously ugly.

I took some time to think about why it was ugly. Is vinyl flooring just ugly? Is it fake stone that is ugly? What I discovered is that what really drove my aversion was inauthenticity. If the vinyl would just represent itself as vinyl I think it would be okay. Or if it was such a great duplicate that it would be difficult to tell the difference between vinyl and tile it might be ok. It is just blatantly inauthentic.

A lot of people might thing I am ranting and many people will probably think, "Well what do you expect from vinyl?" So here is link to prove my point. The Swedes got it right. Marie and Annica Eklund. Take a common material, give it a twist (literally) and what do you have? To me, it's an authentic vinyl floor.

"Bolon's objective is to always offer the very latest in quality, trends and tendencies in our unique Swedish design flooring. We currently work with world leading architects and designers who choose Bolon flooring because of its textile feel and appearance combined with all the advantages of vinyl flooring."

http://www.bolon.com/
Begone fake stone vinyl flooring, BE GONE!

Booms and Busts

Facing another recovery from irrational exuberance in the US economy, politicians taking sides on oversight, and personal portfolio's taking a hit, I wondered what kind of changes will stick. I found an answer in a letter from Rachmaninoff, the famous Russian composer, pianist and conductor, during his first American tour in 1909.

Globalization has some very curious impacts to America. It's wave affect has made some, not all, but some of the inspirational aspects of the US available elsewhere. Technology, education, some freedoms of the entrepreneurial spirit and system. Is there a clear answer to what America aspires to be or is our consistent doing the truer essence of what makes America special?

Rachmaninoff wrote in 1909 during is US tour, "You know, in this accursed country, where you're surrounded by nothing but Americans and the 'business,business' they are forever doing clutching you from all sides and driving you on.....Everyone treats me nicely and kindly, but I am horribly bored."

Keeping the end in mind

The end of the innovation funnel that is....

Several events complicate the pursuit of innovation in larger organizations.

1) Funding the creative process - its a large world of ideas out there. The time to think, create and evaluate is not necessarily the possible task of a manager who has to be focused on day-to-day operations. This can be considered and investment with expected returns. Or it can be thought of as a grant with expectation applied effort and education with no expectation of returns or at least a lower chance. Either way. Clarity is important for all involved.

Now once a company decides they need this and funds it they face a second challenge

2) Identifying burn rate. Quite often an idea guru, consultant, firm or hired hand will bring great ideas to the table. They talk. They contemplate. They investigate. But the important thing to remember is the fuel of any company is cash. So in building the organization define the goal in terms of activities, deliverable and results. What is the innovation team's measure success? There is a huge difference between a wicked idea and a wicked idea the can make money in a certain amount of time.

If an organization is clear on expectations from an innovation organization and has set the line anywhere from valid ideas to operational possible plans to actual implementation they hit another challenge

3) Organizational value. Who has to implement the plan and then who gets credit for it's failure and success? The end of the funnel is value creation to the end customer and value for the organization - read revenue and cash - and value stream participants. Is it the idea guy who was the enabler, was it the management team that took the ball and ran with it? Is it turf war credit allocation nightmare? Yes yes yes yes.

Let the games begin.

Innovation Mindset

Picture, if you will, a wagon on the early American trail. Picture the wheels of the wagon turning along the dirt road with well worn ruts. Think about how easy it is to continue on the road as compared to trying to steer the wagon off the track. If you steer off track you risk tipping the wagon. You risk breaking an axle. You risk additional work if you use a lever to push as well as pull the wagon off the trail. It's a rut. We often say we are in a rut, but do we think critically about how to get out of the rut. Rut = worn in habit.

Innovative ideas = change. Introducing something new. Something not in a rut. Opposing forces. It is difficult at times to change perspectives. Having facilitated vision work (or ideation or innovation or whatever term you use) meetings to draw new ideas out of people and found myself staring at an audience in a rut (actually I have been on both sides of the equation). They default to the standard answer as they glance casually at their watch as they imagine all of the things they need to be doing back at their desks, calls they need to make, groceries they need to pick. The rut is easy. It allows for other distractions such as entertainment and self back slapping congragulatory activities.

To snap people out of the rut, tools and techniques are essential. I've written about problem solving as a tool to anchor people's thoughts and create a single topic that everyone can work towards. Recently I am reading a book that talks about mental locks in a very entertaining way. I recommend "A Whack on the Side of the Head" by Roger von Oech. Take a read and see if those mental locks ring true to your situation.

Innovation Partnering

Innovation is difficult in a vacuum. Beyond the idea of killer products, the realities of marketing in an information overloaded world, distribution with rising transportation costs, crossing the chasm of product and service acceptance, and the rising criticality of trust as a factor in consumer experience demands an approach that evaluates end-to-end value chains.

Finding partners to help with the shaping, birthing, and placement of a crazy powerful new idea can be crucial to success.

Think about recent moves by Apple to open up their platform for 3rd party developers. Why? Because the power of application and applicative ideas in an open market can fuel value for iPhone users which in turn reinforces loyalty and stimulates new customer aquisition that ultimately drives sales for Apple. Altruism aside, of course. 

Think about the entire path of your product and service; think about who can help in areas that you may not be strong; think about how you could draw lines in the sand effictively and still maintain mutual benefits.

Channel Innovation

I like paper in my day to day work life. I do a lot on my computer, but many times I jot todos, notes and observations down. The Franklin Planner, my original time management paper planner resulted in signing up for and completing an MBA program. Somewhere along my paper journey I found Levenger for pens and notebooks and later Circa. Circa is a binding system for notebooks based upon discs and specially punched paper that allows you to pull out and reposition the paper. I was thrilled. I shared with colleagues and friends and eventually, I needed to find out where they came up with this idea.

The idea came from someone else! Shock! A company called Rollabind. They made products for schools, notebooks and scrapbooking. They weren't the greatest looking products at the time. You could buy a bag of multicolor discs but what would I do with the pink ones?

Levenger found a great idea and introduced it to a new channel as an even better idea. Black discs, various high quality ruled papers, clean planner-competing sizes and leather covers. Black, brown red. It fit very nicely into their offering of the finest office products around. Their prices were also a bit higher than the purple discs of Rollabind.

Understanding channels characteristics and insights are important part of innovation. How you introduce, shape, price and manage your product offering in particular channels are essential for success. Yellow discs may not have brought Levenger the same level of success.

Pickle Process

I came across an Vlasic Pickle advertisement from over a year ago. It caught my attention because it was a process innovation for their customers. It seems food service customers would often have to pour the pickles from the jar into a square container that fits on a buffet line. This of course would mean a pickle jar to dispose of and a square buffet container to wash. So Vlasi packaged their sliced pickles in square container that would fit into the buffet tables. Saving thier customers labor costs and material costs. They had pickle charts (instead of pie charts) to prove it.

Thinking critically about how your product is used can bring insights into improvements and innovation that can be implemented around the product. These typed of ideas in a homogenous trade can bring competitive advantage.

Barriers to Innovation and the Importance of Pilot

The New York Times recently wrote about going green in the hospitality industry. The Hilton Palacio del Rio in San Antonio replaced more than 400 toiles with dual-flush models saving an estimated 600,000 gallons of water per month without a single complaint about the toilets. The hold up for other hotel chains is a perceived or expressed concern that consumers aren't sure if they would work.

Journalists write, bloggers blog and consumers when asked to have an opionion will be sure to have one. Testing in context is important. Gaining reaction in an experiential environment can bring closer perspectives than a survey. Granted measure toilet usage can be a bit tricky. Installing in test rooms or locations can be a small step. Dual flush gives consumers an option to save water and solving water usage problems is something US consumers can live with.

New Product to Market

Bringing innovative new ideas to market can be a humbling experience. At Mindscape we recently launched a new web offering. We answered our clients' problem of keeping up with the velocity of change on the internet with a managed environment that we could leverage across our base to keep them cutting edge up to date. We assumed cost as an issue and focused on a managed services model, where we could pass savings on to the client. We save them money; they stay up to date - a win-win.

We overestimated thier concern about costs, undervalued the solution and at first missed the mark. Cost wasn't the main issue so focusing on total cost of ownership only confused our message. Clients felt we had underestimated their needs because of our passed on savings. Price did not meet expectations for the level of expected quality and comprehensiveness. Their worries zeroed in on the technology itself.

A new business partner summed it up best for us. Tell them they "never have to worry about hardware or software again"

Being smart doesn't mean there's a need. Even in supply side innovation, matching customer needs is as important as the invention. Find the pain, find the worry...

Solution Finding

Some years ago, while working on Supply Chain innovations, I visited a Molex plant in Lincoln Nebraska. The purpose to study process implementation, became overshadowed  by fascination with a two story manufacturing facility. When molex decided to build an additional plant in Lincoln their plant management team drove the design ideas. The two stories allowed the movement of raw material is on the bottom level, manufacture and movement of finished goods on the upper level.

That alone is innovation, but they ran into a glitch. The raw components came on reels. They had trouble loading the leader from the reel, located on the bottom floor, to the manufacturing machine on the upper floor. While running the leader up to the top floor snags were happening and causing material loss. Not a good situation.

Someone had innovative idea. They connected 2 distinct yet divergent experiences. They would try a garage door opener. It has a sensor in case something is in the way of the door that could be set to varying degrees of sensitivity. Instead of running it horizontally they would run it vertically and even better -- the price -- a trip to Home Depot. It did the trick. They would load the leader and then the garage door opener would pull the line up to the top floor. If the leader caught anything the sensor would trigger and the leader would be sent back down.

This teams openess to new ideas enabled creative solutions. How open is your team to new ideas?

Innovation Mindset

Tony Robbins talks about human psychology and the need for both certainty and uncertainty. Sounds mutually exclusive, but that's what makes it human. To embark on any level of innovation means change and change means uncertainty. We quite often cling to the same way of doing things to ensure we face certainty, or what we feel is certainty, when in an ever changing world with increased velocity, that is not necessarily true. How do we shift peoples energy towards facing uncertainty?

In the Tour de France this year, Mark Canvendish a UK cyclist represents Team Columbia, a US team. At the moments as a sprinter his explosive power seems untouchable. At stage 13 the peloton (main group of cyclists) headed towards the finish line. Mark Cavendish positioned himself in the front but found himself boxed in as speed started to get revved up. Robbie McEwan a veteran sprinter of world renown was making a run for the line and Cavendish shifted himself out of his boxed in position and just rocketed past McEwan at astonishing acceleration to win the stage. Of course I was on the edge of my seat. Okay, so the world's greatest race doesn't neccessarily excite you.....

Sport of any kind is a game of teams or individuals where the uncertainy drives chears and boos and all kinds of emotions. Can you build that passion into your work environment? Think like a coach, build the dreams of your team.

Untapped Innovation and the Gift of Time

One of the most abundant source of ideas for your business reside hidden deep in the recesses of your own employees. Usually they are too busy to know it themselves because we are busy people in a busy world doing busy things. Quite often, we are busy fighting fires and fixing things that may not have so easily broken if we had taken an opportunity to think creatively and proactively about improving management of day to day business.

Be bold and find a way to give your people the gift of time to step back and think about solving problems in their daily lives, improve experiences for your customers and make things easier for everyone.

I believe in anchor points for activities such as 'a day offsite' or a 'time out to think' on a Friday afternoon. It is easier for people to think creatively if they have a starting point or reference. Paint a picture of how things could be easier. Use examples or case studies from other companies. Use a facilitator who can help walk people through a thought building exercise. Have a goal! and celebrate the results!

Total Offer - An innovative product doesn't always win

Business innovation extends beyond product innovation. When you have a great innovative product start thinking about marketing innovation, business model innovation, sales innovation. Don't stop with the tangible.

I own 2 Dutch ovens from a company called Kitchen Fair. I own them because a friend of mine went to a factory closing and picked them up for me. They claim to have a superior non-stick surface and from my experience, it could very well be absolutely true. I hadn't heard about them before my purchase, nor after. They still manufacture in Wisconsin and have corporate offices in Fort Worth, Texas. Great product - generally unheard of(at least to me). If it weren't for the factory closing, I would just think they were happy with their slice of then non-stick cookware pie, but then why the closing? Perhaps it's time to initiate online viral marketing to start. Maybe a movie on You Tube.

Highly caffeinated sugar water company Red Bull on the other hand has spent as much as 30% of revenue on innovative marketing techniques including extreme sport and event sponsorships. Differentiate the product and innovate around it. Build a billion dollar brand.

Think about your whole business when thinking about innovation.

Incremental Innovation

In “Five Common Mistakes in Innovation” by Dev Patnaik recently wrote that companies over-rely on pilot initiatives. Certainly a companies scale, cash flow, funding and strategic intent determines appropriate implementation options. Innovation doesn't always bring short term results, however there are ways to test and measure changes considered in your business. A recent article recently reported GE considered sale of it's kitchen division. The kitchen division's iconic image in the GE conglomerate seems outweighed by it's flat profitability. Perhaps GE has a way to measure public opinion by releasing this information pre-decision.

Test geographically, by customer segment, by channel or using classic marketing tests of focus groups or surveys. The Internet is also a great way to test and refine product or service innovations before making a full force launch of it.

Fear not testing, measuring and refining.

Asking questions to gain insight

Yesterday a button on my Lucky Jeans popped off. Not fun considering the original price of the jeans, so I decided to glue the button back on. What would I try? Krazy glue of course --- binds most surfaces, metal perhaps? Krazy glue has a great packaging innovation. Single use packets. Reusing a classic Krazy glue tube a second time usually ends in a minor success (after a bout of dry glue wrestling with push pins and needles) and a third time in complete frustration. Single use packets' practicality and ease of use make sense for the wallet and mindset. A happy customer is more likely to be a repeat customer.

Take some time to understand your customers' grievances. Not just the core functional aspects of your product, but ancillary and seemingly minor annoyances.

Customer insights can lead to innovation and all you need to do is ask.

Problems before Opportunities

I've been asked why I focus on problems instead of opportunities. I feel every problem is an opportunity but not every opportunity solves a problem or at least not an immediate problem.

As an example, I recently read an article about Amtrak. The story is about a wonderful 3 day journey. Travel for travel's sake. 3x cost & 3x time. This would solve my problem if I time on my hands.

When I read about the Deutche Bahn in Germany, I read about ICE (even the name sounds slick) trains with glass doors that swish, speeds to envy and business travel amenities. When I read about Japanese trains, I read about Internet connectivity and work space.

If Amtrak wants to solve their customers problems, they could target the same buyers airlines target, find the routes that make the most competitive sense and look to play their strengths, which have potential. My immediate problem is to get from place to place as quickly as possible, as economically as possible, with the most comfort and the least hassle. Trade-offs need to be made. Maybe when I retire I will take the opportunity to enjoy a nostalgic Amtrak route reliving the multi-day adventures of our ancestors.

Why the Innovation blog?

Innovation's mystique seems to have clouded the simplicity that jump-started so many successful businesses in the US. I just returned from Silicon Valley, the birth place of technology as we know it today. The tech museum in San Jose illustrates the level of creativity that drives one of the history's most profitable wealth generating epicenters.

A simple approach to Business Innovation does not require a PhD, a basement lab, or a team of techies. It requires a seed of creativity and a link to economic value.

To me, business innovation means solving problems.

Whose problems? Customer problems, management problems and even supplier problems are good places to start. Introducing change through new methods, new ideas, or new products drives innovation in everything from toilets to financial investments to iPods. Mathematicians keep negativity out of the term 'problem'. They consider problems to be questions; Questions that need answers.

Overcoming and solving problems has intrinsic economic value.