Specialization has created intellectual and imaginative silos in organizations, and a recent Wharton study written up in S+B Magazine
has found that these silos are a huge obstacle
to innovation: "The most effective product development and
commercialization processes encourage dynamic communication and idea
sharing among engineers, marketers, and customers…Failure to
incorporate the customer’s perspective often seriously limits the
potential financial and competitive value of corporate
innovation…Often, engineers are tucked away so far within a company
that they don’t see firsthand what customers really need."
Other key findings of the study:
- over-concentration on technology and under-emphasis of the emotional appeal of products leads to market failure
- better products result when employees are themselves customers of the product
- ‘anthropological research’ — visiting customers to see how
they actually use (and mis-use) products can provide huge insights on
need and innovation opportunities
- when entering new markets, having local partners ‘on the
ground’ can help tweak products to meet needs that are unique to that
new market
- using cross-functional teams and having the R&D people ‘get out more’ can help reduce ‘customer blindness’
- spreading R&D efforts around the world can help global
companies enhance their ‘environmental scan’ and tap into ideas and
adaptations that may not be apparent at head office
- surveys that gather data on customer behaviour are insufficient — it’s more important to know why
customers do what they do, to determine their true wants and needs, and
this usually requires face-to-face contact and collaborative effort to
determine
- it’s important to understand customers’ aversion to change, and annoyance with having too many choices, when developing products
- key qualities needed of the facilitators of dialogue between R&D, sales and customers: humility and curiosity
This study focused mainly on new product innovation, but the same need
for collaboration with all the departments of the company, and with
customers as well, applies equally to other types of business
innovation.
Thx Dave for linking me to the study.
For their 21st issue, icon magazine
asked themselves, "Who are the people who are changing the contemporary
design landscape? What are the products, organisations and ideas that
everyone will be copying in the immediate future?"
UPDATE - this is the right link
Howard Mann from the Dig Tank wrote a blog post about how dull and standardized current sales processes are. And boy do I agree! I have been selling large solutions (from advertising to information technology) for some years now, and if something bores me a lot, it is the sales process. That is why I couldn’t stand it anymore and had to hire a university-degree boy to do the hard work for me. A lot of you know what I mean when I say picking up the phone and calling a client can be HARD work!
In fact some of Howard’s advices make sense to me and it would be interesting to hear real-world examples from companies that have reinvigorated their sales process.
Do all companies worldwide follow the same standard for sales? Call, meeting, presentation, proposal, negotiation and then a little prayer? Or have someone already done something? Please tell me.
If the auto-rickshaw I am traveling in, brakes suddenly and takes a turn - left or right - depending on which side I am seated - left or right - what are the various things that can happen?
Naina Redhu has a comprehensive description og Scenario Planning Processes. Interesting indeed.
Do you remember the time in kindergarten where you made your first drawing? And the teacher asking you what the drawing looked like – and between the lines told you that the drawing was too funny and didn’t look like anything at all?
That’s about the time you stopped making drawings, right?
Some of us still has the ability, the talent to make great drawings, we just need the time to practice, but also a great amount of imagination. I think Imagination is about talent, while ability is about practice.
And that leave me to my question – Can Creativity be thought?
If you look at management literature there is no limits – everything can be thought, but is that the truth? I’m in doubt here – I think that creativity is a gift given to you from Mother Nature, and how companies is using those talents in group processes, strategy formulation, product- and business development that’s another issues.
Do you have any perspectives, any thoughts on the matter?
Evelyn Rodriguez has posted another interesting angle on the topic of companies being in dialouge with their customers, creating products and services together with them and being influenced by them in their business decisions.
My view is that traditional marketing emphazise listening to the market but the tools of doing so i.e. focus groups etc. just dont cut it anymore (if it ever has). This is where more participatory exercises and observations made in the daily lifes of the customers rather than in video-surrveillance rooms are benefitial. Other tools are webblogs, customer listening centers and idea markets.
Evelyn refers to an interview that Tom Peters made with Scott Bedbury regarding his work at Nike in the good old days. According to Scott Nike’s success was due to their deep understanding of their customers and their customers influence on Nike. Evelyn concludes:
Old marketing skill: Influence.
New marketing skill to add to your repetoire: Be influence-able.
I believe the same goes for product development skills. Read the post here.
I came across an interesting post by Kathy Sierra on The Creating Passionate Users blog regarding "wakes" and what I call co-creation. Its all about how you invite and inspire users to be part of a companies wake - where they can add value to that company´s products or services and innovate/co-create additions to the experience of that product.
Some marketing folks have talked about user-created ads, but if you let users enhance what you offer, by adding more features or even just by creating cool fan t-shirts, you’re much further up the passionate users curve (…) Being closed, or trying to keep others from capitalizing on what you provide (in other words, trying to keep the wake for yourself), is a bad idea.
There is a value being open and if your products are software, you might already build in API’s to open up to the surrounding world of potential co-creators and passionate customers. But how do you do it if your products are physical or non-software services? Kathy Sierra has a few ideas.
Talented danish journalist Hans Henrik Lichtenberg just made me aware of the Society for News Design’s annual News Design contest. Hans Henrik mentions one of the winners, who also won in 2000. While I agree with him that it does make a design that stands out, wouldn’t it have been fun if they had named a famous blog the winner? That would atleast make those newspapers who haven’t realised the potential of blogs yet, re-think their strategy. The winner he mentions, Hartford Courant, is not the world’s largest newspaper though. It has a circulation of about 250000, for comparison danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende has a circulation of about 130000. Another innovative design, beside the blog, could be electronic paper, why haven’t someone done a prototype and showed it to the SND?
If you take a close look at 2005 you maybe recognize that Design is on the Agenda here, there and everywhere.
From my chair a lot is going on - not that I’m involved in everything, but in my “surroundings” a lot is going on.
INDEX:2005 has their headquarters located here at DDC – where I work – and the activity-level is exploding these days.
The concept behind INDEX:2005 is VERY interesting and contains 3 different projects:
- Future Scenarios
- Award
- Views
Maybe you should consider to visit Copenhagen in September?
I’ll promise you a featured Interview with Kigge Hvid – Director of INDEX: in a week or two 
Over the last months I’ve been in contact with Chris Conley. I found him while searching the web for specialists in the front end of innovation projects.
I’m honoured to welcome a true specialist in this specific field as a regular Guest Blogger here at CPH127.
Please tjeck Chris’s short description of him self – or search the web
On behalf of the CPH127-crew – A warm Welcome Chris.