I read, write, and talk about creativity and innovation ALOT–what it is, why it matters, how to pursue it. So it’s time to talk a bit about what innovation isn’t, and introduce a concept admittedly nuanced but that may fit a better in the business world than creativity. Not Innovation Innovation is NOT sitting around dreaming up earth-shattering ideas behind closed doors, trying to be clever and creative in concocting a new secret sauce that …
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Innovation demands looking at the world differently, and finding connections between seemingly disconnected things. A new book, called Red Thread Thinking: Weaving Together Connections for Brilliant Ideas and Profitable Innovation, by Debra Kaye, helps you do just that. In fact, Kaye walks her talk: Most books on innovation show how a particular innovation came about, then drawing lessons for the individual from the outcome. Kaye flips the paradigm, and focuses on where innovation starts–with the …
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What an amazing second day at Hackomotive 2013. Teams were already hard at work finalizing their prototypes and presentations by the time I arrived at 8 AM. At 9 AM, the second round of judges’ hours began. The Hackomotive judges panel was a distinguished one: Jeremy Anywl, Vice Chairman of Edmunds.com, Michael Zimbalist, VP of The New York Times’ “skunk works” R&D, Mike Accavitti, VP Marketing for Honda, Joseph Essas, CTO of OpenTable, Stacey Coopes, …
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The Edmunds.com-sponsored Hackomotive 2013 got off to a roaring start, with well over 100 people showing up bright and early, far before doors opened. Wait-listed hopefuls were all accommodated, since a few folks who had registered failed to appear. After a few opening remarks and an engaging keynote address, participants rotated through four problem spaces over the next 40 minutes, taking 10-minute turns through Research, Shopping, Retail, and Ownership. Edmunds facilitators teased out the issues, …
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Hackomotive, the first ever automotive-focused hackathon, hosted by Edmunds.com, kicks off tonight at The Annenberg Community Beach House, on the sand at sunset. It’s shaping up to be an exciting two days of creativity by well over 150 participants each to deconstruct and recreate the automotive shopping experience. I’m jazzed to be the emcee. Hackathons, to the uninitiated, have moved well beyond the technology-only focus that “hack” conjures up, to become a valid method of …
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Toyota recently completely redesigned Toyota.com and launched an iPad app. Both are terrific.* Both allow you to explore the company, its many faces, and go behind the scenes (in addition to shopping for cars). One of my favorite aspects of both the site and the app is the coverage of Toyota’s design process. On the app it’s called “Behind the Design.” On the site it’s a closer look at Toyota’s CALTY Design Research, Inc., located …
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A couple of years ago I published a little book, a fable, called The Shibumi Strategy, about a down-sized sales manager, Andy Harmon, forced to take a job in a car dealership in order to avoid disrupting his family. Andy was able to create a breakthrough in how people bought cars in his little part of the world. The story was based on an amalgam of true stories, and Andy was a composite character based on real …
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Have you heard any of the following lately? “I’m OK with how things are.” “The timing for this isn’t quite right.” “Seems like a lot of pain for such little gain.” “We need more buy-in to do this.” “That may work elsewhere, but not here.” “We tried something like this before, and it didn’t work.” These are early warning signs that your once high-spirited startup is vulnerable to what might best be termed “big company …
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In addition to the reasons you already have for taking a vacation this summer, there’s another one you may not have considered: Travel is thought to increase creativity. One of the difficulties we all face is the “curse of knowledge,” also known as subject matter expertise.Expertise is obviously valuable and required for success, but it can also hamper creativity. It can blind us to radical new ideas, because our mindset is so strong. That’s why it’s …
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