Innovation Strategy: Ten Faces of Innovation

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Innovation StrategyTen Faces of Innovation

• Jonathan Weaver
• UDM Mechanical Engineering Department
• weaverjm_at_udmercy.edu

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References

• Ten Faces of Innovation, Tom Kelley with Jonathan
  Littman, Currency Doubleday, 2005

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The Ten Faces

• The Anthropologist
• The Experimenter
• The Cross-Pollinator
• The Hurdler
• The Collaborator

• The Director
• The Experience Architect
• The Set Designer
• The Storyteller
• The Caregiver

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The Anthropologist

• The most important of the personas
• Great problem solvers are easy to come by the
  hard part is knowing what problem to solve
• Must look past tradition and preconceived notions
  and truly observe things
• Ability to see whats always been there but has
  gone unnoticed
• Look in unusual places
• IDEO has a Methods Deck set of cards with 51
  suggestions
• Example fun intergenerational waffle making kit
  

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The Experimenter

• A passion for hard work, a curious mind, and an
  openness to serendipity
• Strive for inspiration but never shy away from
  perspiration
• Prototyping is basically experimenting
• Fail often, to succeed sooner IDEO axiom
• Wright Brothers, Edison, and da Vinci are
  examples

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The Cross-Pollinator

• This is essentially what we called bisociation
• Cross-Pollinators create something new and better
  through the unexpected juxtaposition of seemingly
  unrelated ideas or concepts

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The Hurdler

• Hurdlers do more with less
• Dont always have to attack a problem head-on if
  you can sidestep it
• Obstacles sometimes inspire great achievements
• A Hurdler sees beyond an initial failure
• Goodmans lost their only restaurant customer for
  their bagged lettuce and created a new industry

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The Collaborator

• Collaborators bring people together and get
  things done
• These are the team builders, the ones who listen
  to everyone, and the ones who can navigate the
  political waters

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The Director

• Orchestrates a companys innovation efforts
• Gets people to take intelligent chances and gives
  them the opportunity to recover from failure
• Gives center stage to others
• Rise to tough challenges
• Shoot for the moon
• Ready to improvise with whatever is available
• Every company should have one

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The Experience Architect

• Sets the stage for positive encounters with your
  organization through products, services, and
  interactions
• Designs for customers and employees
• Keep you from competing at a commodity level
• Looks for negative or neutral elements in the
  status quo and looks for opportunities to refine
  them into the extraordinary (similar to our
  painstorming)
• Examples premixed antifreeze and Benjamin
  Moores 2 oz paint samples

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The Set Designer

• The workplace design affects productivity
• Giving employees latitude in the shape and
  character of their workspace helps reinforce a
  company persona that is fun, welcoming and
  stimulating

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The Caregiver

• Take extra pains to understand each individual
  customer
• Service innovations come in all sizes
• Offer customers a safety net (such as California
  Pizza Kitchens guarantee)

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The Storyteller

• Creating and telling of stories is part of human
  nature
• Brand-savvy modern businesses must know how to
  tell a good story
• Stories make an emotional connection (much better
  than facts and data)
• Storytelling builds credibility

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Go Win at Innovation!