Effective prototyping may be the most valuable competence an innovative organization can hope to have.
-Michael Schrage
Before I give you some modern examples of prototype engineering, let me tell you an interesting story about Alexander Fleming. Have you ever heard of Alexander Fleming?
When Alexander Fleming, a brilliant but sometimes haphazard scientist, returned to his lab after vacation holiday in 1928, he found his work ruined. A bacteria culture he had been growing was contaminated by fungus and, as it grew, it killed all the colonies it touched.
Most people would have simply started over, but Fleming was very curious about what had happened. And his curiosity caused him to switch his focus from the bacteria to the fungus itself.
First, identified the mold and the bacteria-killing substance, which he called “penicillin,” then he tested it on other bacteria cultures. Seemingly in a single stroke, Fleming had created the new field of antibiotics.
Is that how you see innovation? That’s how most of us see innovation. A flash of brilliance and Eureka! a new world is born. But not so fast.
The truth is far messier. In fact, it wasn’t until 1943—nearly two decades later—that penicillin came into widespread use and only then because it was accelerated by the effort helping World War II efforts.
But we need far better and faster results, don’t we? To achieve that, we need to discard old myths and deal with a process of change and innovation as it happens.
Truly breakthrough innovations are never a single event, nor are they achieved by one person, or even within a single organization. Rather, they happen when ideas combine to solve important problems.
Related post: Learn How to Think What No One Else Thinks
In Amanda Lang’s book, “The Power Of Why: Simple Questions That Lead to Success”, she talks about the importance of curiosity and it’s a connection to intelligence:
Curiosity is, therefore, strongly correlated with intelligence. For instance, one longitudinal study of 1,795 kids measured intelligence and curiosity when they were three years old, and then again eight years later.
Researchers found that kids who had been equally intelligent at age three were, at eleven, no longer equal.
The ones who’d been more curious at three were now also more intelligent, which isn’t terribly surprising when you consider how curiosity drives the acquisition of knowledge.
The more interested and alert and engaged you are, the more you’re likely to learn and retain.
In fact, highly curious kids scored a full twelve points higher on IQ tests than less curious kids did.
As I was reading this book, there were two things that came to my mind:
How often do we ask our staff to brainstorm “questions” as opposed to “answers”? Is this not as valuable a practice?
and then…
Could starting every week off asking “what do you wonder?”, and having them ask questions and provide ideas, make a huge impact on creating new ideas?
New idea creation … activities to generate ideas
So what are some effective ways businesses innovate? Let me ask you a few personal questions to get you thinking about the innovation process a different way.
Do you drive to work the same way every day? Probably! Do you read the same publications—or the same type of publications? Sure! How about TV and the Internet?
Watching the same group of shows or using the same set of websites is also a common habit. When you do this, what do you feel? You probably get a lot of familiar and comfortable feelings, don’t you?.
But true innovation often doesn’t make us comfortable. It makes us uncomfortable. And yet, it is in that discomfort that the new ways, the new ideas, and the new feelings come to light.
When you drive to work via a different route, you see different places and sights. If you go to the newsstand and peruse the magazines that you never otherwise look at, you will see things you simply would never think about otherwise
So do you think businesses experiment and test lots of new ideas?
Check out these new beer cans and bottles and their features …
Cold Activation – special ink on bottles and cans turns special color when sufficiently cold.
Vortex Bottles – Bottles come with a swirling grove in the neck, meant to improve the taste by aerating, and unlocking aromas and taste.
Aluminum Pints/Bottles – resealable screw caps.
Writable Bottles – consumers can write messages using key or coin.
Experiment and test fearlessly
Not all of your ideas will be something you implement, like several of the beer can packaging ideas. But the testing itself will invariably lead you to understand customer needs better, and that will lead you to create even more new ideas.
Remember … whoever tries the most stuff usually wins.
What are some of your experiences with utilizing prototype engineering and testing? What about building an innovation culture in your business? Please share an experience with this community.
Need some help in improving the innovation process for you and your staff? Innovative ideas to help the differentiation with your toughest competitors? Or maybe ways to innovate new products and services?
Call today for aFREEconsultation or aFREEquote. Learn about some options for innovation workshops to get noticeable results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new innovative ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Do you have a lesson about making your innovation learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on creativity and innovation from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Learn How to Think What No One Else Thinks
Generating Ideas by Convergent Thinking
Amazon and Managing Innovation … the Jeff Bezos Vision
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
The problem is never how to get new ideas into your mind, but how to eliminate the old ideas. What is the difference between a good idea and a great idea? Good ideas come along all the time and help people solve minor problems in work and daily life. Great ideas appear less frequently. Generating ideas like these require more work to execute.
Great ideas aren’t necessarily the result of highly-paid think tanks or drug-induced vision quests in the desert. Sometimes they are unexpected moments of inspiration that help keep the napkin companies in business.
Can you think of your last unexpected moment of inspiration? We’d love to hear it … please add it to comments below.
Related: The Secrets to Building an Innovative Culture
The big challenge of generating great ideas is freeing you from the conventional, mundane thoughts that occupy most of your brain time.
How do organizations come up with new ideas? And how do they use those ideas to create successful new products, services, businesses, and solutions?
To answer these questions, a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York spent time observing radical innovation projects such as IBM’s silicon-germanium devices, GE’s digital X-ray, and DuPont’s biodegradable plastics. Their key finding? Most of the ideas behind these projects came from “happy accidents” rather than some ongoing process to generate ideas.
In more than a few cases, individuals or small groups were simply “freelancing,” working on ideas on their own initiative rather than being directed by some “new venture” board or other idea management system.
Given these results, let’s examine 10 myths of generating new ideas:
Generating ideas … people love change
Myth
Many people believe everybody loves to change and be changed.
Fact
The simple fact is that there is a ton of people who resist any kind of change. They are very risk adverse and change makes them very uncomfortable.
How to generate innovative ideas … rewards
Myth
Many people believe that the best ideas come where the best incentive rewards are offered.
Fact
Daniel Pink discussed research in his book “Drive” where rewards were shown to have a modest effect on generating new ideas at best and negative effect in the worst situations. Pink demonstrated that with the complex and more creative style of 21stcentury jobs, traditional rewards can actually lead to less of what is wanted and more of what is not wanted.
Must have completely new?
Completely new
Myth
The belief is that most ideas are composed of totally new thoughts.
Fact
The simple fact is new ideas are built from the combining of older ideas. The novelty comes from the application of the idea or combination of idea and application, not the idea itself.
Activities to generate ideas … past experience and expertise
Myth
Team members often sit back in hope that the smartest or most experienced among them will come through. Smart is certainly important, as is experience, but the best ideas from those on the fringes of the subject area or an entirely different subject area expertise.
Fact
Those who continuously come up with the newest ideas are ones who are great at cultivating minds from different fields and are able to most efficiently connect the dots. Old lessons from a different field applied to the new field.
We can certainly find many examples of teams where cohesiveness abound.
Fact
But the simple fact is that conflict is equally as important as cohesiveness in generating ideas. Many companies build conflict into the ideation process for this reason.
The saying goes that if you have the best mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.
Fact
This path is not the usual case, however. Often the best ideas are rejected initially. There are many examples … here are two good ones. Kodak invented the digital camera and never took it to market. Smith Corona built a superb word processor and yet decided to stay with the typewriter, its bread and butter.
Epiphany
Myth
Many assume that the best insights come to us in a flash of brilliance.
Fact
The best ideas typically require a time of incubation in our subconscious. We do best when we constantly shift from one task to another to allow our minds to do something different for our best idea germination.
In your genes
Myth
The best ideas come from the best combination of genes.
Fact
No evidence supports an “idea” gene or personality type. On the other hand, there is a wealth of evidence that shows there is potential inside of everyone. The best place to see this is in young children.
Best ideas always win
Myth
The cream always rises to the top. And the best ideas are like the cream.
Fact
But the simple fact is that the best ideas are not necessarily or readily recognized as the best. Most often, they never get to the winner’s circle.
The lone wolf
Myth
Most people tend to believe that the best ideas come from single, very smart individuals.
Fact
The truth is that most breakthrough ideas come from collaborative teams. For example, Thomas Edison had 15 other inventors working with him. Likewise, Michelangelo had 13 other painters helping paint the Sistine Chapel. The best teams are diverse and include both new and more experienced collaborators.
If you are looking for additional resources in creativity and innovation, one of my favorite experts is Gregg Fraley. You’ll find lots of good stories and examples to learn from in his blog.
Summary
As we change at a faster and faster pace, ideas adequate yesterday are no longer are good enough. And with digital disruption facing an increasing number of industries, most firms must come up with the best ideas for change or move to a slow failure. The myths of new ideas must be set aside to let the new idea facts take over.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.
Do you have a lesson about making your learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
It’s up to you to keep improving your ability to learning to learn. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
It’s up to you to keep improving your continuous learning from all around in your environment.
Need some help in improving the innovation process for you and your staff? Innovative ideas to help the differentiation with your toughest competitors? Or maybe ways to innovate new products and services?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options for innovation workshops to get noticeable results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new innovative ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Do you have a lesson about making your innovation learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on continuous learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
