Category: d.school

I have written before about the Customer-Focused Innovation executive program that Huggy Rao, Perry Klebhan, and I launched a few years back at Stanford — see here and here.

 The concept behind this program is that executives learn about innovation and design thinking in two ways, by both learning "clean" academic models during cases studies, lectures, and discussion in the mornings led by the likes of Jennifer Aaker (pictured left), Robert Burgelman, Chip Heath, Jeff Pfeffer, and Charles O'Reilly, along with other of the very best classroom teachers at Stanford. 

Then, we compliment that "clean models" taught and discussed in the morning with "dirty" hands on experiences with doing innovation in the afternoon. You can see Huggy and I talking about the program here on YouTube along with videos and pictures from the program. As with last year, to get the executives doing something right away and so they can start to get to know each other, the Sunday evening the program starts, Andy (Papa) Papathanassiou who is, among other things, the pit crew director for Hendricks' motor sports, will get executives working in teams in a competition to see who can change the tires fastest (see below). 

For the afternoon exercise, in the past, we have worked with a large energy company to improve the quality of customer experience at their gas stations.  Below are executives brainstorming ways to  improve "the gas station experience" and sell customers more stuff from convenience stores.  This was from the first year of the program, and the guy in the green sweater, Jeremy Gutsche (then a banking executive), went on to start Trendhunter, which is arguably the largest and most frequently updated site in the world that tracks modern trends.

For this year's CFI, which runs November 8-13, I think we have something even more exciting, as this excerpt from the Tesla/Stanford press release indicates:

Design expert Perry Klebahn, the inventor of the modern snowshoe and
an Associate Consulting Professor at the d.school, will be working
closely with participants on the Tesla project during the program.
Klebahn is founder and former CEO of Atlas Snowshoes, former COO of
Patagonia, and former CEO of Timbuk2.

Key features of the Stanford collaboration will have program participants conducting:

• Interviews of Tesla’s key management and dealership personnel
• Observation of real car buyers at Tesla and non-Tesla dealerships
• Ideation, design, prototyping and iteration of new vehicle purchase models
• Presentation of proposed models to Tesla management

Here is what the Tesla showroom looks like now, but the company is looking for ways to enhance the design and, especially, all aspects of the "car buying experience" as they move toward rolling out lower-priced and larger electric cars that will appeal to a broader market. (those sports cars are beautiful, however)

Huggy, Perry, and I hope that some of you and your colleagues might be interested in signing-up for the program. You can see the details here, but I should warn you that this is a pretty expensive program.  Executive education is never cheap at Stanford, but to just break even and keep the group small, this program has especially steep labor costs.  We limit the program to about 30 executives, because the logistics of running the hands-on part in afternoon are intensive.  We provide a dedicated d.school coach for each team, Plus Perry and an a large d.school team do a host of things to keep things humming along.   The advantage, however, is that while most executive education just presents "clean models" (as we do in the morning sessions in a case style class at the Stanford business school) ,it rarely includes the messy hands-on process of doing stuff, visiting a real organization, talking to customers, generating ideas, building prototype objects and experiences, getting initial feedback from customers, and ending with feedback from the executives — from Tesla in this case — who need those ideas immediately.

Of all the executive programs I teach in at Stanford, and I like them all, this one is the most challenging, most rewarding, and most work for everyone involved. It's an experience for people who want to jump in and do things, not for people who just want to sit on the sidelines and watch.  I believe this is why the lonbg term impact is stronger than most programs.  We see this in the emails, success stories, and yes, failure stories, we still get from former participants.  So if you (and your company) has the money and time for an intense and enlightening week at Stanford, I hope you will sign-up.  I realize that many companies are cutting costs these days, but I believe that investing in innovation is especially crucial these days because, no matter what industry you are in, odds are that you aren't going to survive and thrive by just becoming a smaller and more efficient — but otherwise perfect imitation — of what your organization was and did  before the meltdown. Again, check-out Stanford website and see if this is right for you and your organization.

The d.school class we are teaching this term is called Creating Infectious Action, and the final project for the students is to find ways to "Kill Gas," to invent, spread, and implement ideas that reduce gasoline consumption. One of the most successful groups, staffed by Amrita Mahale, David Hughes, James Thompson, and Svetla Alexandrov — after observing driving behavior in downtown Palo Alto, talking to merchants, customers, city officials, and a host of others — decided that gas could be saved and the quality of life could be improved in downtown Palo Alto by closing several blocks of University Avenue (the main street in downtown). You may recall that I blogged about it last week; well, it is one thing to have an idea, and another thing to spread it … and in the less than two weeks they have devoted to this idea, they have done an amazing job.  It seems to have turned into a project that may be debated in the City of Palo Alto for years forward.  Today, a story was published in the Palo Alto Weekly that quotes a city council person (and ex-Mayor) who comes out in support of the idea:

The idea of turning University into an auto-free
promenade isn't entirely new. In July 2007, city officials decided to
close the busiest section of University on a Friday afternoon only to
see adjoining streets fill with traffic and merchants fill with anger
and frustration.

But Councilwoman Yoriko Kishimoto, who was mayor
at the time, said the biggest flaw with the event was inadequate
planning and publicity. Kishimoto is a longtime proponent of creating a
more walkable Palo Alto. She said the idea of turning University into a
pedestrian-only zone is not without merit, provided it's implemented in
gradual phases.

"I think people are very hungry for a place to
just meet and mingle," Kismet said. "It creates an environment where
you, by serendipity, run into neighbors and meet up and have dinner
with them."

The first phase, Kishimoto said, could be to
eliminate parking spots along University Avenue to allow for wider
sidewalks and more bicycle parking spots. Later phases could include
closing the busy stretch to cars on a monthly or a bi-weekly basis. The
street, for example, could be closed to traffic late Friday afternoon
and remain closed on Saturday morning, during which time it could host
a farmers market, she said.

The students are getting this kind of attention with their Facebook group (join here), by recruiting people like me to spread the message, quickly getting to know — and to start lobbying — influential government officials and merchants, designing a cool logo (see above) and I think most impressively, by going from merchant to merchant in downtown Palo Alto and asking each to put a sticker in their window to express support for the mall. 

One of the interesting lessons from this group is that people have a very strong reaction to the idea (note this comment from a city worker on my blog about the idea "Do you
have any idea what kind of debt the City of Palo Alto is in and how
many people are getting laid off? While the economy is in dire need of
reconstruction you want to make downtown a park? The people of this
city never cease to amaze me."). A key feature of ideas that spread is that people have strong reactions — both negative and positive to them — and emotions they rile-up draw attention to the ideas and motivate people to fight to push the ideas through (and to stop the ideas). 

So this group, to their credit,  picked an idea that provokes hot emotion, and are doing a great job of using local leaders, Facebook, the media, logos, and the plain old fashioned method of knocking on doors to sell their ideas — and at the very least, have briefly stirred-up a hornet's nest around it, and at the best, may some day be able to take some credit if Palo Alto implements the pedestrian mall. 

More broadly, although "teaching" in the d.school frankly sometimes drives me crazy because it is so inefficient (we have 5 faculty and another 4 coaches for this little class), many students struggle to make their projects effective, struggle with group dynamics (and sometimes teaching teams do as well), and — as a Professor who has spent his life standing in front of a class and pretending to be in charge — the lack of control is disconcerting at times. But when students do inspired work like this, it is all worth it, and they deserve the credit, not the faculty. And even though there comes a point every year that I swear I will never teach another d.school class again, something like this happens and I am hooked all over again.  It is an entirely different way to teach, and is scary at times, but it all seems worthwhile again when I see the look in the students faces when they have made something from nothing, and in this group, in just two weeks, has moved from a few Post-It Notes and squiggles on whiteboard to a real and red hot community debate.

P.S. I want to give special thanks to this team's fantastic coach, Katie Geminder.

P.P.S. Also, check out this page that has all kinds of information and — straight out of the pages of Made to Stick — concrete actions that people can take to spread the word and create pressure for the mall. 

Palo Alto, the town right next to Stanford University, has become remarkably crowded with cars over the years. The main drag,University Avenue, is filled with lovely shops and restaurants, (having dined there last night), but the experience sure would be nicer without all those cars.  There are the beginnings of a movement (launched by a student group in our Creating Infectious Action class in the Stanford d.school) too close seven or eight blocks of the street and turn it into a pedestrian mall (as so many European cities do), which would make it much more pleasant to visit and eat in the outdoor restaurants.  The students have been interviewing a host of stakeholders, merchants, customers, police officers, and city officials, and many believe that it is a viable idea — most of the merchants are especially enthusiastic.  Their emerging dream of what it would be looks something like the above picture. You can join the Facebook group here. If you love the idea, spread it around and help build some energy.  If you think it sucks, tell them why. And if you have ideas about how to design it — or to create a movement to make it happen — let the students know.

The d.school class on Creating Infectious Action that I teach with Perry Klebhan, Diego Rodriguez (of Metacool fame), Michael Dearing, and Joe Mellin is hosting a conference at Stanford next Thursday, April 30th from 3:15 to 6:00 on the Stanford Campus, at the Braun Auditorium in the Mudd Chemistry Building.  We have great speakers who will be talking about what it takes to spread ideas, as you can see from the poster, they are from Facebook, Linkedin, Apple, Netflix, and Ning  — plus we Stanford's own Huggy Rao will be talking about his research on spreading social movements, drawing on his book Market Rebels.  It is free and open to the public.  But as we need to plan for drinks and such, we need an estimate of how many people will be there.  Please RSVP to Joe on Facebook here or via email at ciarsvp@gmail.com.  This is our fourth year doing this — last year was fantastic and the room was overflowing.

P.S. The d.school is also hold another conference — on sustainability a week later at the same time and same place.  I will do a post about that soon.

HI! This is Team Wildfire from Bob Sutton's Creating Infectious Action class at the d.school.

Well anyshit, try using the word "anyshit" today! Use it in your facebook status, your twitter updates, and anywhere else you think it'll be seen or heard.

-Team Wildfire

I've blogged quite a few times about our class Creating Infectious Action at the Stanford d.school.  We are teaching it again this Fall. The class is only for Stanford students, but, just like last year, we will have a conference that is open to the public (last year, we had well over 300 people).  So stay tuned for that announcement. Here is the announcement for Stanford students who are interested in applying for the class.  It is also on Facebook with some bells and whistles here.  The poster to the left was done by our beyond amazing course assistant, Joe Mellin, one talented guy.

Here is the Stanford stuff:

Creating Infectious Action
Spring 2009

This class will immerse Stanford masters students in the practice and theory of creating large-scale persistent behavioral
changes. Student teams will complete hands-on projects coached by design process experts and evaluated by members of
partner organizations and other business leaders, along with members of the teaching team. In addition, brief "thought
bombs" will be presented in most classes on pertinent topics including developing ideas that stick, leading social
movements, behavioral decision theory, network theory, interpersonal persuasion, examples of ideas that have spread, and
seemingly unsuccessful ideas.

We invite all Stanford graduate students to apply for the class. We select students for both their individual background
and skills and, especially, to round out our multi-disciplinary teams. This is a high commitment class and will require
intensive teamwork.

Class Number: MS&E 288
Units: 4
Time: Th 3:15-6:05PM, Lab M 5:30-7:30PM
Limited enrollment: 24 students, graduate students only
Applications: Join the Facebook group: Shhh… CIA is coming to the d.!
Teaching Team:
Perry Klebahn, Timbuk2, d.school
Michael Dearing, d.school
Bob Sutton, Management Science & Engineering

I've already blogged about shutdownandprotect, the website our students have put-up to encourage people to turn-off their computers.  As I've said, this is part of the efforts by our Creating Infectious Engagement class to spread messages and behavior that reduces the energy consumption that stems from producing and using computers.   Another student team is taking different approach, based on the idea that the energy required to produce a new computer is enough to run an old computer for at least 10 years.  So their idea is to get people to keep their computers longer. They have put together a great website to spread ways extend the life of your computer and it features one of the funniest student movies I have ever seen; it rivals Gus Bitdinger's Back in Orbit. Check out lovethe1yourewith, and make sure to watch the movie that stars Marylin and Dan — it is a little masterpiece. Dan also asks that I credit Jeff Keacher's deft video direction as well. 

P.S. Note that we are working with an industry group called climate savers computing on this project. The companies involved in this organization include Dell, HP, and Lenovo. I am sure they are not wild about spreading the message that it is better to hold onto your computer longer, but the students make a damn good point.