Category: Innovation

Check it out.  Alltop is a clean, spare, and remarkably user-friendly compilation of top stories in 12 different categories, from autos, to egos, to mac, to sports, to politics, and a lot more.  After spending about 30 minutes clicking around, I found it much more efficient and fun than looking for news on Google or Yahoo or any other place that I know. Just click, for example,on the Green Alltop section, and in seconds, you can see what happening everyplace from Treehugger, to The Green Skeptic, to the The New York Times. I am no expert on interface design, but there is some user experience magic here. It kind of felt like I was speed-reading the web.

I don’t even have a MacBook Air and I want this Steve Sleeve thing. Check out the description here.

Lenny
Mendonca and I interviewed “Chief Lizard Wrangler” Mitchell Baker of the
Mozilla Foundation a couple months back. It was just published online in the
McKinsey Quarterly. You can read it here;
registration is free. Mitchell describes how she led an open-source project
inside Netscape, and “spun it out” to start Mozilla –- now best known for the
Firefox browser, which has over 150 million users. Mitchell also writes a
fantastic blog.

I
have talked to Mitchell quite a few times in the past, and am consistently
impressed with her persistence and ability to articulate bold ideas and her
vision. I attended their annual company-wide meeting, and she suggested
that Mozilla’s primary mission was encouraging decentralized participation on
the web, and the company’s software (especially the ways it is developed and
spread) is an embodiment of that overarching goal. Mitchell was CEO of
Mozilla from its founding and just recently became Chair and the new CEO is
John Lilly (a leader with astounding skill and an old friend). Also, John
writes a great blog too.

Mozilla
is a fascinating case study of how innovation doesn’t need to result from a
command and control system, that it can be distributed and open source, and
still produce products that are among the best in the world, in this case
giving Microsoft Explorer a run for its money.

Gretchen
over at the Happiness Project
(one of my favorite blogs) offers the following bit of lovely advice: “One of
my Secrets of Adulthood is "It’s okay to ask for help," and zoikes,
it really does work!.”

I
was so taken by this sentence because I realize that it not only is a sign of
healthy individuals, it is a sign of a healthy culture. About 10 years ago, I did an 18 month
ethnography of IDEO with Andy Hargadon,
and we were privileged to see people working in a remarkably healthy
organizational culture. Over and over,
we saw people who felt strong pressure to ask other people for help when they
needed it, and to go to great lengths to give help to others who needed
it.

To
give you a sense of how this played-out, here is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Hard
Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense about a little snippet of
organizational life at IDEO:

One of the main reasons that IDEO’s
system works so well is the attitude its people have toward knowledge. We
mentioned this “attitude of wisdom” in Chapter 1 as essential for practicing
evidence-based management. Recall that
wisdom is about “knowing what you know and knowing what you don’t know.” This attitude enables people to act on their
(present) knowledge while doubting what they know, so they can do things now,
but can keep learning along the way. Wise people realize that all knowledge is flawed, that the only way to
keep getting better at anything is to act on what you know now, and to keep
“updating.”

……These elements stem from theory and
research, but an episode at IDEO provides perhaps the best summary and
explanation. Robert Sutton was sitting
with two engineers, Larry Schubert and Roby Stancel, who were talking about
designing a device for Supercuts, a chain of hair salons that specializes in
inexpensive, fast haircuts. They were
talking about a device that could be attached to an electric razor to vacuum
away cut hair. We were meeting in front
on Rickson Sun’s workstation. Rickson
looked mildly disturbed as he shut his sliding door to muffle the noise from
our meeting, a futile gesture because his cubicle was stylish, but had no roof
and low walls. Rickson still looked a
bit annoyed when he emerged minutes later to tell us that he had once worked on
a product with key similarities to the device the Larry and Roby were designing
– a vacuum system that carried away the fumes from a hot scalpel that
cauterized skin during surgery. Rickson
brought out a report describing different kinds of plastic tubing sold by
vendors. Larry Schubert commented, “Once
Rickson realized he could help us, he had to do it, or he wouldn’t be a good
IDEO designer.”

This simple
episode illustrates the attitude of wisdom and why it enables people to keep
learning and systems to keep getting better. Larry and Roby are smart people, but knew that if they acted like know
it alls, the design would suffer. They deferred to Rickson’s knowledge. They
reacted with a kind of confident humility we saw many times at IDEO. When Rickson offered to help, they knew and
he knew that – to improve the design – they had to listen to him, and follow-up
on his offer to help in the future.

This
happened about 10 years ago, but I still recall the “power” of IDEO’s culture,
dragging Rickson out of his workstation to help Larry and Roby.

P.S. This post reminds me of my fellow faculty
member at the d.school, Michael
Dearing, as he is so good at helping everyone (especially students) and
asking for help when he needs it. I am
teaching a course on Innovation
in Complex Organizations with Michael next term, and this is one of the
reasons that I am looking forward to it.

I don’t usually post the same quote twice in a row, but the strong reaction I am getting to my arguments about "Why Creativity and Innovation Suck" have convinced me that ought to put up Jim March’s quote one more time.  I urge anyone interested in innovation to read it carefully, as it is perhaps the most wise thing I’ve ever read on the subject. I am also repeating the quote because I fear that I’ve not made my main point clear enough: Yes, we need innovation and creativity; organizations can’t survive without it, and life would be far too dull without a constant influx of new idea and the associated hope of a better future. BUT just as doctors are obligated to tell patients about the risks and side effects of treatments, people who "sell" innovation ought to tell their "customers" about the hazards of living in a creative organization or the financial risks of launching a new product or company. The evidence about such drawbacks is, after all, quite clear — it helps the system, but many individual innovators suffer in the process. Similarly, I think that people who sell management ideas like Six Sigma and forced-ranking incentive schemes are under a similar obligation to talk about downsides and risks, and few of them talk about the drawbacks –so this isn’t just about creativity and innovation.

Back to Jim March. He is arguably the most prestigious living organizational theorist, and as you can see, quite eloquent. Note that what he is saying is supported by a large body of research, and that he does talk about "gains" from imagination — and there many gains and advantages.  But unlike most people who write about innovation and creativity in organizations, he talks about the risks and delusions too. Again, the quote: 

"Unfortunately,
the gains for imagination are not free. The protections for imagination
are indiscriminate. They shield bad ideas as well as good
ones—and there are many more of the former than the latter. Most
fantasies lead us astray, and most of
the consequences of imagination for individuals and individual
organizations
are disastrous. Most deviants end up on
the scrap pile of failed mutations, not as heroes of organizational
transformation. . . . There is, as a result, much that can be viewed as
unjust
in a system that induces imagination among individuals and individual
organizations in order to allow a larger system to choose among
alternative experiments. By glorifying imagination, we entice the
innocent into unwitting self-destruction (or if you prefer, altruism)."

P.S The talk that this quote was taken from was originally given by Jim March at
the Academy of Management Meetings in Vancouver in 1995. It was ultimately
published as March. J. G., “ The Future, Disposable Organizations, and the
Rigidities of Imagination”, in The
Pursuit of Organizational Intelligence, ed. J. G. March, (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999): 179-192.
The above quote is somewhat different in the final version, but I prefer the original from his conference presentation.

As things were
winding down, I was talking with some of the executives a few weeks back at our
Customer Focused
Innovation executive program about themes that we might emphasize more
in the program next year. I realized
that one of the topics that we didn’t devote much attention to, but that we
ought to, are the drawbacks of creativity and innovation – – both the reasons
that working in creative places can be an unnerving experience and the reasons
that trying to make money from creativity is a dangerous career path.  The business press — and U.S. culture more generally — treats innovation as something that is always a good thing. But I think that people
like me who “sell” creativity owe it to our students, clients, and collaborators
to talk about the drawbacks.

Toward that end, I
talk about some of the drawbacks in the closing chapter of Weird Ideas That Work. In addition to the edited excerpt below, I
would also be curious to hear form others about other drawbacks, as I am starting to worry that – – as much as I love the creative
process – —  it is important to warn
would-be innovators about the journey:

The
terms creativity, innovation, and fun are often used in the same breath. But before you rush ahead to build or join an
innovative company, I feel obliged to warn you about the hazards. Working in an innovative place can be
annoying and frustrating, or worse. Renowned authors including Stanford’s James Adams and The University of
California’s Barry Staw assert that many people say they want a creative workplace, but few would be happy if they actually
worked in one. Indeed, a few years ago
the Intel Corporation removed “Fun” from the list of core values that employees
wear on their badges. A cynic might say
that Intel has never been a fun place, so at least they are no longer
hypocritical about it. After all, Intel
is well-known encouraging conflict and internal competition. They even hold classes on how to use
“constructive confrontation.” Intel
might be a bit nastier than absolutely necessary, but to build a company where
innovation is a way of life, things need to be done that are unpleasant, or
even downright frightening.

……[Y]ou
should also think hard about the risks that the evolutionary model implies for
the average person or company with a new idea. The human tendency to be optimistic means that most of us believe we
will be among the small percentage who succeed. But the most likely outcome is that you or your company will be among
the many casualties required so that a few can survive and flourish. I return to James March one more time:

"Unfortunately,
the gains for imagination are not free. The protections for imagination are indiscriminate. They shield bad ideas as well as good
ones—and there are many more of the former than the latter. Most fantasies lead us astray, and most of
the consequences of imagination for individuals and individual organizations
are disastrous. Most deviants end up on
the scrap pile of failed mutations, not as heroes of organizational
transformation. . . . There is, as a result, much that can be viewed as unjust
in a system that induces imagination among individuals and individual
organizations in order to allow a larger system to choose among alternative experiments. By glorifying imagination, we entice the
innocent into unwitting self-destruction (or if you prefer, altruism)."

Silicon
Valley is renowned for the wealth it has produced, all those millionaires and
billionaires. But most start-ups fail to produce fabulous wealth, even those
funded by elite investors. Stories about the bursting of the Internet bubble can
be misleading, there has always been a high failure rate among new companies
during even the best of times. One
experienced entrepreneur, who helped to start four failed start-ups and two
successful start-ups, told me “Most new companies are just the road kill in a
system that makes venture capitalists rich.” Some of these “alternative experiments” fail quickly and do limited harm……

Others aren’t so lucky. Some companies and people burn through huge
amounts of money, devour decades of members’ lives, generate one promising idea
after another, yet never succeed. Shaman
Pharmaceuticals is such a case. CEO Lisa
Conte started Shaman in 1989 to “send ethnobotanists into the jungle to seek
out traditional healers and turn their ancient remedies into something you buy
at a pharmacy with a prescription – curing first-world diseases, funneling
royalties back to the third world and making a bundle for Conte and her
investors, which before long included big-time drug players like Eli Lilly." Shaman’s scientists collected leaves, bark,
and twigs from over 2,600 plants and isolated the active ingredient in each,  patented over 20 new compounds, and conducted
clinical trials for drugs to treat diarrhea, fungus, and diabetes. Unfortunately, a decade later, Shaman still
has no prescription drugs to sell and received a major setback when the United
States’ Food and Drug Administration insisted on further clinical trials for
its diarrhea drug.  After a 500 to 1 reverse stock spilt in 1999,
it switched to selling its diarrhea drug as a nutritional supplement rather
than as a prescription drug, and whether the company will survive is very much
in doubt.

I
don’t want to leave you with the impression that innovative companies are
horrible places or you are destined to lose all your money if you work in
one. Many people love the mess and
confusion. It is more satisfying to come
with up new ideas than to repeat the same actions – and the same thoughts –
again and again. It is exciting to work
with people who are thrilled about some new idea. Even though many new ideas fail, these
setbacks often occur where failure is tolerated, even rewarded. And there are large numbers of people who
have become rich working in such places, even if the percentage is small. But you should know the hazards of innovation
before devoting your days to it.”

P.S. Re-reading
this quote also reminds of the time that I teased venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson (in public –
at a talk in front of several hundred people).  I suggested to Steve that if VCs gave a complete and
accurate warning to the entrepreneurs that they funded about what is probably ahead of them,
it would need to include language something like “The odds are over 90% that
you will devote thousands of hours to this effort and it will fail in the
end. Moreover, even if it does become a
financial success, the odds are over 50% that you will banished from your
creation by your financial backers during the early years of the organization’s
life.” Steve took it all in stride,
laughing along with the rest of us – but he didn’t argue with me, because
although the actual odds might be somewhat higher or somewhat lower than I
proposed they are in the ballpark, and he knew it. Steve is also a pretty
nice guy, so that helped as well.

I was looking for reading for our course next term at the d.school called "Business Practice Innovation," as we might have the students do some prototyping of the "waiting in line experience."  I had this vague recollection of an old article on the psychology of waiting in lines. I was also thinking of the topic because it is Black Friday in the U.S., where many people get up absurdly early the day after Thanksgiving (and sometimes camp in front of stores) to get gifts at bargain prices (see the picture above at Wal-Mart). 

After a bit of web search, I found it, and to my surprise, it was written by David Maister in 1985. And is called "The Psychology of Waiting Lines."   It hasn’t lost a bit of spark.  I will keep looking for articles on the subject, but I would be surprised if anything this good has been written since. His guidelines are simple, but have powerful implications for designing the experience:

Occupied Time Seems Shorter Than Unoccupied Time

People Want to Get Started (e.g., once you devote a little attention to people — hand them a menu or a drink or some task to do, they feel like things have started and the time seems to go by more quickly)

Anxiety Makes Waits Longer

Solo Waits Feel Longer Than Group Waits

I urge you to check out the details.  Not only are these ideas ones that organizations and their designers can actually use, most also can be traced to basic — and well-researched — psychological principles.

P.S. In looking for a good picture, I found this one of people waiting in line in Shanghai that looks like an especially bleak experience to me — I’d love to see a d.school class tackle that one. 

I seem to be on a "design thinking" rampage this holiday weekend, so I couldn’t resist pointing you to Diego’s latest post over at Metacool on "Where is Your Place for Failing?."  It starts:

I heard this statement expressed the other week while walking around the campus of a thriving business:

                "This is the building where we do failure"

Check out the rest.  And look here and here for a bit of evidence to support Diego’s point. 

Check-out this video at Metacool in Diego’s post My Workplace is a Weird and Wonderful Place.  I confess that I am feeling jealous, although the d.school is a lot more fun than any other part of Stanford, I am not sure we ever did anything this fun — although I note that we have an upcoming party with flamenco dancing lessons. Also, on a content note, I have been having a polite running argument with another professor about about the value of Six Sigma methods for building a creative workplace  — I think that Six Sigma is great for getting the most out of routine operations, but despite claims that there special forms of Six Sigma that spark innovation, I remain skeptical (see this story about 3M, which not only shows their firm’s problems with Six Sigma, but also does a nice job of reviewing related research). 

To return to IDEO, If you can explain to me how this lovely performance is related to Six Sigma methods of any kind, I would be most curious — and I confess — skeptical as hell. This video is about culture and the feeling that one has permission, even an obligation, to do creative things.