Creativity is a social as much as a mental process

Get inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci when thinking about innovation today

HR: “Today, more people turn their back to a promotion. For a babyboomer, it is uncomprehensible”

“The best way to kill creativity in a team is letting the boss speak first”

Mass customization, business model of the future ?

I recently bought a laptop on Dell Computer’s website. No problem. Ten days later, the device was delivered.

Among the many options within Dell’s order process, I could choose de design on the back of the laptop. My choice, though, was limited to a range of propositions, going from a full purple colour version to an arty futuristic composition. And what about a drawing of mine ? Or a picture of my childrens ? The view from my appartment, during the last vacation ? No clue…

Would Dell be in a mindset of Mass Customization, this feature would have been available on the website, may we think.

What about design mass customization ?

All right. Perhaps plastic printing technologies is not that developped yet. So far, any electonic device manufacturer isn’t abble to deliver a washing machine in the exact olive green colour I wish to fit with my walls. Though, several online companies live now on the model “the customer is the designer”. Not the least are textile producers like Threadless, Lafraise or Spreadshirt. He/she can bring his/her own symbol, drawing, tattoo, message (as far as not copyrighted) and make it printed on the clothes. Cafe Press users, another example, sold goods for 100 millions $ of self customized T-shirt.

Mass customization is taking ground. Examples flourish, where one can custom its own wine, its music instrument or a piece of furniture.

Frank Piller, a researcher from the RWTH Aachen University in Germany, is confident that mass customization is heading to a bright future. Even if we are still in early days :

“The market for mass customization still is a tiny niche, but growing rapidly. Confirming the research we recently finalized for our SERVIVE project (an EU funded project on mass customization or apparel), the Spreadshirters confirmed our assumption that customized products are still addressing a very small fraction of the market only. The core task today is to educate the market, not so much surprising it with ever new offerings. Most consumers just have never heard about the opportunity that there is something else then ready-made stuff on the shelves. Sounds strange to you when you are reading this blog and this lengthy posting until here, but these people exist. And they are the majority!”

Personaly, I look forward to see car manufacturers letting their customer order and choose online the colour and the flavour of their new vehicle’s outfit….

Crowdsourcing and supply chain

The toy producer Lego is not doing something else, by the way, with his succesful Lego Mindstorm platform, where fans can design their own robot, machine, truck, etc.

But the Danish company adds something on top of that. The best designed products will be put into production and broadly marketed, with a royalty fee given back to the original designer. There, mass customization meets crowdsourcing and the boundaries between client and vendor are shrinking.

Should mass customization  take off, the impact for the supply chain management, transportation, logistics, will be substantial. Or maybe not. After all, we already live in a time-to-market economy, as Dell, Nike or Levi-Straus show. With mass customization, the challenge will be to open the array of choice, not restrict it to a preselected list of features,  in order to allow a real personnalisation of the items. That is a new way to innovate.

Netflix: drive a company by values, not by processes

Otis College of Art & Design (Los Angeles): “Our graduates will work in jobs that do not exist today”

Gregg Fraley: “Ideas are not expensive. Only the implementation stage costs money”

“If your are not inspiring as a leader you shoud ask yourself what is wrong with this pictures” . Gregg Fraley, creativity and innovation expert, author, speaker, and ideation facilitator, had a rich professional life with a lot different jobs and functions (in the interactive TV industry, a.o.). He went through successes as well as disappointment. “My failure teached me a lot. I have learned the hard way” tells the expert. Due to those experiences, Gregg Fraley is more convinced than ever:” innovation is the key thing in company”

Nowadays, Gregg Fraley advises companies all around the world. Beside, the author gives speeches about the ways innovation shoud be implemented.

Globe Corp.biz met the creativity and innovation expert at the Creawal Forum 2009 in Liège.

Innovation: not a isolated process

Two tips to avoid ineffective and without brainstorming overnight

Though, brainstorming requires some precaution: “Pay attention to what comes before and after the brainstorming. Before it must be prepared, be well aware of market needs. Clearly identify challenges that must be met. If you brainstorming out of a vacuum. You may come with great ideas but they wont necessarily sells or be applicable. After brainstorming it is important to  keep track of all ideas and take action on the basis of some of them. This step is strategic, by doing so you show that you take these sessions seriously. This way, your employees will be keen to generate quality ideas”

“Generate new ideas  doesn’t cost money”, Fraley stresses. Only their implementation requires an investment. You can even sell some of your ideas “because what attracts investors if it is a good idea?”

Difference between creativity and innovation, the definition of Gregg Fraley

Eventually, the consultant explains the difference between creativity and innovation. For Gregg Fraley Creativity is “a novelty that is useful” while innovation is “using a novelty that is useful and generate one way or another value. Whether it is money or improvement in processes. However, we should not limit the creativity to art and self expression, adds Gregg Fraley. Being creative can also mean making decisions or doing some analysis. “There can be no innovation without creativity, any business needs to encourage it”, sums up the expert.

Worth reading on the topic:

Emphasis on Innovation, Brand Building during Recession

Open innovation and other foolish ideas

Creative Problem Solving, interview with Gregg Fraley (Jack’s notebook)

“If HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times as profitable” (Hewlett Packard)

The difference between an idea and a suggestion

Can we say that an idea pops up whenever we give a suggestion ? The question is more meaningful than it sounds. Corporations’ future is written with the ink of their ability to innovate. Any innovation, though, starts with an idea. To manage innovation begins by an ideas management.

Open companies foster all employee’s ideas. However, “after the initial excitements and few hundreds od ‘ideas’, you start seeing ‘ideas’ that are not ideas, but according to people who are supposed to take the idea ahead (senior management), these are mere ’suggestions’ “, says  Prakasan Kappoth, a knowlegde management expert working for MindTree, in Bangalore.

The border between ideas and suggestion is not obvious to draw. For people in charge of sorting these creative propositions, that’s a challenge.  They don’t want to inhibit employees. What people can do, at least, is to educate their staff : yes,  there is a difference. They should become aware, after a while, whether they formulate an idea or a suggestion (with, likely, a lesser creative impact in the latter case). It would lower the level of disappointment should the suggestion not be taken into account as a big step forward for the company.

Steven Swann, consultant in creativity, with some others, brought part of the answer to the question, though: “Suggestions are seeds. Ideas are seeds that have sprouted and innovations are plants in full bloom…”

Steven Swann adds a parable which gives a pictured story of how this difference applies in organisations. How, if not taken seriously, it can alleviate the effectiveness of a social body. Ideas and suggestions need cares, but not of the same kind. Left alone, they can interfere on each other and never lead to an actual innovation.

In crisis time, senior executives are keen to limit spending on the creativity processes. It could be a mistake, hardly obvious when the storm is over…

(photo Flickr MaryCB)

Jef Staes and the Red monkey theorem