1Ten Faces of Innovation

Innovation Strategy:Ten Faces of Innovation

Jonathan WeaverUDM Mechanical Engineering Department

weaverjm@udmercy.edu

2Ten Faces of Innovation

References

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

3Ten Faces of Innovation

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

4Ten Faces of Innovation

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 what’s 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

5Ten Faces of Innovation

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

6Ten Faces of Innovation

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

7Ten Faces of Innovation

The Hurdler

• Hurdlers do more with less

• Don’t 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

• Goodman’s lost their only restaurant customer for their bagged lettuce and created a new industry

8Ten Faces of Innovation

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

9Ten Faces of Innovation

The Director

• Orchestrates a company’s 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

10Ten Faces of Innovation

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 Moore’s 2 oz paint samples

11Ten Faces of Innovation

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

12Ten Faces of Innovation

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 Kitchen’s guarantee)

13Ten Faces of Innovation

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

14Ten Faces of Innovation

Go Win at Innovation!