Solve the puzzle on how to move your innovation forward!

Have you ever wondered why it is that some people are persuasive and are able to move their innovation projects forward?  Why is it that some of us are able to persuade others to understand and accept new concepts?  Some innovators are able to inspire and influence a team to accomplish a common goal. 

Some of us have had the benefit of a significant investment in training to learn how to be persuasive.  However, even though we were taught the techniques, we never understood why some of these techniques worked.

I recently read the book, Influence, by Robert B. Cialdini.  As I read, I finally understood why these persuasive techniques are so influential on others.   Why does our brain instinctually react to certain situations?  Why are we then persuaded to do things we ordinarily would not do?

You will find some practical tips here on how you can immediately create influence and become more persuasive in your efforts to move your innovation projects forward. 

1.)    Ask for a ten minute appointment instead of a longer appointment with executives.  It is far more likely they will grant you a small request for time.  Ten minutes is sufficient time to convey your concept at a strategic level.

 2.)    Quantify and present your idea or initiative in terms of how much money the company “will lose” if it is not adopted instead of how much it will save.

 3.)    To successfully implement your innovation be aware that others need social proof from their respected peers before so they will know how to react to your innovation.  The best way to accomplish acceptance is to identify the most respected individuals within your peer group and persuade them first.  Acceptance of innovation comes from the side not from the top.

 4.)    Explain the benefits of your innovation to team members.  Ask them if they support your initiative.  When they respond in the affirmative, ask them to describe to you why they support your innovation.  You must gain a voluntary commitment, they must be actively engaged, and they must declare their support.  Now you have significantly increased the likelihood they will support your innovation within the organization. 

 5.)    Customize your presentation to each unique receiver.  Use the first letter of that executive’s name or a phrase that sounds similar in the title.  For example:  If their last name is Smith, then begin with an “S.”  To increase the likelihood you will gain their mind share, you might name your presentation, “Sailing into the Future or “Smile on your way to the Bank.”

 6.)    Name your innovation or initiative with a word that is simple and easy to pronounce.  Think of Apple or Google.  If it is hard to pronounce, you have immediately lost your audience before you even began your presentation.  Keep your language simple and straightforward during the rest of your presentation.  Many of us use polysyllabic words in an effort to impress.  The end result is confusion and a loss of persuasiveness.  Remember to keep it simple.

I know these persuasive techniques are effective in moving projects forward.  I have used them many times with superb results.  Try them and let me know if they work for you. 

What other ideas have you used to be persuasive and influential?

Connie Harryman is President of the American Creativity Association-Austin Global.  She is the CEO of Applied Concepts Creativity and identifies herself as a Creativity Developer.  You are invited to connect with Creative Connie on LinkedIn, facebook, and Twitter.

I am reading Tim Brown’s book, Change by Design, How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation.  IDEO is ranked among the ten most innovative companies in the world.  Tim is the CEO of IDEO. 

I was intrigued by the concepts of divergent and convergent thinking.  To experience design thinking, you must understand the difference between divergent and convergent thinking and how they can work together. 

With convergent thinking you are looking at a set of available choices in an existing world.  Divergent thinking is about creating new choices and seeing possibilities that no one else has seen.

When you begin with divergent thinking, you can maximize your choices.  As you increase the number of choices, your life will have become more complex.  However, as Tim Brown comments, “Divergent thinking is the route, not the obstacle, to innovation.”

With divergent thinking you multiply your options as you create choices.  You have more choices in regard to how you understand and apply consumer behavior in creating new products or new experiences. 

With convergent thinking, you head towards a solution.  In the convergent piece you eliminate options and focus on making the choices you wish to implement.

Why does understanding the difference between divergence and convergent thinking matter?  Westerners are taught to take inputs, analyze them against predefined criteria, and then converge upon a single answer.  Convergent thinking is not a good way to probe into the future and create new possibilities.  It is about finding the most expedient answer versus the right answer. 

Divergent thinking opens your mind to many possibilities.  These are two different phases that go together.  If you apply divergent thinking, you can create choices that have not existed before.  When you go into the convergent phase, you are well prepared to find the right answer.

I often use iMindMapping software and techniques to achieve divergent thinking.  What process or tools do you use to stimulate your mind to create new choices for your future?

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic:
Idea: A Framework for Driving Innovation Throughout Your Organization

Speaker:
Daryl Dunbar: SVP of Innovation, REED ELSEVIER

Daryl Dunbar built out an innovation team and created an IDEA methodology. His background includes experiences at British Telecom.

IDEA means: Inspire, Discover, Evaluate, and Act.

We need a common language. Innovation is about ideas that result in value creation. Value may not always be about economics. Value occurs at the intersection of capability, viability, and desirability.

Innovation can be of different types:

1.) Products/services
2.) Process
3.) Business models
4.) Management practices

Innovation comes in degrees:

1.) Sustain and grow.
2.) Build new revenue streams.
3.) Build new business.
4.) Creating strategic alternatives.

IDEA Framework was developed, not as a process, not as a procedure nor as a workshop. It is a loose framework.

There are 4 modules:

1.) From infinite possibilities to finite action.
2.) Need to frame the challenge.
3.) Pick your leaping off point
4.) Set boundaries, set goals.

Think about what you are trying to achieve. Assemble many different types of stimulus such as stakeholder interviews. In a cross-functional sharing session, you can ask “What are we doing now?”

Obtain agreement on the type of stimulus to be used. How can you inspire people to innovate, to think differently, and to engage the world in a different way.

For example he used IDEA to develop these customer propositions.

• Inspire: uncover themes, pain points, what people doing, follow customers around, themes generate trends, then pull out insights.
• Discover: divergent thinking wide leads to convergent thinking, develop blue print and road map, and see what execution could looks like.
• Evaluate: engage customers, get compelling business case, understanding of where it fits and how use it.
• Act: Launch a pilot. Oftentimes what happens in organizations is that there are plenty of ideation sessions, and then the ideas are cataloged, rolled up, and stuck in a cabinet and forgotten. You need to act on it.

Target 100 logged ideas. Combine ideas and stretch them, look at trends and themes and build things out to draw out large opportunities.

When you evaluate, build compelling propositions and business cases. It is very important to engage with customers and potential partners at this time.

Then Act to pilot, refine, and launch successful propositions. Be careful with measurement systems because you will get the behavior you incent. Stay away from ROI, it kills innovation. A payback in 12 months is unrealistic. Do a pain-gain matrix and consider the value of the opportunity to the degree of difficulty to execute. Create an opportunity map with timeframes labeled 3-5 years in the future.

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Speaker: Dr. Andreas Bong, Senior Vice President, HILTI

Topic: Customer Orientation Throughout the Innovation Process

The focus is on the front end of innovation.

Agenda:

• HILTI
• Innovation management
• Customer integration
o Fuzzy front end
o Development

You cannot duplicate what they have done at HILTI. They use a direct sales model with only 30 people selling to their customers. HILTI is about cultural diversity and this fosters creativity and the outcome of innovation. Their employees include more than 50 nationalities.

HILTI has a worldwide presence for construction professionals worldwide, they increase productivity, and provide the benefits from innovation to generate significant added value. They are known for system solutions for professionals.

Sales development doubled the company in the last ten years. They invest 4% in R&D, 10% is done in applied research.

In the HILTI business model they have a common purpose and values. HILTI passionately creates enthusiastic customers to build a better future! The foundation of their culture is integrity, courage, teamwork and commitment. They put people first.

Business improvement, customer competence concentration, customer needs versus requirements, innovative and value adding solutions, management and support creates higher customer satisfaction and better bottom line results.

Innovation management at HILTI is integrated with a holistic view. They have normative innovation management, strategic innovation management, and operational innovation management.

The focus is on outside-in innovation. This is a contradiction as innovation. Horizon 2020 is the identification of future key technologies. They look in the crystal ball to determine global trends and predict construction trends. They generate various scenarios using “Construction 2020” to forecast HILTI relevant applications in 2020, and to create a HILTI relevant global technology roadmap.

They are driven by sustainability. HILTI identified trends by interviewing customers to come up with scenarios. This led to the creation of roadmaps. They learn to survive in each scenario, so they are prepared regardless of which trends or applications occur.

It is important to understand applications and customer needs. What is their value chain? What is their application chain? How do they operate?

HILTI uses science methodologies, work methods, work flow and task durations. There is cooperation and communication to review problems, errors, and identify opportunities for improvement.

By observing their customers at work, HILTI learns what their customers really need. They do this by using video. The customers who are observed forget they are being videotaped. They then behave normally in a brief amount of time. Think about this, 10% of total construction costs are caused by job site injuries. Return on sales of the average construction company is only 2-3%.

Dr. Bong then shows us several examples of innovation at HILTI. One involves the installation of cable trays. It is a solution that is low tech, with low competition, and with a high improvement potential that saves 15-20% of the total time needed. Another example is to replace a yardstick with a laser measurement.

Once you have an idea and a business plan, then go out to customers and ask for their acceptance of that solution.

Enthusiasm creates innovation! Innovation creates enthusiasm!

Key Points are:

1.) Employee satisfaction is the key driver for customer satisfaction.
2.) Understand your customer’s needs.
3.) Idea of scenarios, learn to survive in each scenario.
4.) Creating enthusiastic users is a very steep one.

Topic: The Invention Environment and its Difficulties

Speaker: Peter Hilfinger: Inventor of the Powered Toothbrush & former R&D Director, BRAUN/ORAL B

Peter Hilfinger invented the electric toothbrush; he was the leader of the team. He outlined the conditions for innovation as exemplified by the development of a revolutionary electric toothbrush. Braun/Oral B will now be a part of Procter and Gamble.

They were searching for a new product to fit into their portfolio. There was a big potential in the worldwide market, but there was an existing electric toothbrush that had not done well. It had no special benefits and the price was very high. It was a conventional electric toothbrush that had the same thing as a manual toothbrush.

There was a need to offer benefits that the manual toothbrush did not offer. Therefore, they tried to find out why people did not like existing electric toothbrushes. There were few consumers who are willing to pay for same benefits as a manual toothbrush.

Recommended time for brushing of 3 minutes was perceived as 3 minutes. Consumers use their toothbrush less than one minute; this is still true today.

Desired Benefits:
1. Is more convenient to use and creates pleasant sensation when being used: leaves you with a good mouth feel.
2. Does a better job at cleaning, compared with common manual cleaning practices.
3. Does it in less time than the recommended three minutes.
4. A brush head motion which was seen as not reproducible manually. So everybody understands that an electric device is necessary.

You cannot innovate by asking people what they want. This is useless and not productive. If you use nonfunctioning mockups, consumers do not understand the concept. This is due to psychology.

Consumers like mirror images of themselves versus pictures of themselves. They have strong preferences to old established ways. You have to make the decisions. Recommend strongly, otherwise remain in the mainstream. They were not committed to a final business plan. They only had a rough idea of what they wanted to do.

If a final business plan is approved then any new idea is reviewed against the business plan.

The electric toothbrush was considered as the most unneeded product. One of the features of the new electric tooth brush is that the brush head is circular.

Conditions for innovation include:

1. Top management understands and supports that final project plan has to be flexible while in progress.
2. R&D management has the freedom to set interim targets.

Each team member is aware of the entire project, including the financial targets and the desired contribution to the success of the company. The R&D team agrees with the project targets set up by the management! Meanwhile the team develops a sense of responsibility for the whole project Team members enjoy periods of creative rest.

Their initial tries resulted in bleeding gums. Eventually a working sample was built. The prototype outperformed the manual toothbrush with a better interdental plaque index, it was more convenient, it had a better feel of clean, and the teeth felt more polished.

They had some difficulties with production of the product. They were given more time to fix these issues and resolved them by using different materials to produce the bevel gears. Top management decided to go into the market.

Peter Hilfinger summarizes by saying that innovation needs freedom and creative rest, do not press innovation work into timeframes and financial constraints too early, and rely on your own strength.

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic: Inventor’s Forum
The MP3 Story: From Basic Research to Changing the World of Music

Speaker:
Prof Karlheinz Brandenburg: Inventor, MP3 Format, Director, Franhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology

The MP3 story involves basic research standardization. Internet marketing works. Lessons learned are to try to do the impossible.

Today there is decoding functionality on every PC. There is playback on mobile phones, DVD players, and alarm clocks. Name a device category such as MP3 players. This stands for the move from physical media to the internet economy. It earns money.

Prof Brandenburg took us on a historical journey:

It began with only some dreams in 1982. We should use ISDN to transmit music. There was coding of pictures, video, and speech. However it was not of high quality audio signals. Digital audio broadcasts needed high quality with a low bit rate audio.

Work started at Erlangen University and Frauhofer IIS and other places at the same time. What they wanted was the transmission of music at 1/10th data rate. The basic idea was perceptual coding. The signal sink was to be our ears.

1983: The philosophy is we have CD; so who needs this anyway?

1986: Now they are saying that this will never work well enough for the “golden ears” in the industry.

1988: MPEG starts soliciting proposals for video.

1989-1991: Fierce competition emerges.

1992: MPEG-1 audio gets three modes
1. DCC
2. DAB,DVB, CD-I
3. Feeding audio over ISDN

Conquering the market means understanding what do with it? They used the internet as a marketing tool due to a lack of funds. They used shareware as a tool to get their coder to people. Everybody should have access to good software. The first plans were to do PC based decoding.

1994: There are nearly no licensees for their technology.

1995: World space decides to use MP3; this is the first CE application.

1995: Ricky Adar wants to start the internet music distribution business, he asks us, “Do you know that you will destroy the music industry?”

1995: Harald Popp and Dagfinn Bach visit the offices of a major record label in Munich.

1995: First software is running on Windows.

1996: Students write other decoders.
First license issued to Microsoft.

1997: MP3 encoder is stolen and now the technology can be found widely.
Mp3.com starts. This is freeware. This helped because it gave many people the ability to use the technology. This leads to Internet pirates in the music industry.

The first MP3 websites began at the end of 1996 / early 1997.

Summer 1997: Legal actions are taken and are documented in USA Today. This publicity leads to more pirates.

Music is the first to get away from physical media. You must ask yourself why? Innovation is driven by inventions. Inventions are driven by curiosity. Children are curious; we need to stay that way.

The key factors for success are vision, overtime effort, and stubbornness. You also need luck. Ideas from many people helped MP3 to become the best system by its time. There is no single inventor of the MP3. One of the strengths in Europe is the ability to build teams and work together. They set the joint success over the individual. Listen to the market and do not give up.

The age of digital media has just arrived.

Here’s a short clip from his presentation below:

Topic: Delivering a Superior and More Profitable Experience

Speaker:
Ian Forrest: Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer, GE MONEY

This is a story about the GE Money Bank in the Czech Republic and about delivering a superior and more profitable customer experience through customer-centric innovation.

Key facts include:

• 4th largest bank by branches
• 1 M+ customers
• 4000 employees

Their bank branches are located on back streets. They have been around for 10 years. They are mainly a consumer finance company then they became a full service retail bank. Previously branches were built based on cost and were quite spartan in decor. They were designed for the staff to use. The customer was not considered. The branch is a critical aspect of the banking relationship. Currently they have 218banks.

GE has a strong history of innovation and it is important to think about innovation structurally and consider the investment, time, and resources.

Ian Forrest outlines some basic principles:

1. Start outside in, not inside out.

GE Money Bank looked at analogous experiences. They used an “outside- in” approach. Ask yourself, “How much of time does your marketing team devote outside of your industry?” They explored comparable experiences aligned with their brand fit.

2. Examines tails not averages for insight.

To “Examine the Tails” they found that impactful innovation will not originate through understanding of averages. Their big insights include an emphasis on making things easy, clear and more rewarding. They identified two types of user journeys and four behavioral segments. They recognized that financial literacy is an opportunity for growth. They focused on customers who aspire to personal consultation. They remove the “Q” stress, and deliver a proper send-off with a handshake.

3. Design for behaviors and use.

They design for behaviors and focus on the behavioral segments that use the branch the most and they design for how the customer wants to use the branch.

4. Creates value through understanding key moments.

They invest in moments that matter most by aligning and placing an emphasis with customer needs and expectations. They have low-tech innovations around moments that matter to manage expectations and “tune” branch traffic. The branches have mapped traffic flows. The goal is to enable families to focus on their consultation versus distractions.

5. Test to fail and learn faster.

They have a process for rapid testing and learning. When they make mistakes, they want to do it at “no” cost fast. The idea is to fail fast, fail cheap. They have a learning library.

One of their “little” mistakes involved the type of people they hire. New models require new processes and sometimes different people to execute. Their new branch was staffed with a branch manager and associates. They tried to use this existing staff but it did not work. They had to hire completely new staff with completely different skill sets. They hire from hospitality, travel agencies, and hotels. This has improved their business and brand performance.

6. Customer centric innovation starts with the customer or the customer’s specific problem.

Now their branches are brightly lighted, with a beautiful décor, and clean. Customers encounter a warm greeting, and have privacy for consultations in a circular meeting place that emphasizes “we.” This creates an environment to allow the banker to work closely with the client.

GE Money has been able to drive customer satisfaction from 6th place in 2008 to the #1 ranking in customer satisfaction for banking in the Czech Republic in 2009. They drive operational performance to create the branch of the future. They see encouraging trends in performance.

GE Money targets customers who have money versus customers who need money. The breakeven point is 9 months.

6 things summarized:
1.) Start from the outside in and explore analogous experiences for a broader frame of reference.
2.) Examine the tails—more insight can be gained from the advocates and the disgusted.
3.) Design for behavior and usage—avoiding traditional segmentation factors.
4.) Focus on moments that matter most through prioritizing.
5.) Test to fail and learn faster.
6.) Measure, and modify constantly.

What are we innovating and why are two questions we do not ask often enough.

Here’s a short clip from his presentation below:

Speaker: Robert Klanten, Publisher, GESTALTEN
Topic – Design Keynote Session: Undercurrents

Gestalten is a publishing company that develops content and cutting-edge visual culture worldwide. They present visual trends and timeless substance. Gestalten has published more than three hundred books that document and anticipate vital design movements

Robert Klanten begins by outlining some of the undercurrents of design thinking which include the trends of digitalization, materialization, and sustainability. Design thinking term is thrown around like innovation. Form follows function. Anglo Saxon design is more image conscious. U.S. visual culture and consumer goods are associated with each other.

Today the world wide exchange of images occurs through digitalization and the Internet. Piracy is occurring. You only need a computer and a little bit of energy for digitalization. This increases the demand for democratization of design. Images are reused without regard for aesthetics. Since the internet is so fragmented, this leads to a lack of references being noted.

For example, today most fonts sell at fraction of what used to sell for. Everyone can find fonts and images and everyone is doing it. Think about “generation slash/slash.” Facebook and MySpace is more important to the 20 year old demographic than acquiring a professional education.

In regard to materialization and the extension of material, a lot of information communicated by newspapers and hard print is now done on the Internet. Graphic design now has a new image of itself. The telephone book is no longer up to date. Photography is replacing painting. Articles engage in visual storytelling.

However, material and space cannot be communicated over a telephone wire. Designers create installations and atmospheres to make their own unique impression. Design and new craft go hand in hand. Paper is a favorite material. Visualize the totality of processes. You can participate in the experience. It cannot be produced by automation. The design itself reflects the time invested in it. You create a self-identity, that of a serious designer.

When we think about sustainability, beautiful innovation may be graceful degradation. How can we make it more productive? This involves some complexity where product designers combine unusual materials. Robert Klanten views himself not as a problem solver but as a problem thinker.

Young designers are using chosen stylistic tools which are not particularly innovative. They are using traditional equipment. Refusal, irritation and deletion can be deliberately included.

Sometimes commercial clients approach designers with own personal identities. Self publishing and e-zines are quite popular. You can also combine photocopying with screen prints. Storytelling is favorite technique. It is about attraction versus usability.