Finding the meaning of Innovation. | ADandPR Lab
Upon watching three videos on internet (The art of innovation | Guy Kawasaki | TEDxBerkeley, Speed up Innovation with Design Thinking | Guido Stompff | TEDxVenlo, Our approach to innovation is dead wrong | Diana Kander | TEDxKC) about innovation, we came to the conclusion that innovation was never about an idea or just an amazing start up but putting your blood, sweat and tears behind trial and error in order to give the world your final product.
In the first video, Guy Kawasaki explains the art of innovation through a ten step manual. At the beginning he says that people should make a meaning instead of aiming to make money if they want to succeed in what they do. Secondly, he mentions that entrepreneurs should create a mantra on why their mission should exist. The third step is to ‘’Jump on the next step’’, meaning that the entrepreneurs should always be thinking about the next step and how to improve and evolve their products. The fourth step on this manual is to “ Roll the dicee”. This step is aiming the product itself, it should be according to Kawasaki, deep, intelligent, complete, empowering and elegant. The fifth quality of great innovation is to “ Not worry, be crappy”, meaning that the final product might have some bad or nonfunctional elements to it but it should be worrisome. The sixth step is about letting your product be used by the consumers the way they want to use it, do not be proud. The seventh step of great innovation is to polarize people. Kawasaki actually says “ Great products polarize people”.
The eighth step is ‘’Churn, baby churn’’ this phrase is taken from a popular song from the band Panthers ‘’Burn, baby burn’’ which means you should listen to your gut feeling and create the product the way you want but as soon as the product gets out in the world you should listen to your consumers and then from what the customers opinions and thoughts are you should change it and keep evolving it.
The ninth quality is to create a product that is not only valuable but it’s also unique in its field. The tenth and final quality is ‘’Don’t let the bozos drag you down’’ which means that you should not let the negative comments of others drag you down and what you should always do is ‘’Jump into the next curve’’ always see what you can do to make a product even better.
The second video we analyzed in our effort to define the meaning of innovation was another TEDxtalk. A talk by Diana Kander, a successful entrepreneur, public speaker and consultant. The purpose of this video is to explain how our approach to innovation is wrong and in conclusion, how far from achieving innovative things our generation is. Diana Kander, begins by sharing a personal story about a time she was attacked. Though, she has had self-defense classes she could not apply what she had learned in real life. Learning how to score points in a controlled environment, is no practice on a realistic environment. Similarly, this is the way business people are taught how to work. Based on the same flaw; controlled, unrealistic conditions. The key is how we teach people to allocate their time. The longer you work on your plan in a vacuum (meaning; planning without actual action), the more likely you are to fail. Innovation can be achieved by interacting with costumers, finding out their opinion, if they would use a product, how and why they would use it. Instead of teaching people to spend time planning, we have to teach them to spend time associating with those who can help find the focus. Starting real world interactions as soon as possible can bring data. Data that can then be applied to start building. Innovators have to be detectives, people who use facts and evidence to predict how their costumers behave, not fortune tellers; spending their time planning without facts and ultimately failing. So, this TEDxtalk teaches us, that innovation is prototyping, testing, not being afraid of failure and different perspectives.
In the third video, Guido Stompff explains speed up innovation. First of all, he says that designers should explore new ideas and problems should be challenges for their creativity. He discovered how ideas arise in teams, captured the origins of innovation and revealed what designers contribute.” It’s all about teamwork”, Guido says. Designers show what might be, catapulting teams forward. As Guido remarks, smiling a bit: “how can we know what we want, until we see what might be possible?”. Moreover, he emphasizes that people love to talk about innovation and most companies don’t have a clue how to organize innovation development. For that reason, he presents the ‘Catch-22’ of innovation. A catch 22 is a brilliant, untranslatable English phrase for situations whereby individuals are stuck in between contradictory, often implicit rules. Guido mentions that if a person has a great idea for something totally new, he will pitch it to bankers, investors, managers. The odds are 200 to 1 that he has to answer questions like: How much money will it make? what will the return on investment be? He can’t answer these questions, because at this point, he has no clue. This is what keeps individuals from innovation within organizations. Guido brought up the coffee filter challenge. The first step is that great ideas are never born upfront. Rather they emerge on the go. The second step is that ideas fundamentally arise in between us. People respond onto each other and in the end something new is created no one could conceive on his own. Last but not least, ideas arise while we interact with things. Play, sketch, make and try. Design thinking is about creating and testing options in order to solve a problem. Much less about analysis and causes. Visualizations is what catapults teams forward. Visualizations are a language we all understand. And consequently, can reflect on. People commit themselves to ideas that can be understood instantly and are persuasively presented.
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Team names: Marianna Menegatou , Konstantina , Eva Vasiou, Amelia K., Dikibo Kwnstantina , Maria Christopoulou
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