Reflection 1
Juanita Jacobraja
Ideation and Innovation extend beyond coming up with new ideas and implementing them. Before I delve into the OpenIDEO case, i would like to talk about a few key points from the Introductory articles that gave me a whole new perspective on what creativity and innovation is. First comes the Medici Effect- the interplay of ideas combined from different fields and disciplines. The article gives a clear idea of how stepping into the intersection of fields can boost creativity, lead to remarkable and ground-breaking ideas and open up entirely new fields, rather than just operating from a set field and continue to reap rewards in the same direction. The article gives us a touch of reality to intersectional interactions with plenty of anecdotes and real-life examples where the effect was employed thus leading to some of the most iconic revolutions of all time. Another fascinating point was that creativity does not just stop with coming up with new and unexplored ideas, but with the realization of the idea and assessing the societal impact of it. Dawkin’s theory of genetic evolution and the Renaissance are perfect examples of how being intersectional in creativity is way more powerful and warrants long-term success than directional innovation.
Reflecting on the Open IDEO case studies:
OpenIDEO is a successful example of using intersectional innovation to generate ideas/solve problems.
OpenIDEO is a collaborative, open innovation process that involves diverse factions of creative workers that come together to tackle design challenges. An interesting working strategy of this firm is functioning in small amorphous groups and the continuous experimentation. IDEO when it comes to clients, use a structured process, tailored to the client’s needs (with the help of customer surveys and user reviews), involving intersectional ideation, continual experimentation, prototyping, and implementation. It uses a user-centered approach to problem solving, which I think is a huge contributor to their success.
The collaboration with Air New Zealand is a perfect example to showcase the working methods of the firm and the factors that take this firm to successful heights. The team had collected lots and lots of data points to brainstorm and learn from, which is personalized customer service at its finest. Once all the refining and prototyping has been done, they get down to implementation. They also can be called whenever needed after the implementation to look at any design problems challenges that come up, which holds their reliability high among the user base.
A mindmap of the working of OpenIDEO with respect to the Air New Zealand project has been attached below for better understanding:
Main changes that took place on Open IDEO and my views on it:
The firm initially started out with Hulme working at IDEO wondering if open models of innovation would enhance quality of IDEO projects even though there were lot of risks involved in an open source software community. After months of brainstorming and researching different probabilities, Hulme came up with what is now called OpenIDEO. He wanted people participate in the process of designing and innovation rather than being in a black box and implementing solutions. The biggest change that OpenIDEO went through was in my opinion, the client experience.
Rigorous amplification of client services and user experience:
In my view, the major reason for the success of the firm is the personalized and well-organized client service. The firm after establishment worked heavily on enhancing the user experience with constant updates and to ensure communication and collaboration between members. The diagram below draws out some of the ideas the firm came up with, to boost user experience:
They ensured that clients they drew in from various fields, backgrounds and with varying skillsets were interested in finding solutions and coming up with innovations. They worked a lot of building and mobilizing the community they put together. They offered recognition for talent. They cultivate passion in the workers which highly makes this firm stay in top of their business.
Service design of OpenIDEO in comparison to product design:
Product Design basically deals with ideating and developing products that meets specific market needs and user problems. On the other hand, this platform focuses on creating personalized experience that caters to the needs of users with high value solutions. This is usually achieved by mapping out customer history, understanding their working, data, and designing relevant solutions as I mentioned above.
My thoughts on the engine way of OpenIDEO is that it taps creative enthusiasm and fosters enthusiasm to showcase work and work in public forums. The future of OpenIDEO is looking really good and it is setting a good role model for firms that aim at innovation and solving design problems effectively.
Lastly, one other successful service that is similar to OpenIDEO in terms of ideation, prototyping, design thinking and innovation is Minecraft Education Edition. They have a collaborative problem solving board, continual experimentation, user-centered approach and community engagement. Although Minecraft Education primarily focuses on education, it represents how a gaming platform can effectively advance design thinking principles.
