the innovative LEDGER
An e-Newsletter from The Innovative Edge™ Inc.

  Vol. 4, No. 4, Winter 2004
  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Shedding Some Light on Idea Development

By Jeffrey Govendo

Ask 100 people who invented the electric light bulb, and 95 or more will say Thomas Edison, as I certainly would have until reading Business Week's annual innovation issue recently. "Truth is," writes reporter Robert Hof, "the famous inventor's 1879 debut of his incandescent light trailed others by decades." (Humphrey Davy, an English chemist, created the first electric light back in 1809, Warren de la Rue the first enclosed bulb in 1820). Edison gets the credit, though, because of his team's painstaking efforts in the years following to build the infrastructure required to support the technology and make the light bulb commercially viable.

It's ironic that the quintessential icon for a sudden inspiration is an invention that took the better part of a century to develop as a useful innovation. It serves to highlight one of the common misconceptions about the innovation process: that if you put a group of bright and talented people together to engage in creative problem-solving, someone will come up with "the perfect idea" - an idea that is at once both totally new and so well articulated it will be immediately apparent how to operationalize it. In that mindset, everyone waits for The Answer. Those ideas that seem unfeasible or not readily applicable are dropped from consideration, leaving only the most familiar and mundane. With such unrealistic expectations, the process is almost rigged to disappoint. People who roll their eyes at the thought of taking part in yet another brainstorming session have probably gone through this at least one time too often.

Something we can attribute to Edison is his famous observation, "Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." This not only applies to inventing an electrical infrastructure, but on a more micro-level to the development of a realistic working concept from a creative, beginning idea. We need to remind ourselves that it's only on the rarest of occasions (and mostly in movies) that a brand new idea pops out so well-formulated it's all ready to go to work. Instead, the more fresh and unusual an idea is, the more likely it will require further development, refinement and re-definition to transform it into a working concept with real-world applicability. This, in essence, is the movement from creativity to innovation.

Therefore, ideas recorded in a brainstorming session should be considered starting points - the raw material that leads to innovative working concepts - rather than finished products themselves. Freed from the burden of having to come up with the perfect idea, your contributors will be looser in their thinking and use more of their innate creativity in the process. You'll be amazed how people will (ahem…) light up the room with ideas when they're not feeling pressured to produce The Answer!

For further enlightenment on this subject, please see my article "To Fix a Problem, Go for Broke!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

5 Ways of Encouraging New Thinking in Your Department

Ever notice how the same group of problem-solvers can develop a repeated pattern of thoughts when they meet on a frequent basis? Often this creates a "rut" that gets in the way of creative outcomes. Here are 5 ways to help keep things fresh.

1. Seed your group with outsiders - bring in folks from other areas of the company or from the outside if possible. They do not have to be subject matter experts; in fact, it's better if they're not. Their differing perspectives can put a whole new spin on whatever matter you are considering.
2. Bring in the perspectives of famous people - make a list of strong or colorful personalities, living or deceased, from diverse fields. When you need new ideas or perspectives, have your people imagine what some of them would offer. Wouldn't it be interesting to see what Steve Jobs, Mother Theresa and Groucho Marx might add to the mix of ideas?
3. Change your meeting venue - a new and different type of location (i.e. not simply Conference Room B instead of A) may help to spur new thinking. Meeting in a nearby park or the local pizza parlor is not only a welcome break, but can bring new energy to the conversation.
4. Get ideas from non-competing companies - what can a software sales team, for example, learn from the way a gourmet coffee chain pushes its products? Don't assume that just because two businesses are very different, they can't learn from one another. In fact, the greater the differences, the better the chance of discovering a truly breakthrough idea for your industry!
5. Look for metaphors in other worlds - if you're thinking about creative ways to get the word out about a new product, for example, think about analogies from the world of nature. How do animals in the wild "announce" their presence? Thinking in broader contexts about the essence of a problem can yield surprising new clues!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Names We Like

We're always on the lookout for creative business or product names. If you know of any good ones, send them along! You may see them in an upcoming issue!