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>> Presenter: All right, folks. Thanks so much for coming today. We're very happy to
have Brendan Boyle with us.
Brendan Boyle is partner and Chief Invention Officer at IDEO. His role has a special emphasis
on entrepreneurship, and is focused on creating intellectual property that IDEO develops,
while promoting entrepreneurial thinking and practices throughout IDEO's eight global offices.
Before coming to IDEO, Brendan co-founded a company called Skyliners, which was acquired
by IDEO. And under its leadership, IDEO has licensed over 125 toy game and consumer products
with leading manufacturers And in 2007, Crainium Sounds by the Seashore, which was designed
by IDEO, was nominated for Toy of the Year Award by Toy Industry Foundation.
In addition to his duties at IDEO, Brendan sits on the board at the non-profit National
Institute for Play, where focus on bringing play based techniques to innovation. And currently,
he teaches a class that he created in Stanford's new D school, called "From Play to Innovation".
So we're excited to have Brendan here to talk about his new book, "The Klutz Book of Inventions".
And he asks if you already bought a book, please don't start reading it until after
the talk.
So please join me in welcoming Brendan Boyle.
[applause]
>>Brendan Boyle: All right. Thank you.
So I always like to start a talk with a little warm-up exercise. And this is one where, if
you're sitting down, pick up your right foot and spin it in a clockwise motion. Keep spinning
it. And keep spinning it as you draw a big number six in front of your face. Keep spinning
it clockwise. It's really hard to do, isn't it? All right. So figure that one out.
So thanks again. This is neat to be here.
So imagine...this book is all around 'Brilliant meets Ridiculous'. And I'll emphasize that
theme.
But imagine it's 1887. And you're F. A. Mulleroff. And you've invented this thing called a contact
lens.
So any contact lens wearers out there?
And no one's ever seen it before. And you've prototyped this little piece of blown glass.
And you walk up to your friend and say: "Hey will you test this thing? Put this piece of
glass in your eye." And friend would say, "Well, will it break?"
Then you'd say: 'Well, I'm not really sure. Maybe. But it's probably pretty safe." Your
friend might say, "That's ridiculous! I'm not gonna try that."
To me, almost every great invention I think you could trace back, and someone or a group
of people, or maybe hundreds of people would say that was a ridiculous idea.
Or further along the lines of eyewear. Imagine you're Salvino Damarte. And it's 1284. And
you've invented the first pair of glasses. And you test them. You put them on someone
and they say, "I can see better. That's neat. But aren't I gonna look kinda dorky if I walk
around with these things?"
For those who wear glasses -- I don't know about the rest of you. But the first time
I had to wear glasses, I was really worried about going to school. Like this is gonna
look crazy, right? People are gonna think I'm different. And so I suspect this seemed
quite a bit, at a time, ridiculous.
So think about some of your own big ideas. Have you heard...has that felt like that's
ridiculous?
And then one more on the eye care, which would be laser surgery, which has been around now
I think thirty some years, in different forms. But I remember the first time I heard about
this, and I was thinking, "You're gonna shoot lasers in my eye and then I'm gonna see better?".
That probably seemed like a pretty far out there idea.
And I always used to wonder being in California, "What if you're getting laser surgery and
the earthquake hits?" Like, that would probably be tricky.
So insert any big invention here. Probably one of the biggest inventions is the wheel.
And you could go back a zillion years ago. And probably the first person fooling around,
the first cave-person fooling around with the wheel. The rest of the cave-folks were
probably thinking. "That's some kind of little nitwit off to side, doing some type of invention
thing." Again it's that pushing yourself, and having a safe enough environment to do
>>Music
>>Brendan Boyle: So John Cassidy and I, John Cassidy is the founder of Klutz. Great guy.
We decided to push this thinking into a project. And my whole life's around projects which
I enjoy doing. And he's a great person to collaborate with.
So we thought, "Why don't we make a whole bunch of inventions, make a book about it,
which pushes this razor-thin line between brilliant and ridiculous. Is it a brilliant
idea, or is it a ridiculous one?"
This is the one on the cover. So just be prepared. I'm gonna show you a bunch of brilliant meets
ridiculous ideas today. This is the one on the, the cover, which I wonder if for those
who fly a lot, which I do. And you have to check your orange juice and you can't bring
it through TSA. If you would be allowed to carry this and a bag of oranges, if that would
be okay. You could make that.
So we had -- the project lasted about a year. We probably could have done it faster. We
ended up building 162. Each one was prototyped in the shop, built, and then photographed.
And then a story written about it.
We did probably a 100 different brainstorms, thousands of different ideas. And what we
did to figure out what was that fine line, was we took the sketches of the ideas to fourth
and fifth grade classrooms. If they thought it could be a real idea, like they believed
in it, then that kind of passed that line about that "Hmm. There's something on that
fine line."
There's something about a fourth grader that's still very child-like but still exposed to
enough adult things. So they've -- they see a lot of potential, where I worry as we get
older, we start to... we've heard "that can't be done" enough.
So this was reaffirming. I showed this. I was giving a talk and there was a fifth grader
in the audience. And during the questions, he raised his hand and said, "Can I buy that
invention?"
And I said, "Dude, I can tell you how to make one." So, it was pretty neat around that.
So I'm going to distill this down into five ways to think about being more innovative.
That's what we do a lot at IDEO, think about ways to innovate in our process. So I'll talk
about five of them. A lot these you've probably heard. So think about ones that you haven't,
or how you can improve in your own innovation process.
So the first is, I love to, again this whole premise of encourage your ridiculous. How
do you get more comfortable? It's really one is -- there are two things.
One, you're worried about being judged by others, being judged by the tribe. "Hey, if
I throw out this big idea, someone's gonna say I'm an idiot, or it looks stupid."
Or probably even more dangerous is being judged by yourself. You'll be in a meeting and you'll
hold back on that idea because you're "Ahh-I don't know. Maybe it's just not good enough".
So I think that if you can get more comfortable, through encouraging ridiculous, and one of
the best ways I know to do that is through play.
The reason we like to play is because it's fun and we wanna do it again. That's the reason
the dog brings the ball back. "It was enjoyable. I wanna do it again", right?
So find something that's enjoyable. Then do it again, and encourage that. So for me around
innovation, that's really neat.
So, I'll slice through some ideas in the book here.
So, how might we get in shape while on the go? So how 'bout the idea of the elevator
with a built-in Stairmaster? So, yeah you gotta take a hundred flights up, but you gotta
get a little exercise.
So, maybe this is borderline more on the ridiculous. But either so much in this country, worldwide
even, spreading around obesity. I think there's gonna be a lot more of how do you get people
to move.
I fly a lot, and I'm always amazed. I'll take a six-hour cross country trip. People get
off that plane. They've been sitting and then they get on that moving sidewalk at SFO. Like,
dude! You could walk. You could get a little stretching, right? So I think there are going
to be a lot of things around how to get people to move with this.
[pause]
All right. For those with kids, how might we invent a kid's tricycle that does some
of your yardwork? How to get the kid working kind of a little bit?
So I love the lawnmower tricycle. It's got a few safety concerns. I'll grant you that.
But some proper shrouding, and I think we could handle that. So this idea probably seems
closer to the ridiculous.
But I think it was two years ago, Fisher Price came out with a smart cycle, which is a little
video gaming system. But the kid has to put some energy in to get some excitement out
kind of thing, which has done really well for them.
So again, you'll see, I think a lot more of thinking around how to get people to move
a little bit.
So when I think about the innovation process, we talk a lot about design thinking at IDEO,
we really start with observe and understand. Understand what the user's doing, that frames
up into a point of view, into some type of synthesis, a strategy.
I'm really focusing around the ideation. So once we've done that part, how do you push
yourself to get something more innovative?
So this book is focused around that. After that, lots of prototype and testing. And then
go back and do it again. So what are your different techniques to ideate more, is really
kind of the focus. Just put in some process prospective.
All right. How might we reinvent the common parking ticket?
I don't know about you guys, but my office is downtown Palo Alto. I walk out and I get
a parking ticket. I'm pretty bummed out for a little bit. Like, "Duh. If I just got here
ten minutes earlier, I could've moved my car".
So we were trying to think how we could reinvent that. Put the fun back in traffic citations.
[audience laughs]
So I get my ticket and you scratch-off: "Double my fine." "Zero fine." Or "We owe you the
fine!"
[audience laughs]
So – and I was talking to someone from the city of Palo Alto, and they're saying the
biggest problem in parking tickets is people throw them away. They just don't...especially
if they're from out of town.
If you put some fun, you felt like you got a deal, you'd have to, I think, tweak the
economics here. "I got a dollar off". Maybe people would feel more apt to pay something
on that. But this one, I think's closer. I like this.
[pause]
All right. And then another one is: How might we make using the umbrella easier? How about
if we had the helium umbrella? So, it floats over your head. It's always something to do
with your arms.
All right. So I'm gonna...I love a little warm-up exercise, I need you to pick a partner.
And you each get a post-it and a pen. And it doesn't have to be somebody you know. It
can be meet someone new.
And this'll just take about two or three minutes to do this exercise. So pick a partner, and
this will encourage a little play. So it's fine. We'll do a little play here.
[sounds of audience choosing partners]
All right. So everyone's got a partner. This is called, this is called a "Mash Up." One
person. The first part of the exercise you do by yourself. So, one person list five things
you would find in your junk drawer, or your kitchen or your garage. Make them unique.
Think about five things. The other person. List five things you'd find in a drugstore.
That's the first part.
All you need to do is take a minute. Do a quick list. Decide who is doing what, and
make a quick list.
[pause]
All right. Play along a little bit.
[pause]
Drugstore: Walmart, Walgreens or CVS, Long's, that kind of thing.
[pause]
All right. Just another couple seconds to make your list.
[pause]
You guys are doing well.
[pause]
Hey. Okay. All right. Now, take...look at your lists together over the next--this is
called a "Mash Up". Over the next couple minutes, see if you can brainstorm a combo idea.
Here's my example: I've got a welcome mat. I've got a whoopee cushion. I have a whoopee
mat. Right?
So, do a brainstorm combo idea and push your thinking. This is "encourage ridiculous".
We're in a safe environment here, and let's see what we can come up with.
[audience chatter]
[pause]
All right. If you can do a quick sketch, that's even better. If you can do a quick sketch,
you guys will rock.
[audience chatter]
[pause]
All right. Just another few seconds
[audience chatter]
[sound of phone ringing]
[pause]
All right. You guys got one? All right. Fifteen more seconds. So finish one up. Good. Perfect.
Okay.
Who wants to share one? Who's gota share one? We'll start with you guys. What've you got?
>> Male Audience Member #1: We came up with an edible credit card that's made out of aspirin.
So you just bite off pieces of it any time.
>>Brendan Boyle: Edible credit card made out of aspirin! I think that might work. Brilliant
or ridiculous. I'm not sure. I like it. What do you guys have? You got one?
>>Female Audience Member #1: Yeah. We have a coaster that dissolves into soap and shampoo.
>>Brendan Boyle: Ooh. A coaster that dissolves into shoap -- soap. Very interesting. I like
that. You guys got one?
>>Male Audience Member #2: Yeah. We've got the underwear doggie bags. The stuff that
cleans up after itself.
>>Brendan Boyle: Underwear doggie bags that clean up after themselves. Hmm. You prototype
that one. I'm not gonna prototype it! What do you guys got?
>>Male Audience Member #3: Okay. We've got sunscreen keychains so that you always have
your sunscreen with you when you need it.
>>Brendan Boyle: Ooh. Very -- . I haven't seen that. That could be very cool. Who else?
What do you guys got?
>>Male Audience Member #4: We have diaper balls. So they're good to play with and then
you can also roll them up and use them.
>>Brendan Boyle: Diaper balls. All right. I'll let you guys prototype that one too,
awesome. Some new kids in the family I think somewhere. Who else? Anyone else got one?
>>Male Audience Member #5: Yeah. We came up with one. A disposable wall mountable camera.
For taking pictures of your party.
>>Brendan Boyle: Very cool. Disposable wall mounted camera. Might be good.
All right. Thanks guys.
Again just trying to encourage your ridiculousness. This is a really good warm-up exercise if
you find your group wants sort of to expand a little bit and get into a little more playful
attitude. Typically these aren't gonna be the big ideas, but you get more comfortable
producing ridiculous ideas. And I think that's a neat state to be in.
Again I've given this talk several times. Usually at universities, there's --20 percent
of the ideas have a *** involved for some reason. I think it's in both, in most junk
drawers, or whatever.
That's the "Mash Up". That's a nice -- encourage your ridiculousness.
One, around being more innovative is just encouraging quantity. Just more ideas. You'll
have more to choose from, which is a really good thing to think about.
There's a lot of stereotype about the big idea of the flashlight over someone's head
and they're waiting for that. And that's really hard to count on.
Like your boss comes up to you: "What are you're doing". "Oh I'm just waiting for the
big flash. Don't worry". Or "I'm gonna go home and take a nap."
So, getting used to having lots of ideas and then going back and choosing is a better way,
I think, to be innovative. It's just like -- have a part of the day that's very generative,
and then a part where you can judge. But get comfortable with lots of ideas.
This is a great quote. "When the tough get going – when the going gets tough, the tough
get stupid. Out of a 100 ideas, the first 60 -- this is a brainstorm session -- produced
five that were actually new or different. The next 20 produced nothing but laughter.
And ideas 80 through 100 produced 10 that were amazing. Thankfully, we didn't give up
when the well ran dry around idea number 60."-from "The Ebb and Flow of Ideas", of Dev Patnaik
who is the founder of Jump, neat guy.
So they've started to take a look at their typical brainstorms. You can sort of get to
this part here, and I think sort of the humor will help you move through. So lots of ideas,
you'll have more to choose from.
[pause]
All right. How might we reinvent the next best thing in chainsaw technology? Probably
not a lot of chainsaw folks here, but who knows? You need the chainsaw dvd player. So,
it's prototyped up [inaudible].
So we had a lot of discussion about what movie to put in there. Should be like a slasher
movie. We ended up with a romantic movie.
We figured first it's kinda like enough action going on anyway. But it is amazing if you
start look at it. If you go out to most restaurants or bars now, how many LCD screens are everywhere.
So you start, to--I've even started to see now televisions in bathroom mirrors at high-end
hotels and things where they're starting to put in things like that for advertising. I
heard they're going to do that at airports so when you walk up to the airport, in the
bathroom, the TV will pop up and give you some advertising.
So, don't know. Jury's out on this one as brilliant or ridiculous, but it's someone's
experimenting.
[audience member coughs]
The third one for being more innovative, I really like, is this principle of encourage
"yes, and..".
Anyone folks do improv out here? So this is a basic tenet. of improv. Accept what's been
given at that moment or second, and then move,build on it, which is really neat.
I find a lot of folks as they advance in their career become more "yes, but..." people. Someone
will throw out an idea and they'll listen to it and they'll say, "Yes, that's a great
idea. It's gonna -- But it's not gonna work out".
So if you find yourself becoming a "yes, but" person, I think, try to throw a few more "yes,and's"
into your conversation throughout the day, which is really nice.
So "yes, and.." and build on that idea a bit little more. I just think it's a really nice
thing.
The creative folks that I know, some of the most creative folks I know really sort of
embrace this. It just makes them more interesting folks to hang around.
So, all right. This will be the last little warm-up exercise I've got you guys doing.
So find a group of three. And we're going to do a little "yes,and.." exercise. So a
group of three, and then you'll start with: "Let's throw a party!". And then "yes,and..".
And I'll let you go around once or twice, and we'll see who's got the best, sort of
exciting party. So start it with "Let's throw a party!". Google's probably got tons of parties.
So how do you get the best one? Maybe this could be for next holiday party. "Yes,and...".
So get three people, and then -- three or four people's fine. And then spend about a
minute doing this. And write it down on your post-its as you go and we'll see who's got
the most exciting party.
[pause]
(Audience talking)
Try to get around the horn at least twice, guys. See how wild this can get.
[pause]
[audience chattering]
All right. We'll go another fifteen seconds.
[pause]
[audience chattering]
All right. All right. Okay. You guys make it around a couple times?
Perfect. Okay.
Let's hear about what the holiday party next year perhaps at Google will be.
You guys seem like you're laughing. What do you guys got?
>>Female Audience Member #2: So it's like a cloud based, cloud themed party. Our party
actually like floats.So there's an elephant and clowns, and cupcakes, and they're tethered
to balloons, lots of balloons. So they all started floating away into the clouds.
>>Brendan Boyle: Very cool. Way to stay on brand too. Very nice. What did you get? Did
you guys want to share? What do you got?
>>Male Audience Member #6: We had a flying petting zoo, with a taco truck, pulled by
a hot air balloon that goes to to different open spaces and parties.
>>Brendan Boyle: Sweet! Flying petting zoo. You guys better have a good year for that
one. That's awesome.
Who else? Who else wants to share? Yeah. What do you guys got?
>>Female Audience Member #3: We've got a alcohol themed party,
with different music, food, and dancing themed to different types of alcohol. So Mexico,
tequila and so on. Crazy fun.
>>Brendan Boyle: It's very cool! Anyone else?
[pause]
All right. I'm coming over there.
>>Male Audience Member #7: So the main parts of our party are -- there's musical instruments.
So if you want to sit down and play the drums, no problem. We got a drum set. We got a bass,
guitars, keyboards, and gorilla costumes. Hats a must. And earrings a must. And a trampoline
for those who jump.
[audience laughter]
>>Brendan Boyle: Fantastic! All right guys. Oh, you got one. Cool.
>>Male Audience Member #8: Ours is balloon themed too. But in our case, the dogs wear
costumes as well. And we have fun mirrors in those balloons. And we skydive into random
farms.
>>Brendan Boyle: Skydive into....?
>>Male Audience Member #8: Are you questioning me?
>>Brendan Boyle: (Laughs)
[audience laughs]
>>Male Audience Member #8: [inaudible]
>>Brendan Boyle: All right. Again, thanks for trying that little warm-up exercise.
The point, "yes,and..", right? Do build. A little building.
Again, I've done this with colleges. And there's usually nudity involved in every party. So
it didn't come out at this one.
I've done it with other, other folks where some big star. Then someone else in the group
didn't like that star. So that star died. But "yes, and" then came back to life. And
then "yes, and" then died. And they're in an infinite loop of that person they didn't
like, and then liked.
So these are just some quick sketches from other parties.
Invite Aerosmith in a rocket-stage. Things of that nature.
All right. For those with kids. Anyone with kids out here?
Yeah. So how might we make family roadtrips more tolerable?
[pause]
Well, let's go back.
So this is the sibling binders. So, very low prototype tech here. But what you can't see,
can't annoy you. So that's kind of out there, probably more ridiculous.
But I see, for those who own minivans, I think most of them now come equipped with DVD players.
Two in the back to keep the kids sort of pacified.
I worry a little bit. I could envision a family driving through Yellowstone and the kids are
a watching a travel log video about Yellowstone versus looking out the window.
So, I love this quote. "To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." So
this is from Edison. And a pile of junk means a pile of stuff. And a lot of great inventions
have been combination inventions, or at least have been inspired by different things, so
having a lot of stuff around. And depending on what industry, the stuff could be totally
different, right?
Look. So I think number four is: Don't be afraid to collect stuff. Collect stuff and
use it as great examples. Either collect them for yourself, collect them for your group,
collect them as a company. And what are the best or most interesting examples?
So if you take a tour of IDEO, you'll see a lot of stuff. Different areas.
So this is -- if you're lucky enough to get to Edison's, this is Edison's lab actually
in Dearborn, Michigan, now. Henry Ford was a big admirerer of him. So he moved all his
lab over to Greenfield Village.
So if you get there, there is an amazing amount of stuff in there, right? So he's considered
one of the most prolific inventors of his time. So I think that's really cool. I think
it's just – it's very inspiring. So figure out what that is for you, and collect more
of it.
So a really quick example, personal example. This is an invention we did called the Jumparoo.
This is...we take one of the things that hung in the doorframe, bounced up and down, and
we made it free-standing. The problem with the one in the doorframe is, moms loved it
and hated it. They loved it because the infant loved it. They hated it 'cause they thought
it might fall down. It's dangerous. Or if you live in a small apartment building, it
blocked your key passageway.
So we made it free-standing. And we could quickly--we took that insight, quickly prototyped
it up 'cause we had all this junk around.
And made this one. And that turned into that one. And then we sold it to Fisher Price.
It turned into a whole category. They sell over a million units a year at 60 bucks. It's
in its fifth year, and it's done really well.
So it's a nice sort of "collect junk" example for us. And it's really neat. We give them
out all the time for babyshower gifts at IDEO. And someone sent me back a YouTube video of
their kid on it. I thought that was interesting. So I searched "Jumparoo" on YouTube, and there
were over 5,000 individually Jumparoo generated videos. People loved seeing their kid jump
up and down, so they're sending it.
So that's a new metric. To see if -- post-metric, if it's successful, of something that worked
well.
And we can go back and get inspired by what folks are doing with that.
Those who grew up in a large family. I was sixth out of seven kids. There's always arguments
about the bathroom. So we've got the multi-seat family model. It's Mom, Dad, Jenny, and Charlie.
You know, if you do a book like this you get a lot of humor around the bathroom. So at
one point, I think we had eight or nine commodes in the shop and we had to get rid of some.
The guys in the shop actually put them up on Craigslist. And people were buying used
toilets, which is interesting in itself. So this is a product someone sent me, after
seeing that sent me this. I haven't seen one, but it's some kind of--I don't know if this
is doing well or not. Seems a little bit mechanical, but same issue.
And then the last one is really to act different. I think routine sort of can really kill innovation.
So make sure your own life doesn't fall onto too much of a routine.
And how can you sort of shake things up a little bit? And that I think helps you get
inspired and I think see things a little bit differently.
This is the class I teach at Stanford. We did a project last year around how do you
encourage more movement in meetings, or when you're sitting at your desk? Some of the insight
they saw from big companies -- probably not you guys -- but I think more typical corporate,
where if you're not seen at your desk, you're not seen as working.
So people were afraid to get up and move around. So this one group invented this kind of an
exercise chair that would be at your desk. You could do some stretching and do some other
things like that.
This group tried to reinvent the whole meeting of sitting around. The meeting they saw a
lot of insights, where the boss would come in, sit in the same seat. The boss might sit
in a more powerful stuit.
So they tried to break all those things up by wearing writeable suits with no desks.
So you'd be brainstorming and writing on people. Right. So pushing the ridiculous on that,
but pushing the thinking further out. That's got all sorts of lawsuits written all over
it.
[audience laughs]
But it was interesting to see that they were experimenting.
[pause]
I saw this online. This Japanese class trying to make chores more fun. So they'd make it
into a game. How fast they could do things. So they're trying to break up the routine
of picking up the classroom which no one wants to do, into something more interesting, which
I thought was really neat.
[pause]
So a few closing thoughts.
Don't take yourself too seriously, discover the opposite of play isn't work. This is sort
of the whole class is based around the opposite of play isn't work. It's, I think, boredom,
or in the worst cases, depression.
So if you're not interested or passionate about what you're doing, you're not gonna
innovate. So, most people think play is for kids. It's frivolous. I think that's totally
wrong.
I think as you get older you should be incredibly excited about what you're doing. If people
aren't, then I usually can get them thinking about this way about their hobbies. Like some
of their hobbies are incredible amount of effort, "work" so to speak. But they love
doing it, so they want to keep doing it more and more.
So I think for innovation, if you can feel the sort of playful mode, not maybe all of
the time, but more of the time, that's a really neat thing to do.
[Music]
[phone ringing]
>>Woman in video: Hey Gary. Hold on a sec.
[music]
>>Brendan Boyle: For those on CalTrain you'd want to have one of those to give to the person
next to you. So this is probably not the right solution. But again, if you fly a lot, phones
will be on planes. They've been on planes in the past, they'll come on, and there'll
be some issues around this.
So people will be trying to solve this. This cone of silence is probably not it. But there'll
be something else out there. So this will be pushing that thinking somewhere.
So with that, be ridiculous. Create something brilliant.
Thank you very much everybody.
[applause]
So I think, at this time, we probably have some time for questions.
What do you guys normally do? So if you guys got any questions, love to.
>>Male Audience Member #9: [inaudible]
>>Brendan Boyle: You bet. Yeah I'll repeat it if you yell it out.
>>Male Audience Member #9: Basically I understand the idea of creating tons of ideas,[inaudible]
then what's the process of narrowing down the ideas? Or maybe not necessarily to[inaudible]
>>Brendan Boyle: Right. Yeah. So the question is if you create lots of ideas, how do you
narrow down?
[people in audience laughing]
A couple things. People have different techniques. The first is to realize when you're in a divergent
mode, when you're creating ideas, and when you're in a convergent mode and you're eliminating
ideas.
Too often, folks are somewhere in the middle where they'll keep trying to come up with
ideas when they're trying to focus, and that doesn't help.
So one: realize what mode you're in. And then two: for me it's be ruthless as to which ones
fall to the floor.
Everyone wants to save lots of ideas, like maybe this one's good, or maybe not. So there're
different techniques we do.
The first one is after a brainstorm is we quickly quickly take a group vote as to which
ones. And that's just to sort of see where the butterflies sort of land, and that will
help sort of narrow some things.
The others, then we'll sort of circle ten that we like, and then do quick experiments
to see if those have some merit. Again, that next part of that phase.
But two things. Realize you're in convergent mode. So it's okay to cut. And then two, try
to experiment and see if it goes somewhere. Good question. Yeah.
>>Male Audience Member #10: [inaudible] The car with the multiple DVD screens kind of
bothered me [ ]. What do you do about ideas that are ultimately successful but negatively
>>Brendan Boyle: Well first, that car DVD idea wasn't mine so...
>>Male Audience Member #10: [inaudible]
>>Brendan Boyle: [Laughs] No, I know. I think again it comes down to your values and your
judgment.
At IDEO, we're a service industry, most of our work. So we're trying to decide what clients
to work. Dave Kelly our founder, we've used this for years, is we have a teeter-totter.
On one side's a heart and on one side is money.
So we're trying to balance some of those things, right? So if it's too far out of whack one
way, we'll usually say "no". If it's too far only the heart, we can only do some of those.
Otherwise we can't sustain.
So there's somewhere in the middle or something that you're comfortable with. Yeah those are
challenging.
I think we lean probably more towards the heart, so hopefully, That's a good question.
[pause]
And I worry about that too.
Too many TVs. Kids aren't getting out. I grew up in a world of physical play, you're outdoors
most of the time.
[pause]
>>Male Audience Member #11: So you mentioned having a lot of junk around. [Inaudible} I
know as a person living in San Francisco, it's hard to keep stuff.
>>Brendan Boyle: Yeah. So hard to keep stuff. One, I was talking about innovation in the
workplace. So maybe there's more junk around here. Seems like there's plenty of room here.
So it's a question of is it your personal kind of inspiration for those types of projects,
or is it work stuff. So if it's here, then you dedicate more things.
We're...I think you're probably in the same boat. Most companies aren't. We're really
big on having different types of magazines in IDEO. It's just like a quick way to glance
at something, and there will be big racks of magazines.
I read a really interesting study where in typical corporate world, if you're seen reading
a magazine at your desk, people will think you're goofing off.
But if you're seen reading a black and white copy of that magazine or article, people will
think you're working. So it's a wrong type of a thing.
Encouraging that type of attitude around a library of that stuff or other junk, collections
of stuff, collections of...you know, thanks to you guys we can find that stuff right away.
Yes.
>>Female Audience Member #4: [inaudible]
>>Brendan Boyle: Well yeah. I think if we're on innovation in a group or an industry or
whatever, I think it's inspiring to have that.
For personal things, I like a clean, neat house without a lot of junk. For those who've
had kids, all of a sudden it just starts to escalate on all this stuff. That's ususally
why people remodel to put stuff somewhere else. But yeah. This is on a sense around
innovating...
>>Male Audience Member #12: [Inaudible]
>>Brendan Boyle: Yeah. That's when I alluded to that slide around how do you find the problems,
What's the tough questions?
So usually a client will come to IDEO. We've got great relationships with different clients,
and they'll have a question. We'll spend a lot of time framing up, is this the right
question?
And we'll go out-the first part about being inspired and understanding that a user deeply
around-maybe we'll have a few sacrificial questions, but there's a lot of effort around
framing up what is that question before you would jump to ideating. You can use ideation
early to do some test concepts to see if that resonates around the question.
>>Male Audience Member #13: I really like your example of [inaudible]. Any other cool
categories [inaudible].
>>Brendan Boyle: I think everyone's seen new insights, or people are seeing them early
and then building whole categories. >>Male Audience Member #13: I mean from IDEO.
>>Brendan Boyle: Oh, from IDEO.
[pause]
Yeah, it's challenging top of mind on that. Almost with any of our clients its a collaborative.
>>Male Audience Member #13: Yes.
[pause]
>>Brendan Boiyle: So I'm trying to think about something. Let me come back to you on that
one. There are probably five or ten that are good ones. That one's one on up top of my
mind.
[pause]
Neat. The--what we're doing, we're doing a lot of work around social innovation, social
impact.
So we've started what we call openIDEO.com, where you can go there.
And there was recently a challenge we had with Jamie Oliver around how to get kids to
eat more fresh fruits and vegetables.
So, out of that there were a bunch of ideas. We're hoping things like that, we're trying
to tackle bigger issues like that. With that type of venue. Especially around the obesity
and things of that nature.
[pause]
All right, gang! Go out and be ridiculous.
[applause]