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>> Vijay Kumar: Thanks. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here among all the innovators
in this room, innovators with information. I'm going to sort of give you a slightly different
perspective compared to some of the things that were already talked about here about
interface and user experience for software and things like that. I'm going to take a
slightly broader point. I may not even talk about when I use those words like usability
and information architecture and things like that. I'm trying to take a slightly higher
level approach to look at innovation in general. Be with me in that mindset, okay?
We can look at the world today. We can describe the world today as something like this is
a wonderful world of innovations we enjoy. We are surrounded with all kinds of innovations
that are based on technology. In these days, we talk about cloud computing, cloud of clouds,
ubiquitous computing, internet of things and we are in the midst of those wonderful things.
That's one way to look at the world. Imagine the other side of the coin, another
perspective to look at the world is through this lens. We are in the middle of wonderful
global experiences not about technologies, not about innovations but experiences that
we go through and we live through. That's a wonderful world though we use a different
set of words there. We don't use cloud computing to express my experience. We use words like
that, social networking, connecting with people in our relationships, sharing photos, sharing
memories. Those are the experiences that are coming from the human side not coming from
the technology side. It's not coming from the engineering. That's another way to look
at. My focus is this lens. Can you look at innovations
with this lens about people and their experiences? We try to create innovations based on that.
That's what I'm going to focus on for the rest of the presentation and we'll talk about
some high level mindsets that all of us innovators need to have to take that perspective to create
innovations. The problem, the concern that I have when I keep talking to people, even
in highly accomplished companies, innovators in R&D departments, they're still struggling
to practice innovation in a deliberate, intentional way.
It almost happens. Sometimes it happens in teams. Sometimes it happens around smart people
but there is no way in which I can practice in a disciplined, organized, structured, rigorous
way. Can we get to that? Innovation is still like an art. Can we take that art of innovating
slightly towards a science to make it formalized so that you and I can use that science in
a deliberate way to come out with successful innovations. That's one question that we always
try to ask. We should be aware of that and then this idea.
Why are innovations, anything new that comes out in the market place, new product or a
service or new experience, why they are risky and why they are uncertain? I'm not sure when
I put out something out in the market, I'm not sure how it'll be fostered by the public,
by the people. I'm taking a risk in fact but I am not sure whether it will be successful.
In fact a study done by Doblin, a part of Monitor Group and now part of Deloitte, they
did some research on understanding the success of innovations. Out of 100 innovations, 96
fail in their study. 96 percentage of innovations or new product introduction to the market
place fail. They don't sustain over a period of time.
That should be a concern to all of us. That itself tells us that we don't know really
how to practice innovations for success, for repeatability, for deliberate success. The
thing that we address all the time is how can we raise that success rate from 4% to
4.5% or 5% or 6%? That itself is a big success rate if we can deliberately do that. Our school,
that's what we teach. That's the angle that which we teach our students, our graduate
students and PhD students about coming out with innovations. How can we create successful
innovations? For that, you need to go through regular structured
processes and very thoughtfully done work. That's what I will cover in the next part
of the presentation. The question in front of me is how, how to make innovation a reliable
practice. I'm action-oriented person. I like theories and frameworks and mental models.
Ultimately, you'll do something with that. You have to act on it. Even in our courses,
our students are pretty good at taking action on ambiguous situations. They're pretty comfortable
with ambiguity, dealing with ambiguity and the term that we use is cutting cubes out
of fog, the fog in front of you. Don't know where the innovation, where should I go? It's
a foggy world in which I am trying to innovate. Can you really cut some cubes out of that?
Then you are making effort to make successful innovations.
Joe mentioned that I just published this book about five months ago. It's pretty useful.
There are lot of good feedback I'm getting that people are actually using it for their
projects. If you do a search on Amazon, you will find a lot of reviews about that.
Today, the first part as the session, today's session is in two parts. First part, I want
to cover some fundamental ideas. I call it Six Principles That Any Innovator Needs to
Have. These principles, I almost think of them as mindset or mind setter approaches
any innovator should have or pay attention to make their innovation successful more than
4% to 4.5%. The next part of today's presentation, second
part, it'll be an actually interactive session. We will work on one or two very interesting
methodologies that is talked about in the book. Let's go through these six important
mindsets or principles. Integrate many drivers of innovation. Integrate
many drivers of innovation. What does that mean? Even before getting into what it means,
let's have a common understanding about what do you mean innovation? That is a word highly
used. There's a buzz around innovation. Everyone is talking about innovation. There's a buzz.
There's a hype. All of us or sometimes, we like to have a common definition of what we
mean by innovation. It might mean to you something, to biologists something else, to a doctor
something else, some simple definition like that works for me and for my practical purpose.
Innovation is a viable offering. It can be a product, a service, a website, an interface
or an experience, an environment, a building. It has to be an offering that is given to
you by somebody. It has to be a viable offering. Otherwise, it's an invention. It has to be
made practical in the real world. New, obviously very understandable to a specific context
and time. Sometimes we forget that. Innovations are good only in that context in that time.
Innovation today may not be valid next week down the line. We have to be cognizant of
that dynamic nature of how we look at things that are innovations that are not. That creates
user and provide a value. Ultimately, anything new put out in the market place is a viable
offering which is new to the context and time, has to produce some value to the end user
as well as the provider. It has to make profit ultimately, ROI and things like that we use.
That definition is sort of simple definition but it works for me and for common understanding
it works pretty well. Let us look at, what do we mean the drivers
of innovation? How do I integrate the drivers of innovations? This is a high level model
that we use. There are primarily four drivers. This is no rocket science. It is understandable
but I put it out as a framework to have a discussion around. There is a driver coming
from here that is what is viable in the business. You do a business analytics. Look at the market
place. There's a gap in the marketplace. How do I create an innovation to fill that gap?
Typically done by MBAs and executives and company's financial analyst coming from that
direction. That's a huge driver for innovation. Some innovations come from the technology
side. I just invented this chip that can process information faster, cheaper. How do I apply
this chip in a concept that I can sell? That's the driver coming from the technology side.
Normally, billions of dollars are pumped into R&D departments. That's the focus.
The third driver is coming from the bottom that is, what is desirable for people? That's
where I come from. The design approach come from that. Start with people. Looking at people,
what are their needs? What are their unmet needs, unarticulated needs? What are their
new behaviors that are evolving, new culture, what lifestyle that are evolving? How can
I create innovation to support all that? That's a different direction.
Fourth direction is something new that we have to pay attention to. What is sustainable
in the environment and the society? The things like greenness and global warming kind of
driven. Those kinds of drivers we have to take care of. What is key about looking at
these drivers is that no single driver will create the most successful innovation. If
you are an engineer fully focused on technology-based innovation only, chance is that you will be
in that 96%. If you are a business executive looking only at financial analytics and market
opportunities, the chance is that you will be in that 96%.
Our contention is that what you really need to make innovation successful is integration
between all those four drivers that business analytics people, finance people, engineers,
technologists, software engineers, usability experts, community representatives, the people
who can represent the social context. Put all of them, make all of them participate
in the innovation process. It's a big challenge but sort of concept it works but you can make
it work with some basic techniques. Design innovation in that respect is trying
to do that. In our courses that we teach students or graduate students on design, we have courses
that we have borrowed from business. We have courses that are taught by engineers. We have
courses that are taught by environmental scientists. We try to bring experts from other fields
into creating competencies for a designer. That's the first. I think this is a good attempt
to trying to integrate the many drivers. I'm not sure you can use this model to profile
your own company. Where are you in relation to that model?
In my case, I'm pretty big at the design side. I do a little bit of business strategy work,
very little technology work. Nowadays, I started putting a lot of emphasis on environmental
driven work. That's my profile. You could have your own profile based on what your background
competencies are. That's how that model works. That's one mindset. Always think about integrating
other disciplines into your work to make your work successful.
The second one, which is a soft one, delight the people who use your innovation. Ultimately,
someone is going to use your interface or software, whatever you put it out on the web
page. Someone is going to use it. Well, of course, you're a highly well-recognized expert
in usability studies but the fundamental principle is how can I put a smile on the face of the
person who is going to use whatever he has given to that person? That's the principle
that you have to think about. Lots of examples of successful companies doing
that. In my view, Apple is doing pretty well with their iPod and iPhone and iPad now. They're
creating some kind of delight in the life of people. The other day I was talking to
a friend of mine. She said that her grandmother never used to use any technology devices,
no computer, nothing but when iPad came out, she gave a gift to her grandmother, iPad as
a gift. In a few hours, a few days, she was pretty comfortable operating that, just zooming
out is that. She's pretty comfortable with that and then she got so attached to it, the
obsessive connection to technology that when she can't find the iPad she goes nuts. Where
is my iPad? My life is ... That's the kind of attachment people have. That's delight.
You really created delightful experience in people's lives. Can you create that with your
website, with your user interface? That's the question that you should be asking.
Lots of examples. I do a lot of work around the world including India where I come, originally
come from. There is a company called Godrej, some of you may have heard. It's a huge company,
furniture, appliances, a whole lot of products. They were fascinated by this idea of design
innovation. They're a typical engineering innovation company creating appliances and
furniture and other things. They were thinking about India huge population and 80% of the
population live in rural situations. They don't live in cities. Only 20% of the population
live in cities. Rural situations are really remote. Some of
the rural places don't even have proper roads that are drivable. There are walking ways
and things like that. How can Godrej as a company make a difference in people's lives
and rural situations? That is a question Godrej is asking and I was helping them with this
design methods and techniques that they adopted in their work. One of the innovations that
they came out with is called "Chotu Kool." Chotu Kool means, Chotu means small, small
cool, so a refrigerator, a small refrigerator that is affordable for poor people even in
rural villages. The challenges are big. How can you make a refrigerator that costs less
than $40, less than $40, not $1000, so that people in rural villages can afford it. How
can you distribute it? That's even big challenge, massive non-accessible areas.
They created this Chotu Kool, one of the most successful products that really changed, really
put the smile on people, a whole lot of people. Suddenly, the village people in rural situations,
the kids had a big smile on their face because they could have a Sprite that is really cool.
That made a difference. Lots of examples like that you can find but probably not that. Delighting
doesn't mean that. A dentist may take that approach and that might only scare away people.
Delight has specific meanings. The word that is critical there is empathy,
empathy. Empathy means putting yourself in the shoes of someone else, imagining yourself
to be somebody else and really imagining yourself, not superficially. Can you do that? Some of
the methodologies that we use in user research Is that really immersing ourselves into people's
lives? I had a friend of mine who was an architect
who studies client's behavior by living with them for a few weeks. One or two weeks, he
goes and lives with their family before he touches the drafting board or create a drawing.
That is really getting empathetic towards the people ultimately who is going to use
your innovation. How can you do that? Some of the techniques that we use are based
on that fundamental belief that innovation should feel like a gift, a gift from a knowing
friend. When I'm buying a gift for my mother or grandmother, I'm really being empathic
about what my grandmother will like or my grandmother will like. I'm really thinking
hard. Anything that I give that she doesn't like, that's not a good gift. Can you think
about your innovation as a gift? Think about your end user as your mother or grandmother
right in front of you. When you are putting out a website, web page with all the information,
think about the user sitting right in front of you. Can that be equivalent to a gift that
the person will receive wholeheartedly? Those are the kinds of mindset that is really needed
to make innovation successful. Third principle, reframe. Integration of different
drivers is good. Delighting end users is good. Those are all high level things. Now let's
get down to sort of practical levels of taking action on some of those.
Reframe the current model behind innovation. Sometimes you may be familiar with words like
thinking outside the box, things like that. Think about weird ideas. Think like that is
tending towards that. I prefer the word reframe. Here's an example, old example but still works
as an illustration for a shoe company, for a shoe manufacturing company.
The innovation model, the current innovation model, not current, at that time probably
15 years ago, the current model at that time was make a better shoe. Make it much more
comfortable. Make it easy to wear and less costly and things like that. That's the current
model of creating a better shoe. Nike came out with a different model, a reframe model.
It's not about a better shoe. Can I really support the experience of that runner? Can
I really support the experience of that runner? It's not about a better shoe. That is the
reframing that Nike took. A lot of us are taking that direction now.
Old example, very successful. That is why Nike's shoes when it came out, not only has
better materials and better comfort that used the current model but you can put sensors
in the shoe. You may have seen. You can put a sensor. When you are jogging, every step
is being recorded into the iPod that you are listening to music. You have an iPod and every
step is recorded in the iPod and it collects information about your running. You come back
from running, come back home. Plug your iPod into the laptop and down goes all the information
that is collected and that goes into the Nike website. Nike website has really beautiful
graphical visualizations of your data. You can see curves or progress that you have made
last month, last year. You can compare your progress among your friends. Your profile
looks like that and my profile looks like that. I made better progress than you and
think like that or you can compare it with Olympic athlete. From a better shoe for Nike
the focus went to all those areas, sensor technologies like how to communicate with
the iPod, how to create an engaging websites, how to create visualization that people would
value? That's a great example of a reframe. Every time you come out with a problem in
front of you, can you reframe it immediately? It is very easy to solve a problem with the
current frame. Make improvements and make incremental innovations but reframing leads
to really receptive and radical innovations. Another example very quickly, MP3 player.
When Apple came out with iPod, again, an old example but still valid, still very powerful.
When they came out with iPod about 15 years ago, there were lot of devices like this,
MP3 players. Apple could have taken the stance of let's produce a better MP3 player. Could
have taken the stance but they said, "Oh, let's reframe it." Of course, Steve Jobs is
a mind. He's always reframing things. He's a wonderful leader that way. That's how they
reframed. It's not about a better MP3 player. Let us produce a product that will add delight
to the people listening to music, music experience. Let's create a product to support the entire
music experience. That's how they produced the iPod when it
came out. Really nice form, that especially teenagers really liked with a lot of skin
and pattern that you can overlay, different colors, nice interface, suddenly it has a
circular motion. Not only that, they had iTunes, the content that can make iPod really smart.
It's a content-enabled product not just a product. ITunes and iPod really worked very
well and they started selling it not in regular shops, Apple Stores where it more like an
interactive. You can go there and play around with this, not the product stacked on shelves
like in regular retail. Those are all Innovations, channel innovations,
content innovations or partnership, partnership innovation. Apple's competitor like HP or
Bose, they are creating product to support Apple's products with the docks, the iPod
dock. That was amazing way in which to think about an innovation that is very systemic.
It works at a system level and then really made a difference by reframing.
That's where we have to move from, the current model of making incremental innovation. Let's
make functions and features better. Even we use in usability, also we look at the website
and look at how can we make the functionality of the information better, features better
but we have to go beyond that. Think about the entire experience. That's why we have
to really study the life journeys and the people's overall experience, the perceptions
and the takeaway, the overall take away from the website, their motivation, their desires.
Take a different stance on your product, on your innovation.
Fourth one, broaden the context of innovation. That is if you are focused on your innovation
whether you are product innovator or a website or a service innovator. Many a time, we are
so involved and sort of dedicated to create innovation, we get into the trap of focus.
Sometimes we are very difficult to take away from that focus and then take a broader look.
I always say that when you are too involved with your innovation work or design work,
sometimes you take a step back. Forget about all the details. Forget about all the details
and broaden your perspective and look at your innovation in relation to the whole system,
in relation to the whole system, everything else around you. The context, other people
manufacturing, the environment, the regulation, the government, the policies, all has some
effect on your innovation. Try to broaden that context. We use a lot
of tools to deliberately do that, frameworks like this. If you are product designer trying
to improve a product, take a step back and look at the activities that people do with
the product and try to support that. I remember, I do a lot of client consulting work for corporations.
When I was working with Doblin, a strategy consulting firm, Texas Instruments approached
us with a laptop at that time, that is 1995. Laptop was the cool thing at that time. Texas
Instruments want to get into the laptop market. They approached us and said, "Can you redesign
the laptop and make it really cool so that we can get into the business?"
Imagine the laptop right in the center that is the offering. What we said that, "Okay
that's a good idea but we are not going to study the laptop. Our research will not look
at laptop at all. We will look at it but as a secondary focus. We are going to look at
the activities that people do with laptop." We called it mobility computing at that time.
Laptop support mobility. What are the activities that people do when they move around dealing
with information? Communicating, sending messages and all kinds of activities. If we study those
activities, new opportunities emerge. This probably may not land up in a better
laptop. It may land up in a completely different set of innovations like mobile, small mobile
devices. That's exactly what we ultimately presented to Texas Instruments. They wanted
a better redesigned laptop but the broadening of the approach led to a series of new innovation
but unfortunately, it didn't work out because around 2000 time, everything went down and
Texas Instruments conceded their strategy. Let's not get into the consumer market. Let's
continue with our traditional business. Unfortunately, that didn't fly up but nowadays, you can see
the plethora of mobile devices out there not laptop anymore. People when they're mobile,
they want to do different things differently and different devices can support different
activities differently. That's the kind of reframing that we can do.
We use other tools like the Ten Types of Innovations. That's a tool that I have developed when I
was working again at Doblin. There are ten types of innovations. Can you use that as
a thinking tool? Think about your innovation, your own innovations.
In this example, what is shown here is the Chotu Kool, the Chotu Kool example that I
mentioned, the small refrigerator in India. Of course, it's a product innovation really
made a different new product but a whole lot of other innovations it addressed. For example,
the last image that you see a lot of women there. It is the branding and the channel
innovation built in was to support businesses, make women and villages entrepreneurial.
Women became the distributors. Women, housewives in rural situations, were empowered by Godrej
to be the distributors and they were selling this Chotu Kool in their own ways. They used
to create their own advertisement. They will create street dramas in community spaces,
Chotu Kool in the center. They will have a drama around it, their own innovations to
sell the idea or engage the community into the value of a cooling device like that, such
a powerful way in which Godrej made that happen. I was amazed by that.
Indian Post, you see a little figure, Indian Post. What does it mean? It's a channel innovation.
The importance of that cannot be underestimated. India is a wide, as I mentioned, the rural
areas are really inaccessible and no proper roads and things like that but mail arrives.
It has a fantastic postal system. If you mail something here to a remote rural village,
it'll arrive somehow. It may take a little bit more time but it'll reach there in time,
really great postal service system. That concept is going down because of e-mail
like digital world. You don't need to really physically deliver a mail. The post offices
that were then in rural areas where the mail were being delivered were becoming almost
obsolete. There's no need for delivering mail anymore. Godrej partnered with Indian postal
system to re-purpose those post offices as distribution centers for Chotu Kool. Post
office became a retail space where families can go and by Chotu Kool, get it serviced,
maintenance service and things like that. The reach became really vast. That is how
they made the innovation successful. What I'm saying is that by thinking about
these 10 types of innovations, you can really make your innovation much more successful
in a systemic way. I'm running out of time. The fifth principle
is foster an innovation culture in the organization. Always as innovator, we should think about
how can my work affect my peers? How can my work influence the general innovation culture
in the organization that everyone is thinking about innovation every time including the
accountant should think about what can be done to make that counting process better?
Innovation is not a prerogative to a designer of innovator but it should become pervasive.
That's the idea here. How can we have that mindset of fostering an innovation culture
in organizations? If you have the question of what is next, there are different people
have different opinions about what should be the next innovation. Engineers, anthropologists
including end customers and family members and every one should participate in that innovation
process. The challenge is how to create a shared space where everyone can participate.
Lots of things that you can do. That's the biggest challenge I'm finding in organizations
- to create that cultural chain but simple things like this work.
Empower a champion in an organization. That is a work model that has worked out very well.
Champions in organizations can make a big difference, champions who take on the role
of innovation facilitation. Procter and Gamble, for example, 15 years ago, I worked with them
a lot. 15 years ago, they were working in silos. Hair care division will never talk
to skin care division and fabricare division, silo model. Suddenly, Claudia Kotchka, who
is a champion, amazing woman with a lot of enthusiasm, a champion, decided to create
an innovation culture within that with buy-in from A.G. Lafley who was the then CEO who
supported that idea and really made a difference in the culture of the organization.
Through things like this workshops, inspired collaborative workshops, in which all stakeholders
are brought in on a weekly basis or very frequently. All the stakeholders brought in to discuss
what can work and what cannot work. Brainstorming sessions where all these people contribute.
Those are simple steps that you can take but even things like that also happening culturally
like have you heard the word hackerspaces? Hackerspaces are people with the mentality
of hacking in a good sense, people with the mentality of really drilling down into software
collecting together as a community trying to create new things. They are called makerspaces
now, a community of people having similar interests trying to do new things.
Open innovation, another concept which is becoming very popular these days which is
how can everyone participate at the innovation process? Innovation need not be by you and
me. Anyone around the world should be able to participate in that. Nowadays, crowdsourcing,
our technology allows that. Some communities are actually practicing it. Like, Procter
and Gamble has a system called connect and develop. You can go to their website. If you
have an idea for a household product, you can put your idea and then it becomes part
of Procter and Gamble's pool of growing ideas and if your idea finally gets embodied in
a final product, you will get some incentive. There is a royalty program that they have
worked out. Incentive-based involvement of the entire population. Someone from Taiwan
or Vietnam can participate in the innovation process of Procter and Gamble.
That's the direction in which our world is going. Even on a virtual site, you can create
things like that, Spotify music where you can share music, you can look at your friends
preferences in music become much more interesting. LinkedIn is a virtual environment where you
are actually creating a shared space to exchange ideas at a professional level. Can you create
innovation space where innovations could be created in the same way by involving everyone
and discussions? They can put their own methods, their own approaches and things like that
and go on like that? That's just one example. Lastly, to hurry a little bit there, lastly,
practice innovation with a disciplined process and rigorous set of methods. My book is all
about that, 101 methods. Sometimes you get intimated "Oh, 101 methods. How are we going
to use all of those?" It's not a matter of using 101. Use only 5 or 10 of those, but
effectively. Use the best method that works best for you. Rigor does not mean that you
kill yourself. You should have fun that these are our students working on a day-to-day basis.
The process model is something like that, real, abstract, understand, and make. Two
scales there. There are seven modes in the process. They are very generic process, nothing
really a rocket science about it. I think you and I might be practicing it but I formalized
it. Early on, innovation process is sensing intent.
Even before innovating, what do you want to innovate? You ask yourself, "What should I
innovate? What are the trends that are going on in the world? Where the world is moving?
Am I aware of all of that move in that direction?" That initial sensing intent. Once we have
a rough direction and establish where you want to move, then you have to really understand
the reality. You have to know the people and that's where you have to start with, research,
user research, user context research, understanding in the reality.
Once you have understood reality, you can move up on the scale from real to abstract.
That is why you spend a lot of time in abstract terms trying to make sense out of "What does
the data tell me? What do usability studies, the result from usability studies tell me.
What are the patterns that I can see?" You have to be in that abstract world, analyzing
and framing and reframing. Then once we have good reframes, then you can move to the make
side exploring concepts. That's where brainstorming happens.
You might explore hundreds of ideas, but hundreds of ideas by themselves don't mean anything
until you frame solutions. Out of those 100 ideas, you might have to create the right
combinations of ideas that are viable. That's when you take judgements and testing and prototypes
and things like that to make it viable in the market place.
Finally, you go down and realize that through prototypes and pilots and finally launch it,
realize the offering. That's a very typical, very generic process that can be applied to
any innovation process, whether it is website design, product design, service design, experience
design or any kind of design. The process is not linear in the actual project. You might
be jumping back and forth and iterative. You first make a prototype, test it many times
and then you pilot it in the real market tested many a times. It is iterative and non-linear.
We have to be aware of that but it is convenient to put the process in a linear way so that
I can organize my tool kit. Hundred and one of those which are discussed
in the book in somewhat detail that you can use your own. Are you counting? Okay. There
are 101. It's not the tool kit that really matters how you use the tool kit. As I said,
you don't have to use 101. It can be intimidating that way. Once you are aware of all these
tools, how they are roughly worked, then you know depending upon the project which one
to select, tailor it to projects. Small projects, you might select only three or four tools.
In a system designed project that might go for years, you might select 20 tools out of
that. That's the trick that you have, too. I'll finish with this thought. Challenge yourself.
I have introduced these six mindsets and principles. Deliberately challenge yourself in your own
work