That doesn’t mean you’ll need to fly blind. At every moment in your innovation process you can use tools, references, checklists and other innovation methods. We do the same in our innovation projects. Let me give you some insights in our innovation toolkit.

Let me present my weapons of choice at every stage within an innovation process!

On this page:
I. Best inspiration sources to find new ideas
II. Free trend reports and inspiration documents
III. Videos, Presentations and Slidedecks
IV. Books on innovation frameworks, models & tools
V. Software tools/online services/apps
VI. Non-digital tools (you know, atoms and stuff)
VII. Presenting your idea – create an awesome pitch
VIII. Other references & innovation tools elsewhere

I. Best inspiration sources to find new ideas

image under creative commons Flickr user: Jochen

a. Set up a continuous flow of inspiration! (subscribe to feeds)

Everyday you and your innovation team should be fueled with fresh ideas. Strong innovators have a huge backpack loaded with inspiring cases. RSS feeds are still my number one resource to get my personal daily shot of inspiration.

Selection of our favorite RSS feeds (blogs) to get new ideas:
Where do you find new business ideas? How to keep track of emerging trends?

I manage my +500 feeds via Google Reader but I read most of them via Reeder (iPad).
Pro tip: In Google Reader you can use the ‘Translate this feed‘ function.

Examples of non-English innovation & inspiration feeds:

• Start-up dating

• Idea*Idea
• Trend One
• 100 Shiki
• Deutsche Startups
• Flanders DC blog

My question to you: I must be missing tons of good sources. Any recommendations here?

b. Use social media as innovation news filters

Use Flipboard (iPad) and Zite (iPad) to create news channels on specific topics. With these apps I’ve made channels for “innovation”, “entrepreneurship”, “creativity” and so on. Every day I get the most popular articles related to these subjects.

pro tip: By using services as Wefollow or Klout you can find Twitter users that can be considered experts in a specific field. (e.g. business innovation, technology trends,…). Just create a Twitter list with these people and add this to Flipboard. By doing so you can keep track of all the articles and links that these “influencers” share. Very useful!

A brief selection of inspiring/innovative Twitter people:

Use a dedicated twitter client (e.g. Tweetdeck) to create columns on specific topic clusters. To get you started you could track specific hashtags: #bmgen, #innochat or #creativity. On my iPad I prefer to use Osfoora HD as twitter client. Keeping track of hashtags of specific innovation, marketing or trend conferences will give you good suggestions on who to follow in the innovation field. Examples: #lift12, #Picnic12,…

pro tip Don’t forget to make a search column with the twitter @usernames of your most important clients, partners or your competitors. example query to see who’s talking to us: “@nickdemey” OR “@philderidder”

Again, by using Tweetdeck. You could create very specific search queries by combining search terms. Example of a query for one Tweetdeck column: “business innovation” OR “new business model” OR “new revenue model”. Of course you can use the good old Google Alerts service to get similar kind of notifications on new articles, directly in your mailbox.

II. Free trend reports and inspiration documents

image under creative commons Flickr user: Gerlos

Some examples:

• MostContagious (scroll for PDF download)
• Trendwatching Monthly briefing
• Now And Next Trend map (pdf)
• Nielsen (example: social media innovation)

III. Videos, Presentations and Slidedecks

Nobody can beat the inspirational power of +1000 talks in the TED talk archive.

My top picks:

More:
Jeff Bezos on the next web innovation
Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
Chris Anderson of WIRED on tech’s Long Tail
Saul Griffith on everyday inventions
Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from
Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity

Depending on the topic you could go to Khanacademy, Youtube or other video sites likes Vimeo. You could search for “Documentaries”(Example: Everything is a Remix ), Concept videos (Example: MAG+ ), and so on. If you want to find very remarkable and inspiring videos on the future of technology you can start your search by looking for specific technology conferences or research labs: examples: “Siggraph”, “MIT”,… (PatchMatch: Structural Image Editing , SIGGRAPH 2010: Squidsoup’s Glowing Pathfinder Bugs,…).

We hand picked 10 concept videos just to get you started:

Pro tip: Don’t forget to watch this great documentary!

Design the New Business – English subtitles from dthenewb on Vimeo.

IV. Books on innovation frameworks, models & tools

image under creative commons Flickr user: jason_coleman

• Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers
• This is Service Design Thinking: Basics, Tools, Cases
• The Lean Startup (Eric Ries)
• Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
• Free: The Future of a Radical Price
• What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption (Rachel Botsman)
• Design Research: Methods and Perspectives
• The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage
• The Ten Faces of Innovation (Tom Kelley – IDEO)
• Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping
• Don’t Just Roll The Dice – A usefully short guide to software pricing
• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Other publications to keep an eye on: Wired Magazine, The Economist, HBR innovation,…

V. Software tools/online services/apps

image under creative commons Flickr user: mindmeister

Other tools that give me extra boost in productivity:

• Mindmeister.com: Online shared mind maps supported by a neat iPad app.
• Handpick.me: Send your clients or team an automatic daily mail with your hand picked news & blogarticles. You can even add comments to every item. Great tool!
• Spezify: Associative thinking tool

• Visual.ly: Create stunning infographics
• Business Model Toolbox for ipad (Business Model Generation)
• Get instant feedback on mock-ups and ideas via 5 second Test
• In depth feedback on prototypes and mock-ups via ConceptShare.com
• Many people forget that you can Share your screen via Skype to do presentations. Make use of it!
• Use Launchrock or Kickofflabs to test your business case in a real world context. If people are interested in your idea you’ll end up with a significant mailinglist that can be used with tools like Mailchimp and others.
• Capture and discuss ideas within your organisation via Spigit.com or with your clients via NapkinLabs (+ neat facebook integration options!)

VI. Non-digital tools (you know, atoms and stuff)

Order Business Model Brainstorm kit via the top menu

• Jot Pen: for iPad sketching
• Business Model Brainstorm kit: Visual tool with magnets (awesome!)
• IDEO Method Cards: 51 Ways to Inspire Design
• Print your own brainstorm cards via Moo (Printfinity) service
• Stick on White boards (example). We have a few of these at the office. Might be useful in specific sessions.
• White Board paint is nice but we’re still looking for affordable magnetic whiteboard paint. All tips are welcome!
• Print this Persona Template Poster for brainstorm sessions

VII. Presenting your idea – create an awesome pitch

image under creative commons Flickr user: jdlasica

1 rule: 1 slide = 1 idea = 1 image. But where do you find stunning images for your presentation?

Flickr.com has a huge selection of high res images that are available under Creative Commons license.
pro tip Personally I’ve created a short code in my browser (Chrome) to do a direct search for CC images. Just add Flickr to your Quick Searches (manage search engines under preferences) and point your url to: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=%s&l=cc&s=int As a short code I chose “flcc”. Every time you need an image under Creative Commons license you can just type something like “flcc house” in your URL bar in Chrome. Bang – Beautiful images!

iStockPhoto.com
If you can’t find the images you’re looking for you will find (hopefully) exactly what you need on these stock photo sites. But please, don’t pick these cheesy overacted no-minority-has-been-left-out team photo’s. If you want to show people, just take pictures of your own real life brainstorms. It’s cheaper and more convincing!

Nounproject.com
Vector images and illustrations can be found on the nounproject. No more fooling around with blurry pixelated images!

High quality logos of companies
First stop, go to their official website and look for a button Brand identity. Many times there is a vector file (pdf, ai, eps,..) that you can download with some guidelines on how to use them properly.

Next stop: Go to brandsoftheworld.com where they have a huge collection of logos available for you to download.

pro tip: Search google for PDF files on the domain of the your company. (e.g. press releases). Most of the time you can open the PDF in a program like Adobe Illustrator. Just copy the logo and export to a format of your choice. Google example: “site:nike.com file:.pdf press” of try “file:.pdf press release”.

Tips to create beautiful slide decks.
Keynote on Mac still rocks but even when you’re limited to Powerpoint you can create rocking slides. Don’t blame your tools for creating a mediocre presentation. Just Learn from the masters and level up! Browsing on NoteAndPoint.com or Behance will definitely give you the necessary inspiration boost!

Slideshare:
Slideshare.net is more or less the Youtube of presentation sites but that doesn’t mean that this is the only option to showcase your presentations. Other start-ups are working hard to offer competitive alternatives. Keep an eye on Speakerdeck.com and Projeqt.com, 2 projects that might disrupt this field anytime soon. Even Scribd might be a good solution for you. Just go out and play!

Create slides that rock!

More via:

• Watch every pitch of Dragons Den! (I’m serious about this.) See how other inventors succeed or fail at pitching their idea to investors.
• Death by Powerpoint (slideshare)
• 7 Design Principles in Creating a PPT
• You Suck at Powerpoint
• Great tips on how to build your story: Nancy Duarte uncovers common structure of greatest communicators
• The Elevator Pitch Guide: 45 presentation tips for startups

VIII. Other references & innovation tools elsewhere

image under creative commons Flickr user: doubletrack

• Go Gamestorm: Linked to the book mentioned above. Packed with exercises and examples on how to brainstorm and other creativity techniques.
• Proven Models: One of the most extensive lists with all possible frameworks used in innovation (and management).
• Service Design Tools: A visual overview with tons of tools & templates. Great resource!
• Innowiz: Great collection of innovation & creativity tools
• Pen & Paper Tools for getting from Research to Design
• Uxbooth: Complete Beginner’s Guide to Design Research
• AngelList: A community of start-ups
• Startups: This is how design works
• The 101 Most Useful Websites Great list of productivity tools!

– updated monthly — don’t forget to share your tips –

Or just contact us to tackle your innovation challenge!

Mail via info@boardofinnovation.com or ping us on twitter (@nickdemey & @philderidder). Here are some teasers to get you started:

Years ago when you pitched your start-up on stage you pinpointed exactly what was (is) wrong with the shaving industry.

• “You don’t need million blades to have a good shave.” You, the bearded CEO, showed Youtube movies like this that you can shave with just 2 bladed razor. Low budget, start-up style but convincing!
  
• “You’re paying too much for your blades!” Packed in sealed boxes or stored behind the counter… customers are always confronted with the fact that your Gilette Mach 9 Sword Titanium Turbo Glide is costing you a limb. “Stop doing that!”
  
• “Don’t waste time looking for what blade fits which handle.” Yes, I hate that, very frustrating!
  
• “It’s time to Revolt, it’s time for a War! Join Raz*War“ – Hell yeah! I’m in!
  

So I joined the movement and a few days later I got the first delivery of my neatly designed pack of razor blades. #proud

Yesterday, after being a member for 2 years, I went back to supermarket and the bought the cheapest Wilkinson Sword blades that fitted my dusted handle. You lost me.

But before I go, let me give you some feedback.

1. Subscription as a service?

That story is over it seems. Today, you’re just selling 40 blades for 1 fixed price (€42,60), shipped in 1 delivery. Is this a subscription or a plan? No! But more important, this is not an impulsive buying decision anymore. +40 euro? How many A-brand blades can you buy with that? As customer you start to think. (hint: That is not what you want.)

2. Dropping monthly or quarterly deliveries

You miss crucial moments to get in touch with your clients. Hey, I even mailed your team this suggestion last year. > “Mail people 2 weeks in advance, ask them if they want something extra with their next delivery. I’m confident it will boost your upselling. A gift for a friend, an accessory,… even with an extra discount (or no extra shipping costs).

Good luck with the business”

Instead you canceled all deliveries except one. Pity. Shipments cost a buck and are a burden (I know, we’re shipping brainstorm kits world wide) but you could do so much more with this! Why didn’t you go all in and set up a monthly recurring income stream. Get in touch with your client every few weeks. Build up a relationship! For me, this client base would be the strongest asset you would have in your business model.

3. 5 blades? Seriously?

I really loved the proposition of Raz*War. No frills, just awesome blades that shave. Nothing more, nothing less. Last year Raz*War introduced a 4 blade Razor that felt already as a stretch on your business proposition. But 5? “Customers asked for more blades.” I could refer to Jobs or Ford with cliché innovation quotes but services that trie to fit every customer segment will end up with a mediocre business. I’m not sure if this is what you want. Pick a side a hold on to your vision!

Kindle vs iPad vs Sony Tablet S

By raising your prices (at least the perception of it), dropping the subscription service and by joining the race for to the 10 blade razor you’ve put yourself in a different market: The same old market of Giants you were fighting against. Within this field you’re not the strongest. People that prefer high end are willing to pay for superb quality. You were the Kindle versus iPad. Two players, different markets. But today, you’re the Sony Tablet S…

Ps: What do you think about the The DollarShaveClub.com?
Although I’ve no intel if your business is burning. David, you’re a smart business guy so you probably know how to run this business but I hope you can pivot once more.

Today I stumbled upon The Dollar Shave Club. What do you think? It’s Raz*War with a twist: a Shaving business cocktail mixed with flavors of Old Spice and Kenny Powers K-Swiss Blades. But on the other side, even they have a 6 blade razor (six!).

(source: TechCocktail)

While marriage day might be the happiest day in the lives of many women, the preparations to that day are the hardest and organizationally very challenging. Meet Yebab.com.

In the Arab world, you need to multiply all logistical and organizational challenges of a marriage by a factor of ten, in order to also account for cultural and religious matters. Despite, huge organizational challenges there are many young Arab women who marry annually, not least because Arabia is demographically the youngest region in the world. One survey conducted in 2008 by IIR Middle East during a Bride’s Show in Dubai revealed that 24% of brides in the UAE plan to spend up to US $140,000 on their wedding and 20% planned to spend even more. In 2008, despite the impact of the global recession, the average cost of a Dubai wedding was US $82,000. The wedding industry is estimated to cost around $500 million annually with over 8,000 Arab weddings taking place only in the UAE.

In brief, there was a huge/growing demand to drastically simplify, streamline and save time/effort spent on preparing for a marriage and it was not met.

Until 2008, Emirati women had to spend many months preparing for their weddings.  Brides-to-be would need to look for and go through many local websites as well as go and visit shops, food caterers, etc. This was a challenging task taking lot of time and money.

Then Yebab.com came around. “Yebab” is the loud celebratory whistle that Arab women make at weddings, expressing joy and happiness. Yebab is a free, wedding planning portal that is both in Arabic and English and offers a wide range of services. It provides brides-to-be with an extensive directory consisting of 22 categories and a list of shops that has gone from 30 in 2008 to over 1,400 in 2012. As Yebab was founded in UAE, it also offers services unique to the Emirati culture such as the wedding stage, cultural entertainment and wedding hospitality service.  Yebab also offers administrative tools/methods on various ways of budget control.

Murshed Mohamed Ahmed, founder of Yebab, identified one of important challenges, that of choosing a “preparation room.” This room is where a bride gets ready for her wedding, usually located in a hotel, marriage hall or a restaurant. With privacy and discretion being a priority for local brides, the location of this room and the walk they take to get to the main reception is often a high priority. Questions about preparation room are asked every time a bride contacts a hotel and is something the bride is keen to know about. But, according to Mr. Ahmed, many hotels and wedding planners usually don’t have comprehensive or even satisfactory answer to that question.

Yebab’s solution to this particular problem is to film the preparation room and the walk from the room to the main event for each of vendors who offer their services via Yebab. The video shows what an image of a preparation room wouldn’t be able to show, and this proved very popular with brides.

While Yebab is not the only one offering wedding related services in UAE (whiteme.net and dubaiwed.com), it is the only one in Arabic (in addition to English) and in less than 12 months after National Net Ventures invested in (August 2010) and incubated it, its traffic grew tenfold, tripled its pageviews, and doubled its revenue.

Yebab.com is currently partnering with more than 130 wedding service providers. Since recently Yebab also started catering for the Saudi Arabian and Egyptian markets. It generates revenues based on partnerships (wedding services vendors paying a fee – starting at around $1,000 a year and rising according to the size and scope of the vendor – to have a dedicated page on the Yebab website) and ads displayed on its website.

So did Mr. Musher find a success recipe in the Arab world? His pragmatic advice to any would-be entrepreneur is to solve a real-world problem, be ready for unexpected problems and difficulties; but be ready and optimistic to solve them!

Let’s look at one example. Last year we saw how the incredible rise of Netflix suddenly halted. In two years time Netflix managed to boost its stock price value with almost 400%. An amazing figure in economic turbulent times! But then, in July of last year, Netlfix announced a new pricing strategy for its business model. The bundled package of DVD-by-mail and streaming service would be split up in 2 brands (Qwikster & Netflix). This resulted in a price increase of +60% for many of the Netflix subscribers. The backlash that followed the months afterwards lead to a loss of almost 1,000,000 customers and a drop in stock price of 200 dollar. By the end of the year, the operation to redesign their revenue model was canceled (sort of) but the damage had been done. Let’s hope Netflix doesn’t go down the MySpace route.Amazon, Redbox and Apple are not the smallest player to compete with!

Did we miss any relevant cases? I guess Groupon could be added to the list. Kodak as well? Thanks for sharing your ideas!

Imagine a way to centrally manage the way you get and accept quotes from suppliers. Imagine a way for businesses to come to you, rather than you going out individually to each of them. That’s what PickAQuote.com.au tries to address with its online service offering.

I’ve sat down with Marcus Lim, the co-founder of PickAQuote.com.au, based in Sydney Australia. The guys at PickAQuote are building a central on-line marketplace to streamline the supplier quotation process. Their business model is relatively simple:

1. Consumers post their requests on-line for free
2. Competitive quotes come in
3. The consumer picks the best quote available

Revenues come from quotation fees (when a business responds to a job with a formal quote) as well as success fees (when the business is accepted for a job). Customers may also receive some ‘kick-back’ revenue ($10) for each successful referral made, as well as $5 for every job completed.

There is certainly great potential for this organisation to be a successful – the real questions to address are how to achieve critical mass (for both supply and demand), how to leverage economies of scale, as well as how to market an on-line product to a typically off-line activity.

PickAQuote has been actively marketing on national radio channels, and have been mentioned on prominent newspapers in Australia. Given such media coverage, the direction this business is heading is one of many examples of an innovative Aussie start-up aiming to disrupt the status quo. Expect to see more innovative Asia Pacific start-up / business model examples on this blog in the future.

Comparing both donation platforms I’ve got the feeling that Causes.com is leaving money on the table, which is sad of course. Just looking at Kickstarter.com you can see that people get a bigger reward depending on the amount they donate. A very important motivator to jack up the donations! Most projects on Causes.com don’t give anything extra when they donate more.

What could Causes.com do to improve their business model?

Make it personal

Based on our own experience with Kiva I would strongly advice to make a personal connection with the project you’re supporting. To give one example: Kiva.com reported that our loan to Jocelyn in the Philippines helped her in setting up her wine vending and coffee shop. These personal stories make your donation very tangible! But Causes.com can do better than this!

What about game mechanics?

Yesterday Empire Avenue launched EAvCares. Empire Avenue is an experiment on its own. Basically this website is a stock market simulation social network game that allows users to buy and sell shares of people and websites. Ok, that’s a full mouth of buzzwords, sorry about that. (e.g. My stock overview) With EAvCares user can now gain extra points and badges in this game when donating to real world charity projects. An interesting twist to mix both online and offline worlds!

A few months ago Zynga (company behind Farmville et al.) used their gaming platform to encourage players to make in-game donations. All they had to do was make virtual items, sell them in the game and donate this income to the Japan Earthquake Relief campaign. $2.5 million was raised this way. Very smart!

A third and last example in this field is the Walkathon iPhone app. When linked with a pedometer this app can track how many step you take during the day. When you achieve certain goals (e.g. x amount of steps) companies will donate a given amount to a charity event of your choice. You can imagine people will just walk that extra mile to activate an extra donation.

I hope Causes.com can borrow some of the ideas presented in these business models so initiatives like that of Craig can have bigger impact in the end.

picture by Chasing Butterflies

Lesson 1: Always start with the mindset!

There’s no point in starting with business modelling, if people haven’t changed their mindset. A lot of organizations are still very much focused on innovating their product, with the business model being largely unchanged over the last 20-40 years. Don’t end up in a TomTom situation where you kept improving your product, but all of a sudden your product has become obsolete. Start with listing all the assumptions you have about your current business model, and then challenge each one of them.

Lesson 2: Copy/paste from successful business models.

80% of our creative ideas comes from analogy thinking. That’s why it is important to look outside of your industry boundaries, and learn from new business concepts. We looked for example at how Aux Raus has transferred the McDonalds franchise model into the music industry (an old business model in a new context), and how you could copy the mobile phone model to electric cars.

Lesson 3: Innovation projects should be fun and serious at the same time.

If you’re innovation process looks like Gantt charts, idea boxes, and dull meetings, it’s time to shake things up! We spoke about motivating a team when entering a business model innovation project, and using the metaphor of making a movie together. You can read more about it in the top presentation about our innovation process.

Lesson 4: Experiment with business models!

On the Creativity World Forum, Jamie Anderson gave an energetic speech about the pace of new developments in the music sector. Where Madonna changed here looks once every 2 years (the lifecycle of new albums), new star Lady Gaga changes her looks every 2 months (the lifecycle of digital songs). This change in pace is taking place in every sector. That’s why you shouldn’t get stuck in a 2y cycle of traditional business planning, but experiment with a portfolio of business model prototypes. I was impressed by the ecosystem Turkcell has set up with all-kinds of startups in related fields, from mobile gaming to mobile payments, with different business models. That’s the way to go!

I certainly have to thank WeDecide (the new kid in town of innovation management platforms) and Özyeğin Üniversity (Istanbul’s leading university on innovation & entrepreneurship) for hosting us. Btw, on Saturday I met with Erhan Sabay, our new ambassador in Turkey. Keep an eye on him via this blog, as he’ll keep us updated on the latest innovations popping up over there.

With the former palace of Brussels as an inspiring location, we talked about Ponzi-schemes, human traffic, drug carriers, pirates, … and how they set up their business model. Insights into criminal models, it even triggered some journalists. We made it into several newspapers, and Nick was invited to talk about the subject on national television on De Laatste Show (late evening talk show).

Still curious about the examples? Let me give you 3 tactics to talk about with your colleagues over lunch!

• Put time pressure on clients to act
  What’s making Groupon and penny auctions so popular? The fact that people have a certain time to act, otherwise they miss a great deal, is what gives these companies crucial benefits! Think about it, what are ways to increase time limitations? See it as a gamification technique and people will love it!

• Fear or hope as an emotional payment
  Ever heard about chicken pox parties? Parties where mothers bring their kids to in order to get infected by other kids (so that this happens in holidays instead of during school periods). Or chicken pox lolly’s: for sale for only $50. A lot of industries are actually offering their products on the basis of fear or hope, often in an unethical way. Is this happening in your industry as well? It can also be done in a legal way. Do you have fear that your new the glass back of your new iPhone might break? Apple has an insurance product that they bundle with the iPhone sales!

• Better stuff or better service?
  The people of Xalisco Network are not regular heroin dealers, they bring door-to-door delivery, have their own over phone customer service and reward their clients with free heroin if they bring in new addicts. Obviously we don’t agree with this at all, but even there you see business strategies being implemented. Ask yourself: does your company focus on better stuff or a better service?

Interested in more criminal tactics? Let’s have a Black Business Models workshop, get in touch!

Story 1. Black Business Models: Why there are 200M fire weapons in the US.

In the state of Arizona you can carry a gun in public, not hidden, without a permit. Everyone can. This is obviously big business for the whole firearms industry. So where is this coming from? - there are probably different explanations but I was told the following in the corridors of the conference - It originates from the oppression of people before US’ independence, when government rule was imposed on them. The logic following from that: a government could only oppress a whole population if they can enforce it with firepower. That’s why there are currently about 200M firearms in the US, only 2-3M owned by law enforcement forces, all the rest by citizens! Of course the world has changed since then, but the fear of government dictatorship has been translated into a big weapons business, embedded in the constitution. In preparation of our upcoming Black Business Models masterclass, we’ve spoken before about how creating a feeling of fear (Somali Pirates) can drive big business (private security and insurance firms). You see this in a number of industries. Take a critical look at your industry or at services you are buying yourself as a customer, how many are actually based on a (false) feeling of fear, freedom, happiness…? Mexican flue vaccines, anyone? BBM, Black Business Models, Big Business Models?!

Story 2. Try on a fat suit if you sell diet products!

How to understand your customers, really. While everyone is talking about the job-to-be-done, customer insights, the voice of the customer… how many do really understand the people that are buying their products? You don’t really feel that from customer statistics or summaries of ethnographic interviews; those only make you aware of facts or insights. Steven Fahrenholtz, Strategy and Innovation Director at General Mills, brought a good story about how he tries to understand people, taking his innovation team with him in that. When developing new diet products, he went on a diet himself. Quite straightforward, but how many people do it? He would also get his team in a ‘fat suit’ doubling people’s weight, and get them to McDonalds ordering a super-sized meal, talking to people… Some people just broke. That’s something you don’t get out of market studies. In our ideation projects, we use a similar approach: we give the idea team (i.e. The Cast) different characters over a period of 2-3 weeks, including different customer profiles. From that point of view they have to generate new business ideas (see slide 19 of our structured way to create Innovation Blockbusters). Steven’s approach is actually taking that a step further, very inspiring! So, try on your fat suit, sports suit, whatever suit and get out there!

Story 3. Fail Forward, the only way to create an innovative culture.

There’s a lot of talk about failing fast, both in corporates and start-ups, but how many people or organizations are really applying this on the ground. It was inspiring to hear how Tata has a Dare to Try award category. Awarding ideas and projects that fail to encourage people to be bold and innovative, that’s putting it in to practice. Are you failing forward? Do you award OR burn bold ideas that fail?

The conference was very strong on sharing best practices between corporate innovation leaders. I wouldn’t mind some more inspiration next time though. Overall, PDMA’s Annual Conference was good! And the Grand Canyon flight wasn’t bad either. Looking forward to seeing you all at next year’s edition in Orlando, Florida.