Art: Wayne Vincent
Art: Wayne VincentNothing comes from nothing; everything has predecessors. Old ideas are filled with amazing treasures that can be mined if you have the right mind-set. Our focus in new product development across a broad range of industries is on strategic creativity. Our ideation group generates and develops new product, service, and business concepts that answer both incremental and giant-leap needs. In addition to maintaining a forward focus in developing new products, we believe it is important to work with old things in new ways.
Starting from an existing place with an existing product, it is possible to
These prospects have been discussed before. What may be harder but equally valuable is the validation of previous "failures" or "misses." Old ideas, which did not work out before, may be able to make it now. They can have new factors essential to success, both internal and external. Corporate capabilities change, as do market conditions.
Old ideas represent a major investment--most likely, resources such as time, capital, capacity, and human potential. And beyond the sunk costs, those ideas represent a treasury of knowledge, perspective, creativity, skills, and capability. To retrieve that knowledge, we must identify the driving issues, find new gaps and fits, and manage the treasury.
Old ideas freeze our brains into old thoughts and patterns. Their very existence makes it difficult for us to see new possibilities. They are magnets that attract focus to a fixed, passed, or soon-to-be-passed paradigm. Our biggest competition is not our rivals but the way we currently do things, because it affects how we see opportunities.
Psychologists call this universal phenomenon "premature cognitive commitment" or "precognitive commitment." "Precognitive" means occurring automatically before complete awareness and understanding. "Commitment" means you're locked. This preconscious processing of information happens with lightening speed and precludes objectivity.
Precognitive commitments begin to be established in infancy, maybe even in utero, in every animal species. If you capture and keep ordinary houseflies in a jar and then remove the lid after a few days, you will find that most of those flies will stay right where they are, in the jar. They remain committed to the lid that is no longer there.
Precognitive commitment is a way of editing and ordering our world so that we can function efficiently and effectively. Scientists estimate that we register in our minds less than 1 billionth of what is going on in our immediate surroundings--only that which reinforces our existing ideas and concepts. If we do not have the preconception of the possibility, events spontaneously get edited out. They don't even register.
We have evolved to focus our brains and nervous systems on limited stimuli and pathways and to ignore millions of others. We must find new pathways, but how? Our brains excel at committing to fixed ways of looking at things, committing to established ideas, and editing out alternatives. This quality, while an advantage to survival, is a disadvantage to innovation because we avoid thinking about "unlikely" solutions. In fact, 90 percent of the thoughts we have today are thoughts we had yesterday (i.e., old ideas).
To find new pathways, we need to ask, "What 'lids' are we committed to as individuals, as teams, as whole companies?"
We can expand creative vision and arrive at new solutions by breaking the barriers of precognitive commitment to old ideas. To do this, we need a creative approach to problem solving. It comes from a new way of understanding the origins, nature, and evolution of problems.
Each time we solve a problem, we create a new commitment, which creates a new problem. There is tension between the old solution and the new problem, ad infinitum. The creative potential within is creative tension.
We can harness these dynamics to our advantage. First, we need to understand the tensions among history, current reality, and future vision. An appropriate analysis includes examining past strengths and weaknesses and current conditions, contemplating future visions and anticipating future strengths and weaknesses, and investigating gaps and fits between our ideas and what we find.
In doing this tension analysis, we notice new opportunities rising from the tensions. We can gain new insights, potentially seeing
At Loctite, opportunity was seen through the tension arising from one of the annoying side affects of cyanoacrylate use in bonding dark plastics (see sidebar, Creative problem solving). Condensation and polymerization of unstable uncured deposits of cyanoacrylate monomer caused a hazy, dusty bloom or coating on surrounding surfaces. Resources were focused on how to eliminate the bloom. It was a difficult problem, and tension was high.
But tension does not have to be a trap; it can be a driver. Tension between current realities and future visions can be mined, managed, and used to create a whole new reality.
Tension encapsulates energy. Our first instinct is to rush to relieve those the tensions; because they are uncomfortable--when you hurt, pop an aspirin; when a product fails, get a new one. If we delay our attempts to relieve the tensions; feel and live with those tensions; and strive to understand the less obvious, peripheral dynamics of those tensions, we can release new energies to fuel new ideas.
Consider advancing beyond precognitive commitments by seeking such "edge views." Involve noncustomers, new users, and next users (who do not match your current target now but will in the future). Involve people from other cultures and other age groups who can see patterns and openings you cannot see. Involve neophytes and nonexperts or cutting-edge experts in other areas.
When Ameritech recently reorganized its business units, they brought in marketing people with no experience in the telephone industry to run the units. The new managers were able to see problems and solutions that had not been recognized before. With objective and varied new perspectives from the package goods industry, Ameritech was able to develop better, targeted new services; decrease their development cycle time; and increase profitability dramatically. Ameritech now has the most phone lines per worker in its industry, a key efficiency measure, and the company is poised to present innovative new services to meet new communications, media, and electronic commerce opportunities far beyond those targeted previously.
Atypical experts can help us see what we cannot see ourselves. They can lift us to a new edge, helping to create new neural pathways, extending beyond our self-editing brains and nervous systems. This rich, diverse, progressive input helps us with the first issue of seeing what we are prepared to see by removing the limits of our vision of the opportunities that exist.
A group of edge-thinking law enforcement detectives saw opportunity in the tension of cyanoacrylate bloom. They discovered that the cyanoacrylate superglue bloom revealed otherwise invisible fingerprints as the adhesive vapor haze intensified on the prints. The cyanoacrylate vapors react with proteins in a fingerprint to develop prints on surfaces where other methods fail. These prints were more durable than others developed with conventional powders. Fingerprint development has become a major application for cyanoacrylate.
Physicists, anthropologists, sociologists, architects, spiritual leaders, traditional and alternative medical practitioners, artists, and poets, for example, put us in touch with the edges of our culture--where trends start and where new patterns form that will affect the preferences and behaviors of our target customers in the future. This is true for every product, service, and industry, from high tech to chemicals to consumer goods. And it can be done efficiently and systematically.
For example, what do trends in personal computers have to do with frozen TV dinners? Consider the impact of massive exposure to PC screens on our color preferences. We begin to internalize the bright, electric, luminescent colors that grab our attention as we surf the 'Net or play Nintendo. So, to decide on colors for the interior and exterior of a new car line, the package colors for a frozen dinner, or the color of the coating on a new pain reliever caplet, you need to understand these influences. And you won't learn about them from talking to your current customers.
Hundreds of these trends can be applied to and have an effect on many aspects of your new products and services. One trend that we have identified and dubbed "reigning in" points to people taking more control over their lives and becoming increasingly more self-reliant. One example of this trend applied to new products from old ideas is the home pregnancy test. Such chemical technology, formerly relegated to medical laboratories, now is available for home use; additionally, products have been developed for those hoping for a baby as well as those who are not.
Another trend application is Aura System's new auto engine generator. With minor changes, an ordinary generator can run a car as well as power an entire household with 7000 W while on a normal idle. Such a product could be useful during weather-related and other power outages.
Many of us start with a form of separation in "blue skying" or unfettered brainstorming to encourage the generation of new ideas. However, it is also important to separate at progressive points throughout the development process, as we screen, evaluate, refine, and implement our strategies.
Thermo Electron used separation when developing its Heart Mate cardiac implant device. The exercises allowed the company to stand back from its relationships with customers, distributors, analysts, etc.; without the strong ties of these relationships limiting vision and movement, the company was able to see the possibilities of new solutions. Whereas everyone demanded an ultrasmooth interior surface on cardiac implant devices to avoid the danger of blood clotting, Thermo Electron took a counterintuitive approach: an intentionally rough surface. The idea was scoffed and initially rejected, but then it became clear that the approach worked beautifully. The rough texture caused clotting, but even clotting, thus creating a collagen lining similar to that in a natural heart. The Heart Mate now earns almost $400 million in revenue annually.
Albert Einstein said, "Our theories determine our measurements." Separating from the problem, from customers, from conventional wisdom frees us to think in truly new ways. The concept of separation also helps when evaluating customer testing. We are tempted to go for those things that score best in our tests, those that are most popular. Most popular means only for today ... not necessarily tomorrow. The president of Canon, Fujio Mitarai, was recently quoted as saying "We should do something when people say it is crazy. If people say something is 'good,' it means someone else is already doing it."
The implication is clear. The focus should be on learning rather than simply evaluating. When doing any kind of consumer test, you have to investigate outliers as well as what is popular. There, you will find answers to what will be most popular when the current fringe becomes the mainstream--as it often does. This is the only way to find the new information about old ideas that will enable you to create truly new solutions.
Whether you believe new ideas about old ideas are hard to come by or you always seem to have more than you can use, your ideas can get better and better with new ideas about concept generation, evaluation, and management (see sidebar, How to use old ideas in new ways).
In every development, from every starting place, new ideas about the innovation process are becoming more and more vital. With every old and new idea, creativity will yield competitive advantage.
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