Innovation: Everybody loves it. Great. So how do you DO it?
Everyone is tripping over themselves lately talking about innovation. Even the monolithic companies have caught on, along with George W, and they've all joined the chorus: "Innovation! Innovation is the way of the future!"
Before I get caught up in my own mental image of these characters marching along like the mobs in that Simpsons "Monorail" episode, I'll get to the point.
How should we approach this innovation anyway?
So I see two approaches going on. The first is the top-down, or big-vision-driven version. This one sounds the best and feels the best when the idea is hatched. That's because it's pie-in-the-sky.
To come up with big visions like this, you do some brainstorming. (With at least some knowledge of your actual user base, or this has great potential to turn out VERY badly.)
Brainstorming! Great tool. But brainstorming means you imagine that there are no limits. How freeing! Your imagination can go anywhere!
When does reality set in?
This is how you get incomplete solutions, or solutions that only work --in perfect synergy mind you-- if you have all the *right* equipment to go with it. For example....have you used onenote but not ie? Or MS Money without an internet connection? Lest you think I'm picking on Microsoft, how about computer games made that can only run on machines so sophisticated that they aren't even out on the market yet? In all of these situations, the experience is degraded unless you have all the proper equipment.
Dreaming big is great. But don't forget that constraints enhance creativity. Consider starting from the bottom-up. Starting from a small observation of humans and their activities. There are lots of clumsy half-solutions in all our lives. And there's the opportunity for innovation.
If you take these small observations yet still keep your mind open to the impossible, you are starting from the ground-up.
Do not assume that everyone will have achieved a particular level of technology by the time you launch.
Consider this example (yes from the overexposed Marissa Mayer)
In either situation (top-down or bottom-up), you start with knowledge of your users. How you work with that knowledge determines whether or not those users will be able to use the product that you're building for them!
Can't it just...work? In an imperfect world?
Yes. Just start from the bottom-up.
Before I get caught up in my own mental image of these characters marching along like the mobs in that Simpsons "Monorail" episode, I'll get to the point.
How should we approach this innovation anyway?
So I see two approaches going on. The first is the top-down, or big-vision-driven version. This one sounds the best and feels the best when the idea is hatched. That's because it's pie-in-the-sky.
To come up with big visions like this, you do some brainstorming. (With at least some knowledge of your actual user base, or this has great potential to turn out VERY badly.)
Brainstorming! Great tool. But brainstorming means you imagine that there are no limits. How freeing! Your imagination can go anywhere!
When does reality set in?
This is how you get incomplete solutions, or solutions that only work --in perfect synergy mind you-- if you have all the *right* equipment to go with it. For example....have you used onenote but not ie? Or MS Money without an internet connection? Lest you think I'm picking on Microsoft, how about computer games made that can only run on machines so sophisticated that they aren't even out on the market yet? In all of these situations, the experience is degraded unless you have all the proper equipment.
Dreaming big is great. But don't forget that constraints enhance creativity. Consider starting from the bottom-up. Starting from a small observation of humans and their activities. There are lots of clumsy half-solutions in all our lives. And there's the opportunity for innovation.
If you take these small observations yet still keep your mind open to the impossible, you are starting from the ground-up.
Do not assume that everyone will have achieved a particular level of technology by the time you launch.
Consider this example (yes from the overexposed Marissa Mayer)
In either situation (top-down or bottom-up), you start with knowledge of your users. How you work with that knowledge determines whether or not those users will be able to use the product that you're building for them!
Can't it just...work? In an imperfect world?
Yes. Just start from the bottom-up.
posted by WiredBecca at
4:17 PM
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