I'm here at the Business Innovation Factory BIF-3 conference, just for the afternoon session. Bill Taylor (author of Mavericks at Work) is hosting the "Mavericks" session, introducing 3 "storytellers". First up is Dan Heath author of Made to Stick - why certain ideas stick and others don't. Then Dave Balter from BzzAgent, then Paul English of Kayak and participant in lots of other enterprises, such as Partners in Health.
Dean Heath suggests that limiting the field of scope of something can help you think of new things. He ad everyone write down everything they could think of that was white - and then everything they could think of that was white in their fridge. He says most people have an easier time with the second task. (I, however, did not get this result).
My first list: Snow, paper, shoes, pants, clouds, eyeballs, paint. OK - eyeballs?
My second list: Milk, cottage cheese, ice cream, rolls, bread. (I was just about to write "mayo" when he said time's up).
Heath suggests that limiting the perceived universe helps people understand, define and make decisions. Alien is "Jaws on a Plane". Therefore the spaceship is rickety, claustrophobic and chaotic as opposed to shiny, spotless and lycra-clad.
He talked recently with a friend who started a boutique hotel described as "Real Simple" meets "Dwell". The look is modern, spare, elegant. The penthouse is a Yoga studio. They've waged a war on clutter and there's nothing on the front desk. The housekeepers tidy and organize your stuff in your room (IWH: what a nightmare!).
His point is that "staying in the box", as opposed to "thinking outside of the box", can help decisionmaking and design. It's constraints that liberate. He urges us all to help someone "find the right box" today.
Dave Balter: marketers used to tell us what to think, what to buy, and what to try. We wanted to change that and make it so that people told us what they thought. We got pretty businessey, and wanted to stay creative, so we started blogging. Other entrepreneurs said "as soon as profits enter the equation, creativity goes out the window." (I wonder if he was talking to Dave Sifry?)
So they hired an artist-in-residence (Seth Minkin) and integrated him into the business. It's ended up building word of mouth for BzzAgent. Storytelling. At first it was a failure, as a way to make the company more creative. But it has worked as a way to integrate employees and as a conversation piece.
While Dave was talking, Seth was painting in the background, and then explained his "totem pole" picture, with each section of the totem pole representing different aspects of the company.
Paul English - his mom passed away, and he had to take care of his father who had Alzheimer's. Dad was frustrated that the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) phone systems couldn't understand his slurred speech. This was depressing for Paul so he started trying to figure out how to talk to a real person when you call a company and created GetHuman. At Kayak he insists that everyone who calls be able to talk with a person. And this sometimes means the programmers spend so much time fixing bugs that they can't do new development work. But they have the accountability of talking directly to the customer and seeing what problems they have caused with their bugs. They're not layers and layers away from their customers.
Now, maybe I am just feeling grumpy today. To be frank, I thought Dan Heath's idea was a little frightening. I can see it being effective for limiting the scope of brainstorming sessions -- but doesn't it also limit the breadth of human expression and ultimately curb innovation? Isn't it only a good solution for people who aren't very creative? I would hate to think that every new movie, instead of really being new, was only "the girl version of SpiderMan", "Snow White for African Americans", or "Die Hard on a Bus". Maybe I should just accept that many people are unable to think outside the box and we should think of a way for them to "innovate" too, so we can get everybody doing it. But I hate the idea of reducing innovation to that state. I'd rather bring the people up to the gold standard,than lower it to meet them.
I thought Dave Balter's talk was a little gimmicky - if you have a really interesting story to tell, you don't need to manufacture a conversation piece. Maybe this is just what he does. If he can create a similar gimmick for a client that doesn't have a story to tell, and it gets their story told, well, he is doing his clients a service and that's a legitimate business.
I liked Paul English's talk, he seemed pretty down to earth. Pretty soon it will be as hard for corporations to reach us by phone as it currently is for us to reach them. I like to plug the national Do Not Call registry.
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