TIMnovate

Innovation Blog

Making New Things Out of Old Ones: A Proven Route to Successful Innovation

By Shlomo Maital

Travolta, Newton-John,   GREASE  (1978)

Today’s Global New York Times has a great story about how Hollywood (hide-bound industry that is usually dinosaur-slow  to innovate its business model) is finally acting to innovate movie theaters, just before they all become obsolete and disappear. (“Hollywood encourages noisemaking at theaters”,  July 13, 2010, by Brooks Barnes, p. 16).

For instance, a hit 1978 movie Grease has been rereleased.  It is a sing-along version.  Subtitles show the lyrics, and viewers are encouraged to sing along and make noise in other ways.  Audiences are invited to come in costumes. (Remind you of sports events, like the Mondiale, where the crowd paints its face and wears bizarre costumes?).

The head of Paramount, Adam Goodman, says, “the goal is to create a true event… how do you get groups of young people going to the movies and having a great time?”  In other words, create a true experience, as Joe Pine and James Gilmour advise in their Strategic Horizons consultancy.

Unknowingly, Goodman is using the framework of Peter Drucker, who helps us challenge unspoken key assumptions (e.g., audiences at a movie must be absolutely silent, to make noise is rude).

Why did it take movie theaters so long to innovate?  Hard to say.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show moviegoers for years have created precisely this kind of noisy crowd-involved event, making a bad movie into a huge cash cow for years.  Finally, the multiplex chains get it!  They are using the Rocky model….  but years after Rocky fans were showing them the way.

A great approach to innovation is to take old stuff and renew it, by changing how it is offered.   The time to do this is BEFORE the old stuff becomes obsolete and money-losing, not AFTER.  But better late than never.   Never fall into the trap of thinking that everything has to be brand new.    Start with old things.  Remember, old beloved things have a powerful nostalgia effect that is priceless — build on it, keep the core, renew the periphery, and create a winning old-new innovation.

In writing about his vision of a Jewish state, Theodore Herzl wrote a little book called Alt-Neue Land  (“Old-New Land”).   Write your own book, old-new land, about innovating old products.  If you can find creative ways to link new things with old offerings, you can innovate in places where others fail even to consider.

Innovation Blog

The Role of Fear in Innovation: Face It, Push Back, Overcome!

By Shlomo Maital

As a half-pint squirt, I recall growing up in fear — fear of bullies, fear of failure, fear of not getting approval from parents and teachers.   I think what I achieved was greatly limited by this fear, and only late in life have I learned to overcome it.

That is why I was so pleased to read, in the latest AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) Bulletin (“the world’s largest circulation magazine”) a short piece by the Editor, Nancy Perry Graham, titled “When dreams take flight”.  Ms. Graham recounts taking an American Airlines fear-of-flying course, in preparing a story for Fortune about executives terrified of air travel.   Those who took the course and overcame their fear spoke of it being “one of the great experiences of my life, I’m angry at myself for not doing it a long time ago!”.

Graham recounts a key line from the best-selling book Who Moved My Cheese? It reads:  “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”.

So, reader — what would YOU do if you weren’t afraid?  What are you afraid of?  Why?   What would happen if you did the very things you feared?

Innovation involves taking risks.  Risk engenders fear.   You cannot take calculated risks if the visceral emotion of fear clouds your judgment.   Launch today a systematic program of overcoming fears, by listing your deepest fears,  beginning with small ones and progressing to larger ones, and tackling them one by one.   Push back against fear!  Don’t wait, as I did, until it is almost too late.

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?   Absolutely everything, and anything, that will change the world.  Go for it.

Innovation Blog

Psychologists Say:  Goal Pursuit Operates Unconsciously! Entrepreneur:  Harness Your Subconscious

By Shlomo Maital

[Apologies to readers: my Blog has been dormant since June 29, as I was climbing a mountain in Georgia and had no access to the outside world].

My wife Sharona, a psychologist, drew my attention to a fascinating article in Science, July 2, 2010, by Ruud Custers and Henk Aarts, scholars from Netherlands’ Utrecht University.[1]

Here is what they found in their research (and in other supporting studies):

“As humans, we generally have the feeling that we decide what we want and what we do.”  This belief, that we control our destiny, set our goals and drive our behaviors based on them, is fundamental to much of what we teach in innovation and in entrepreneurship.

But “scientific research suggests otherwise”.    They cite studies showing “apparently, when people are persuaded to consciously set a goal to engage in behavior, their conscious will to act starts out unconsciously.”    In an old study done 25 years ago, people were told to freely move their index fingers.  Their brain activity was measured (then, by EEG,  Electro- Encephalograph, not functional MRI).     The finding:  “preparation of the finger movement in the brain was well on its way by the time people consciously decided to act”.

What does this study mean in practical terms?  My interpretation is this:

Innovator, entrepreneur, inventor…everybody!    Look deep into yourselves, discover your true passion.  Define it carefully.  Think about it deeply. Plant it deep and strong inside your subconscious.  From time to time, strengthen and reinforce it.

Then, stand back and watch your brain drive your behavior toward achieving your goal, your passion.

Please don’t misunderstand — I’m not saying to set a stretch goal and then just sit passively and wait until your brain makes it happen.   I am saying, the existence of a deep passion, something you deeply and powerfully wish for, seek and yearn for, is vital, because the evidence shows that it drives behavior in ways we are not fully conscious of.

I now realize that in my courses and workshops, my insistence on getting participants to think about and define their passion is well-founded.   Lack of such passion will reduce our innovative horsepower by half or more.

============

There is another more disturbing conclusion, as Sharona pointed out to me.  We are far more subject to manipulation than we know.   Outsiders can manipulate our goals. Once they succeed, this drives our behavior unconsciously and subconsciously.   I think this is why it is so vital for each and everyone of us to have our own clearly-defined goals and passions. If we do not,  others will supply their own versions, to their own benefit rather than ours.   An economic law says, bad money drives out good (Gresham’s Law).  A parallel law might say,  bad (external) goals can drive out weak internal ones.  Don’t let them!   Set your internal gyroscope,  seal it…and watch your brain help you fly.    Of  course, this ‘manipulation’ can be ethical and positive.  Instill clear powerful goals in those who report to you — and your group or company will be motivated, aligned, and hopefully,  successful.

Innovation Blog

See, Think, Wonder: What Innovators Can Learn from Kindergarten

By Shlomo Maital

My grand-daughter Agam is six years old, and is finishing kindergarten; she will begin Grade One in the Fall.

Agam’s kindergarten is first-rate.  One of the things she learned there (in addition to reading!) is an exercise known as See Think Wonder.  A variation of it is Feel Think Wonder.

Here is how it works:

1. See.  REALLY LOOK at something.  Mostly, we look at things, but we do not see them.  REALLY see them.  In every detail.  Practice SEEING!  See things we miss normally, out of haste.  Have you really seen your eyebrows lately?  What did you miss?

2.  Think.  Think about what you see. Reflect on it. Ponder, analyze, compare, contrast, examine.

3.  And most important:  WONDER!   That is, imagine and dream. What if it were different?  What if it were impossibly amazing?   What if I looked at myself in the mirror, and became 6 feet 6 inches tall?  WONDER — leading to action!

Here is Agam’s process, for a bit of a shrub, not worth even looking at (?)

* I see a little bit of gray and brownish.   * I see that this one is like a palm tree.  * I think it is not doing so good.   * I WONDER if when it grows, it’s a plant that you can eat.    And that WONDER leads to a small vegetable garden Agam has in her backyard.     Six-year-olds are terrific at see-think-wonder.  They also are great at feel-think-wonder, which involves our emotions:  Feel an emotion, think about it (why it happens, what caused it), and then, wonder…    As adults,  feel an motion (deep passion about something), think about its origins, and then wonder, what if we spent our lives pursuing that passion, instead of shuffling papers for high salaries in a bureaucratic stifling job within an elephantine organization?

Innovator:  Do you truly see!?   Do you think about what you see, but deeply, analytically?  And, most important, do you WONDER?!   Do you imagine, dream, and then, try to implement what you wondered?

If only we could all become six-year-old’s !  The world would be swamped with super-creativity.

Innovation Blog

The Innovation Desert in the Gulf of Mexico: BP’s Busted Process

By Shlomo Maital

An Op-Ed piece in today’s (June 23) Global New York Times by Christopher Brownfield, former nuclear submarine officer,  rightly attacks outgoing BP CEO Tony Hayward’s admission that BP has given up — it has no further plans or ideas for plugging the horrendous oil leak.

BP’s Board and Chair finally have realized Hayward is a walking PR disaster and are removing him from control of the disaster.   Hayward is a huge disappointment. He was brought in to replace legendary CEO John Browne, as an operations expert, someone able to shape up a crumbling system that was inefficient and dangerous.  But he failed. Perhaps no-one could have succeeded.  When operational bumbling is sufficiently entrenched,  it is difficult to cure.

Brownfield understands underwater explosives. He suggests blowing up the well, even if a small tactical nuclear weapon is needed.  This is not a bad idea.  Use of tactical nuclear bombs has been discussed in the context of, for instance, building large-scale canals, e.g. a canal from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea, to generate power for the Mideast.  But even conventional explosives can do the job.  By blowing up the well, many tons of rock can plug the blowout and stop the leak.   It is at least worth a try.  Let the US Navy try it, Brownfield says; they have vast experience both with explosives and with underwater demolition.  Anything would be better than BP’s impotence.   There is doubtless an innovation desert in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.  But it can be fixed.

Faced with the inevitable ecological disaster now unfolding in the Gulf,  BP’s impotence is unacceptable and criminal.   I hope that in the end,  America’s Justice Dept. brings criminal charges against BP and others responsible, and not just a civil suit, that will take two decades to unfold and in the end preserve injustice.   Why not convene, tomorrow, a world gathering of experts, from all disciplines, to brainstorm possible solutions?   Why not choose, say, ten of the best ideas, prioritize them, and try each in turn.  Why not remove BP utterly from the picture, because it is doing damage rather than helping?   Why not appoint a Crisis Czar, one single person with responsibility to take rapid action (the current system, with a US Coast Guard official working in tandem with BP officials, and other federal officials, simply is unworkable; nobody really knows who is in charge or who makes decisions).

BP is perfectly right to say that we are all to blame, because the world’s insatiable appetite for fossil fuels has directly led to the oil spill.  Giving up addiction to oil will be painful.  But the alternative is even worse, as we are seeing in the Gulf of Mexico.   As part of the Gulf spill process, let’s work on ways to deal with fossil fuel addiction,  and not just clean up the messy damage this addiction has created.

Innovation Blog

Be Big, Think Small: How Apple Retains its Startup Culture

The Three Things Steve Jobs Did

By Shlomo Maital

In a recent Bloomberg Business Week article by Nilofer Merchant, Steve Jobs is portrayed as saying that Apple’s culture is “that of a startup”.

Really?  At a time when Apple’s market capitalization has overtaken that of Microsoft’s?  (At $250 b., Apple surpassed Microsoft on May 26).   Considering that Apple was at the brink of death a decade ago, with only $150 m. in the bank, this is amazing.  Apple — a giant startup?  Startup giant?

What is the startup culture?  Can you be big and still think small?

Merchant quotes David Caldwell, professor of management at Santa Clara University, who says “culture is a shared understanding of assumptions and expectations among an organization’s members, and it is reflected in the policies, vision, and goals of that organization.”

Merchant says Jobs, when he returned to Apple, focused on doing three things well.

“1. Sharp laser focus:   He refocused the strategy to be about one thing. That meant he killed off even good things. Merchant notes that she led server channel management at Apple when Jobs returned to the company in 1997, and  was there when he made the decision to shut down big portions of revenue-generating businesses (including her division) because they didn’t fit with his vision for the company.

2. He eliminated passive aggressiveness and encouraged debate when new ideas were forming. When you are thinking about difficult problems together with exceptionally bright people, there are going to be disagreements. But it is through the tension of that creative conflict that new ideas get born, new angles get explored, and risks get mitigated.

3. He set up a cross-disciplinary view of how the company would succeed. This holistic vision means there is cohesion throughout the company, from concept to product to sales. For example, the retail strategy could have been a separate or disparate part of the whole, but Apple has made its retail strategy part and parcel of its overall promise of ease of use.”

These three changes in culture are easy to define but extraordinarily difficult to implement.  Jobs’ force of personality did it.  “It would be easy to count any revenue as good revenue, to allow a few people to stay even though they were rotting the culture, or to allow the different parts of a business to act in their silos”, Merchant says. Jobs would have none of this ‘path of least resistance’.

One of the toughest managerial and entrepreneurial tasks around, maybe THE toughest, is to retain entrepreneurial culture while leveraging and organizing disciplined operations and economics of scale.  Very few companies succeed.  Apple seems to be one.  It is a case worth careful study.

Innovation Blog

SHREK and Innovation:

Are you bringing your “A” game?

By Shlomo Maital

SHREK

James Lipton and his Actor’s Studio have brought a remarkable series of in-depth interviews to television, interviewing virtually every major actor and actress, to understand the creative process inherent in their craft.   The audience is composed of Actors’ Studio students, who have the chance to ask the celebrities questions.  I love watching these interviews, because the creative styles of great actors and actresses are so diverse, proving that effective creativity machines must be carefully tailored to individual personalities, histories and preferences.

A recent guest was Canadian Mike Myers, of Austin Powers fame (“Mojo”).   Myers is the voice of Shrek, the ogre, now appearing in Shrek III.   He told a small story that I believe is revealing for innovators.

Originally, he completed the entire Shrek sound track, as Shrek’s voice, using a Canadian accent.

He then reflected, and decided that it would be more appropriate for Shrek to have a Scottish accent (which Myers can do perfectly).  Why?  Well, the Scots are a nation of a great many ups and downs.  Shrek too has ups and downs.  Better to make him a Scot.

He contacted the producer Steven Spielberg,  and without fear said he wanted to re-record the sound track — at huge cost.  Most producers, 99/100, would have said, forget it.  Good enough.  But good enough is not good enough for creative people.  Spielberg said, sure.  So he invested in Myers’ new Scottish accent.  I think this was crucial for Shrek’s success.  It made this animated ogre much more believable and human. (In general — have you noticed that sometimes animated characters are far more real than the one-dimensional stupid stereotyped characters Hollywood produces, in movies?).

Later, before the movie became a success, Spielberg wrote Myers a letter.  It wasn’t:  Damn, you cost me!  You cost us!   Instead it was simply,  “Mike, thank you for caring”.

“People pay you a lot of money,”  Myers says, referring to Hollywood actors.  “So you better bring you’re A-game.  You better respect your audience.”

This applies to innovators.  Bringing people anything less than the very best you can offer is a mark of disrespect to your clients.   Remember Mike Myers’ Scottish accent.  If you have to, re-do your development work, re-do your product’s design, packaging, everything.   Anything less is a B-game, and dishonors your clients.

Innovation Blog

SEED Charter School:  Scale it Up!

By Shlomo Maital

Vinnakota and Adler

Many countries are aware that their educational systems are in huge trouble.  America is one.  The first step taken by President George W. Bush after his election in 2000 was to initiate and pass the No Child Left Behind Act, which implemented a long series of metrics to measure school achievement.  The result:  School teachers taught kids to study to pass the tests, rather than to learn.  And worse — many countries, including Israel, are in the process of imitating America’s mis-step.

A CBS TV 60 Minutes segment reveals an innovative educational experiment that works.  It should be scaled up, not only in the US but abroad.   (The founders are starting a new SEED school in Baltimore, and then will open one in Cincinnati).   Here is how it works:

The school is called SEED.  It is sited in one of the worst slums in America, downtown Washington, D.C., an area ridden with crime and drugs. (This area is unimagineably awful; and it is within hailing distance of the Capitol, where America’s elected representatives and President meet.  It is a permanent unforgiveable blight on America, a rich country that regularly leaves behind many of its children and dooms them).    It is the first urban public boarding school.  Kids are chosen by lottery from those living in the district.  And the success rate is stunning.   Four years out of the last five, every graduating student was accepted for college.  Children enter at 7^th and 8^th grade.  They are almost all underperforming, because of where they live and go to school.  They quickly aspire to college. Many become the first in their families to graduate from high school, let alone college.

The school was founded by two businesspersons,  Raj Vinnakota and Eric Adler, who quit their jobs 13 years ago to pursue their dream.  They raised the money to start the school.  Operating expenses are covered by public funds.  It is expensive.  Annual cost for one child is $35,000.   But the investment is worthwhile; the human capital it creates is enormous.  The children who complete SEED go on to become creative productive citizens, rather than be doomed to a life of drugs and crime.

Vinnakota told 60 Minutes:

“There’s boarding schools for rich kids; why aren’t there boarding schools for poor kids?” Vinnakota said. “The intense academic environment, the 24-hour aspect and constant access to role models. Why wouldn’t all of those things be just as important for poor kids as it would be for rich kids?”

“We believe very strongly that there is a group of kids for whom the answer is a 24-hour supportive educational environment. And they’re not gonna have a shot if we don’t give it to them,” Adler added.

This is creative thinking.  It examines basic assumptions. It is assumed, naturally, that boarding schools are for rich kids.  Why?  Why not for poor kids?

The boarding aspect is vital.  Children rise early.  They start classes at 8 a.m.  They finish at 4. Then they have study hall.  They have ‘lights out’ at 9 pm or 10 pm.   They have no TV’s in their rooms, and no Facebook.  They have to read 45 minutes a day.  And they are taught not only ‘stuff’, but also life skills:   communication, speaking, social interaction.

The aspirations of the children are unlimited. But so are those of their teachers, who put in long long days, sometimes until after 10 pm.  And the principal is often the last to leave.

Many experts will say that an expensive model that costs $35,000 per child does not scale.  For poor neighborhoods, I believe I can prove that in the long run, social saving on prevented crime, drugs and incarceration more than justifies the investment.   But the issue here is not even economic or budgetary.  It is immoral to permit neighborhoods to exist where those born into it have zero hope.   Especially in wealthy countries like America.  Put a SEED school into every inner city slum.  Then another.  Then, watch America revitalize itself with the energy of those born into despair who suddenly are given hope by an understanding innovative society.