Something for the Weekend - Grin and Bear It

Innovation is quickly becoming another Holy Grail of business, something that everyone wants to tap into, but few can reach. I strongly believe that creativity lies in everyone and that simple environmental changes can really help to make creativity a daily event rather than the specialist realm of the few. Geoff Butler kindly shared a story with me last week, it goes a little like this…

In the wilds of Canada during heavy winters or ice storms, thick ice builds up on power lines to the extent that the lines snap under the weight - costing the power companies dearly every winter. Clearing the ice manually is expensive and dangerous. A brainstorming group was formed. The first engineer, having had a few run ins with bears, suggested that getting them to climb the telegraph poles would create enough vibration to shake the ice loose. Another engineer suggested that to get the bears to perform such a feat would require some meat or honey to be placed at the top of the poles. And to get the bear food to the top they proposed using helicopters to drop it from above.

And that’s when the solution was born, they realised that the helicopter at low altitude would create enough down draft to break the ice off the lines and that both the bears and the food would be redundant.

I can't trace the validity of the story (although there are some references out there connecting the story to Pacific Power & Light) but I understand that is actually the solution employed today saving huge repair costs each year and keeping employees (and bears!) safe.

There are lots of lessons about creativity in the story but the one that particularly stands out is about creating an environment were 'non-linear' thinking is encouraged. Trusting that a tangent can be explored as part of a group to get to a fully formed idea. A true belief that there are no bad ideas, rather than assessing feasibility in the same breath as generating an idea.

A fun idea to play with if nothing else…

Something for the Weekend - Why do planes crash?

I had the great pleasure of attending a lecture by Martin Kalungu-Banda on Wednesday and I wanted to share one of the stories from his talk which I thought was fascinating. Malcolm Gladwell conducted some research into why planes crash and the findings were astonishing. The obvious causes that we all think of are things like bad weather, engine failure, pilot error, etc but they found something different when they listened to the black boxes. 90% of plane crashes happened due to what he refers to as 'High Distance Power' - quite simply, peoples inability to challenge the expert (in this case the pilot) - especially in cultures where hierarchy plays a bigger part than here in the West.

One of the examples Martin shared related to a flight with a faulty altimeter. The co-pilot informed the captain of the fault and the captain responded that it was nothing to worry about as the co-pilot was used to this familiar route. The co-pilot acknowledged this but then explained that in his experience around about this time they should be approaching a high mountain range. Before any action could be taken the plane struck a hillside. The co-pilot didn't feel he had the right to instruct the captain that they must climb and quickly. A very brutal story but it really illustrates a deep rooted reluctance to step outside official roles even in the most desperate and critical cases.

I suspect this plays out in much lower risk scenarios too and in cultures with 'Low Distance Power' like ours in the West.

• There are cases when we must all break with protocol and inform superiors not just what we 'know' but we 'know the answer to be' before it's too late to recover the position. (the captain didn't want to fly into the hillside).
• It's vital that we always remain open to others being able to set direction when needed.
• When working with different cultures (esp. those with stronger social hierarchies) around the globe we should be more sensitive and open to information veiled as a course of action.

Sources and Credits
Thanks to Martin Kalungu-Banda
Malcolm Gladwell- best selling author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers

Something for the Weekend - Waterproof Power Strip

I thought I'd follow up on last weeks SFTW on vision and fit with the real world with a great example of the opposite! www.wetcircuits.com offers waterproof power strips! A great safety increment on the standard power strip but as Wired.com explains 'Your TV isn’t going to be any safer when perched on the end of your bathtub'!

A great physical example of not considering the things that interact with your design (in this case the socket and the devices you might plug in!!).

So whilst we're at it, what are the factors that change data based thinking (waterproof power strip) into creative thinking (safer power)? I was reading a book by Tim Brown this week and he recommends a simple but effective model developed at IDEO. His book (Change by Design) is fantastic and I could never do it justice but here's a summary of the model:

• Inspiration - actively seek out sources of inspiration...That might be other industries who do something similar or even analogous situations. Comparisons are drawn in the book about F1 pit stops and A&E units. Be open to less obvious inspirations too.
• Observation - watch your customers in the real world without agenda. Observe the way they naturally adapt ways of working to overcome small niggles (keeping log books, labelling things, ordering items together to quicker serve customers, etc) and understand why they do these behaviours - they're rarely an accident!
• Empathy - take a different mind set, rather than considering what your customers need, imagine you are your customer, how you would feel and what you would need. Perhaps interview some of your customers to ensure you've got the right picture.

Small activities that lead to more creative solutions. If you want the book there's a link below, ditto if you want the power strip!

Sources and Credits
Wired.com
Wetcircuits
Tim Brown IDEO