Does Collaborative Innovation Work?

Posted on January 25, 2012 by John Gabrick

A New York Times article written several days ago addressed how spending time alone is out of fashion, and that collaborative innovation is hot. There are a myriad of ways to constantly stay connected to your social networks, whether through smartphone applications, the web, open office space/cubicles, collaborative zones, and other software tools.

Every group has jumped on the bandwagon from business to academia, and there has been a plethora of software tools to support the process. The results have been quite unspectacular. It’s hard to point to examples where collaboration has produced a notable creation (think iPhone), whereas there are many examples of collaborative innovation producing polished copies (think Linux).

The realization is that most creative thinking is the result of “alone time,” and its been proven repeatedly. I believe that this is a result of several forces, however, two major elements are intuition and intellectual property. Human intuition allows us to make seemingly intelligent choices without having all of the information/data at hand. Having recently read about how Steve Jobs made choices for the iPod, he clearly did not do it collaboratively, but with an innate sense of what was right. We can already image what a collaborative innovation process would have produced, the MP3 player that already existed. The other element is intellectual property. When you (as the inventor) are creating something, you have a strong drive to keep the information private until have maximized the value (to yourself). Imagine that you were working on an algorithm to figure out how to beat the television show, Jeopardy. Would you share how to do this before or after you won a record dollar amount? Ask Roger Craig if need the answer.

So before you start figuring out how to build collaborative innovation into your organization, you might want to consider the outcome.

Posted in Brainstorming, Breakthrough Innovation, Collaboration, Collaboration & Communities, Crowd-Sourcing, Innovation Culture | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Opposites do not Attract

Posted on January 24, 2012 by John Gabrick

There is some convincing research that demonstrates that opposites do not attract. Is this a problem?
From a relationship perspective, this might be alright, but from an innovation perspective it isn’t.

Scientists studied a couple of different groups, but the main one was college students. They compared student relationships in a large college (25,000 students) and several smaller colleges (about 500 students) and determined whether “friends” were more or less similar. The researchers employed a variety of personality tests and questions to come to conclusions. The research showed that the friends at the larger college were very similar in ideas, tastes, beliefs, etc., whereas the smaller college had significantly less similarity. The researchers believe that a large reason for this is that at the larger college, you’re more likely to find someone who matches you more perfectly than at a smaller school.

In another study, researchers examined the question of whether people actually “mix” at mixers. Their model was a networking party for approximately 100 people associated with a school’s business program. In similar results, the researchers found that people where more likely to associate with people who they already were familiar with or where there was a third-party connection (two strangers have a mutual friend). One interesting conclusion was that people who came to the mixer with few friends were more likely to meet new people.

From an innovation perspective, you need to be careful that you don’t create a grouping of similar people when trying to solve complex, creative problems, or else you’ll lose the dynamic range of experience and opinions. While no ones to go on a long car ride with people we don’t get along with, from an innovation perspective, it might make more sense.

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The Most Creative Time of Day to Solve Problems

Posted on January 19, 2012 by John Gabrick

Do you consider yourself a morning person or a night person? If you’re a morning person, you probably think that your most creative time is in the morning–you’re wide away and ready to take on the world. Conversely, if you’re a night person, you might believe that the night time is your most creative time. However, in both of these instances, you’d be wrong.

Recently published research suggests just the opposite: that morning people are most creative at the worst part of their day–evening, and night people are most creative in the morning. Even though your mind is foggy, your creative abilities are at their highest. The researchers hypothesize that, “Insight-based problem-solving requires a broad, unfocused approach. You’re more likely to achieve that Aha! revelatory moment when your inhibitory brain processes are at their weakest and your thoughts are meandering.”

They tested their theory by recruiting subjects and having having each group perform tasks at their “highest point” and their “lowest point” in the day. Surprisingly, people were able to solve intuition-based problems at a higher percentage at the low point of their day–when they were the groggiest. (Analytic tasks were performed equally well throughout the day). The bottom line for you morning people is to start staying up late, whereas you night people need to start getting up early!

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Employee Engagement and Creativity

Posted on January 16, 2012 by John Gabrick

In research published in the Psychological Bulletin from the American Psychological Association, the question of whether employee engagement leads to success was addressed. The authors examined over 200 previous studies looking specifically for this correlation. In their research, success was defined across a variety of areas, including marriage, friendship, income, work performance, and health. They defined happiness and/or employee engagement as “the frequent experience of positive emotions.”

Shawn Achor suggests several ways to boost or enhance employee engagement in the business environment, and he tested it by asking tax preparers (during one of the most stressful times of the year–tax season) to perform these activities. The bottom line is that it worked, not only in the short-term, but also months after these activities were stopped.

    Jot down three things they were grateful for.
    Write a positive message to someone in their social support network.
    Meditate at their desk for two minutes.
    Exercise for 10 minutes.
    Take two minutes to describe in a journal the most meaningful experience of the past 24 hours.

The researchers also tested whether positive employee engagement was linked with creativity, and found many positive correlations. While they acknowledged that creativity at times requires deliberate negativity or a single-minded focus, there were still benefits to working to make sure that your organization is at least supporting “positive emotions.”

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Innovative Combinations: Chocolate and Peanut Butter

Posted on January 5, 2012 by John Gabrick

We’re all familiar with the television commercials of the unlikely and innovative combination of chocolate and peanut butter to create the Reese’s cup. I’ve found that for many organizations, the best ideas have been an innovative combination of two or more different elements into something different.

Michael Michalko wrote an interesting article describing this exact phenomenon:
The lawn mower, for example, was invented in the cloth making industry by Edwin Budding who worked on a machine that trimmed cloth smooth using revolving blades and rollers. He combined this concept with the scythe, which was commonly used to trim grass, attached a handle so it could be pushed and the first lawn mower was born.

So, why is this the case? In my opinion it’s because we tend to work in silos. Silos are created by experiences (engineers vs. accountants), ages (my generation vs. yours), geographies (Florida vs. Maine), politics, bosses, departments, customers, market segments, competitors, and so on. They’re unavoidable. The key to creating innovative combinations is to cross those boundaries with your ideas and make them better. By talking with different people, not only from within your own department/location, but also from other organizations, you create more powerful combinations. Next time your looking for good ideas, call a meeting with your engineers and marketers–it will surely be interesting.

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Practice makes perfect

Posted on December 20, 2011 by John Gabrick

I found an interesting research paper about the effect practicing (learning) has on expertise. The paper analyzed the differences between good and excellent violin players, considering all types of variables such as practice time, teachers, frequency, and success. While you might expect that more practice would yield greater results, it was only partially true. They found that top performers practiced no more than 4 hours per day, in no more than 80-120 minute sessions, with a break between sessions. Those who practiced more, did not get “better”, but rather burned out–so knowing your limits is important. When looking at all areas (not just violin players), they also found that athletes work most intensely in the mid-afternoon, and that scientists and novelists almost uniformly prefer the morning. I think this research also confirms, to some extent, the need to balance work and play, as they demonstrated that practicing more actually yielded less. However, the “play” time for most of the top people was spent within the domain of expertise. So, while the violin players weren’t practicing more than 4 hours per day, they were spending their other time in other related activities such as competitions, or group playing.

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Are you Educated?

Posted on November 17, 2011 by John Gabrick

When I was in school, I knew two mechanical engineering students.  One of the students was a 4.0 A+ student, in arguably one of the most difficult programs at our school.  He was a rarity, as few had ever achieved this remarkable feat.  The other was a 2.0 C student taking the same courses and barely staying in school.  Eventually, both of these students graduated from school, however, the 4.0 student used to snobbishly brag about his grade point average, while the other obviously didn’t.   During one particular telling event, our 4.0 student was asked to put up a chin-up bar in a rather difficult place–a seemingly easy task.  While no other really paid much attention to his design or approach, he eventually put up the bar for our use.  Meanwhile, our 2.0 student casually laughed that he’d never even try it because it was built incorrectly.  Most of us looked at the bar at bit perplexedly because of the overly complex design, but didn’t really care what it looked like.  So, obviously what happened, is the bar collapsed after only a few uses (don’t worry no one was injured).  Of course, our 4.0 student had many, many logical reasons for the failure, but the plain point is that he believed his high grades and academic standing somehow made him better.   Later that year, this 2.0 student would build a completely functional replica of the Space Shuttle arm for his senior project.  It worked perfectly.

I’ve met far too many people who believe that their academic degrees or years of work, makes them believe that whatever comes out of their mouth is the absolute truth–with no consideration of other ideas or view points.   You’ve met these people repeatedly–they can rarely defend their own opinions with more than empty words.  Don’t be one of these people, act educated!  Read the article here.

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Do you think mistakes are good or bad?

Posted on October 24, 2011 by John Gabrick

A recent article in, Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science postulates that people who believe they can learn from their mistakes did better after making a mistake – in other words, they successfully bounced back after an error.  This could be one of the keys to a successful inventor/creator.  Although we always talk about how we should celebrate failure, the bottom line is that most people don’t, so criticism usually goes hand-in-hand with the creative process.  If you’re looking for creative types who will be successful, perhaps screening for this trait would yield better results.

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Failure is Important

Posted on September 29, 2011 by John Gabrick

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, titled, “Better Ideas Through Failure“, highlights the concept of embracing failure to attain success.   While there have been similar articles and books written on this concept, all point to brilliant creations realized through a failure such as 3M’s Post-it notes or the discovery of Teflon.  However, failure does not typically present itself in this ‘spectacularly brilliant’ way.  Instead it usually just follows as this typical joke about project management:

  1. Euphoria and Excitement
  2. Disenchantment
  3. Search for the Guilty
  4. Punishment of the Innocent
  5. Reward for the Uninvolved

Sadly, these steps are fairly common, and as a result, it teaches people to not take risks.

What you really want is a balance between craziness and apathy.  You want to encourage behavior that includes trying something that’s worth it–to the organization, and then rewarding/praising the result–even if it resulted in a disappointment.  What makes great individuals great is their lack of concern about being judged by other people based on their failures.  If you can get everyone in your organization to believe that strongly in themselves, then you’ll create an innovative environment.

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Anger for Creativity? Not really.

Posted on September 14, 2011 by John Gabrick

A recent article by Jonah Lehrer, The Creativity of Anger, postulates that anger can spark creativity.   The author uses two end points to illustrate his point.  The first, is an example of the anger used by Steve Jobs to Spur his MobileMe team to create a better product.  In this case, Jobs, berates the entire MobileMe team when, after the service is first introduced, it receives a poor rating by an influential reviewer.  Since Jobs purportedly used this tactic often, and because Apple is a corporate powerhouse, it can be implied that this technique is successful.

On the other side of the coin, the author gives the example of brainstorming.   This technique was embraced wholeheartedly by Alex Osborn (founding partner of the BBDO advertising firm), to the extent that Osborn wrote a group of best-selling books on the topic of brainstorming.  The most important principle was the total absence of criticism–still a cornerstone of brainstorming today.

The article points out several research examples where anger is used to enhance creativity, however, the author also adds that constantly using anger eventually ends up severely limiting creativity–which seems to make complete sense.  I might perform well when my boss is angry, however, if I have to work day-after-day in this kind of environment, I’m likely to lose my creativity.

I’d like to suggest that the reason anger works in the creative process is that (when used in a very limited way), it promotes timed, focused thinking, a method that I’ve written about before.  When I’m angry, I usually have a reason, and if I can translate that into focused innovation, then I’ll get lots of good results.  For example, if I’m angry because my sales team lost a big order, I’m going to gather them in a room and ask them how we can prevent it from happening again.  My anger will communicate two things: 1) it will focus them on a single task: how to improve our sales process, and 2) let them know that I expect an answer sooner rather than later.

If I just scream at them, then I might get some short term answers, but in the long term, I’ll lose people and creativity.

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