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May 12, 2014

Suzuki Method: Inspiration to change how we work ?

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  • Under : Case Studies

Japanese Violinist Dr Suzuki  created a new way for children worldwide to learn music. He believed that studying music leads to a more enriched life.  His methods are not about creating child genius musicians, rather they focus on applying real world observation to the learning process.

Over a quarter of a million young people now learn to play and love music using his methods.  According to Dr Suzuki, all children given the right learning environment can acquire musical ability.  He talks about love more than he talks about treble clefs; his method focuses on encouraging children to learn from each other, and work in groups as well as individually.  Suzuki asks us to consider learning music as we might think about teaching our children to speak. Music becomes habitual, interwoven with daily activities and a partnership between parent and child. We really like this bit from the British Suzuki Institute website :

“Suzuki wrote an account about his teaching method, how he developed it and some of the results achieved by his pupils. He entitled it “Nurtured By Love.” Nurtured – because Suzuki believed that musical ability lies in all children. He did not believe he was imposing a skill upon a child; he was, rather, guiding them to manifest what they already possessed. Love – because Suzuki music teaching is not about breeding musicians or inculcating skills in children. It is about the amazing results that can be achieved when understanding, sensitivity and discipline are brought together in a single field of study. The glue that binds these various elements together is, Suzuki believed, love.”

When you see Suzuki Method in action, vs the classical method of child at piano with teacher alone, practicing from books and separation of playing and theory, Suzuki’s methods seem intuitive and blindingly obvious in comparison. ( As well as being a whole lot more fun).  You can find out more about Dr Suzuki and his methodology here.

This got us thinking at The Ideas Machine, what if we apply similar thinking to the world of work ?

How often in business do we do things because that’s the way it has always been done ?

How often we ‘get through’ processes and training as a kind of necessary evil ?

How often we inflict this kind of stuff on junior staff…. after all we went through it so why shouldn’t they ?

Dr Suzuki looked at the way children learn, he looked at how they like to sit and created a ‘twinkle C’ a whole 8 notes up from the classic middle C note, and much more comfortable for a child to reach.  He thought about why children get nervous about performing, so added group learning to negate any ‘fear’ of others hearing you play from the get go.

When we are at work, when we are faced with situations, processes and training that feels irksome, tiring, or just plain bad… what’s really going on ? What can we learn from Dr Suzuki about taking a step back, thinking through some fundamentals and getting a new perspective ?

An intuitive way to nurture musical talent

An intuitive way to nurture musical talent


May 5, 2014

Retail Innovation at its Best

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  • Under : Customer Experience, Innovation, Retail Innovation

Check out this great example of the online & in-store worlds merging. C&A use mini screens on clothing hangers to display real time Facebook ‘likes’ for products. The hope is that this online endorsement encourages purchase in the ‘real world’ store. Not sure about this product…. well thousands of online shoppers can’t be wrong now can they ?

This is a fantastic example demonstrating one company’s attempt to merge the on and off line worlds. They realised the importance of peer review was missing at a critical point in the customer journey- then thought laterally about how to bring that to life at point of purchase.

I like this because it is slightly clunky – it is really the portents of things to come as technology becomes more sophisticated. It means in the ‘ future shop’ we won’t have to rely on our devices,  or even on Beacons and iBeacons to alert us to coupons, peer reviews and so on, the products will do it themselves. The internet of things has massive implications for shopping and purchases too, as this embryonic example shows. I hope it works for C&A because it will get retailers thinking outside the box.  At The Ideas Machine we think about this stuff a lot. Mapping customer journeys and then thinking about how technologies present opportunities to improve the critical points is a simple, effective way to make your customer experience sing.  Well done C&A!

Retail innovation at it’s best. Bringing the on and offline customer experience closer. Love it! Watch the Mashable video review here.

Likes come to life

Likes come to life


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