Case Studies | The Ideas MachineThe Ideas Machine

June 12, 2015

Nooglers and Googlers

Imagine loving your job enough to wear a hat like this during your induction ?

The Ideas Machine went to Google HQ at Mountain View and we saw some pretty neat stuff. Gushing about Google is being added to our CV as we write. Couple of things in particular hit home; they have their own language and it touches everything they do, think, write and speak about. New staff become Nooglers, they are accompanied by Googlers, they even wear a hat identifying them as a new kid on the block- far from being a humiliation, it’s a badge of honour, it’s an ‘offer’ and a sign you want help, and Nooglers love it. Genuinely.

Second, they measure everything ( eeekk!) so their meetings being 25 minutes not 30 is based on a measure of diminishing returns, their performance reviews focus on 1 thing to do more of and one thing to improve.. ONE. They know one is the right number because they measured it! They know prototyping makes a difference in their innovation processes because it helps them fail faster, up to 15% faster in fact, they measured that too. What struck me was the lack of dissonance in this quantitative approach to stuff in a corporate environment that retains a sense of discovery, unknown, innovation and uncertainty- we came away feeling slightly better about the prospect of Google running the world.

January 26, 2015

300 year old theory challenges today's innovators

At The Ideas Machine, we love stuff like this… some Cambridge boffins have been looking into extreme innovation ( talking our language). They have explored some ideas by Francis Bacon C1600 and used his approach to think about how organisations innovate today. This is what the Judge Institute, Cambridge University, Professor of Economics and Organisation, Jochen Runde, had to say about this fascinating research;

“We urge people to imagine possible influences that might lead to business scenarios that are radically different from the one they think is most likely,” says Runde. “But that is only part of the story. The other part is then to encourage them to go out, do some research, and attempt to confirm that those influences could actually become a reality that affects their business. Very often they will not be able to do so. But the point is that by being induced to look for information about extreme possibilities, they will be taken away from the familiar places they would normally be looking and thereby put themselves in a position of learning things that are truly new to them. Effectively, the method we are proposing provides a means to counteract the confirmation bias, as well as many other biases that have been identified by behavioural psychologists. And it can be done on either end of the spectrum – extremely good outcomes or extremely bad outcomes.”

Bacon’s theory was all about ‘unknown unknowns’, different ways of creating hypotheses and therefore ideas and hunches….. We at The Ideas Machine are totally on board with all of that……but the really cool bit of this is that Runde’s influence is a bloke who lived several HUNDRED years ago! Born in 1561, Francis Bacon was what history celebrates as an influential ‘thinker’. Basically he was someone who had ideas which have stood the test of time by being BOTH innovative in context, and useful and interesting posthumously.

Bacon’s ideas, (as Runde explains them in the innovation arena )were about, “testing a hypothesis by suggesting alternatives to that hypothesis, and then trying to disconfirm those alternatives,” explains Runde. “The more alternatives you disconfirm, the stronger your belief in the original hypothesis becomes. If an alternative hypothesis is confirmed, then you move to that one and continue with the process.” Bacon called this working with unknown unknowns. ( remember they had no running water and drank ale like we’d take a slurp from the water fountain!)

Interestingly the Cambridge Uni team have taken this out into the real world and asked their research company partners to push things to extremes, Runde states, “We urge people to imagine possible influences that might lead to business scenarios that are radically different from the one they think is most likely,” says Runde. “But that is only part of the story. The other part is then to encourage them to go out, do some research, and attempt to confirm that those influences could actually become a reality that affects their business. Very often they will not be able to do so. But the point is that by being induced to look for information about extreme possibilities, they will be taken away from the familiar places they would normally be looking and thereby put themselves in a position of learning things that are truly new to them. Effectively, the method we are proposing provides a means to counteract the confirmation bias, as well as many other biases that have been identified by behavioural psychologists. And it can be done on either end of the spectrum – extremely good outcomes or extremely bad outcomes.”

Innovation at the extreme is a core tenet of the way The Ideas Machine network approaches innovation, so you will understand why we’d like to give these guys a proper round of applause Check out their research articles here

October 27, 2014

Funding Circle Ad Goes Live

The Ideas Machine is delighted to have been a part of creating this fantastic ad. We’ve been working with Media partners Squadron Venture London and client Funding Circle to deliver an impactful, creative, differentiated TV ad

Why TV ? The innovation challenge for this start up business loan provider was twofold- first to work out how using TV could drive growth, and second, how to define a new category in business banking-

To mark the launch, James Meekings, co-founder of Funding Circle said;

“We’re building a business at Funding Circle that is changing the global financial infrastructure. This campaign is a natural next step for us as we continue to build trust and credibility for the brand, and enables us to tell our story in a creative and exciting way.”

Funding Circle is a new kind of finance business, it has an online platform connecting businesses and loans- not quite ‘Peer to Peer,’ because the loan pool at Funding Circle is both institutional, government and individual lenders, but not a bank either!

Welcome to the innovation challenges posed by companies like Funding Circle, we like to call them The Disrupters. The new generation .com entrepreneurs who don’t see traditional business /industry structures as sacrosanct. Early signs are that Funding Circle’s experiment with their media mix is paying dividends. A bunch of really smart cookies, this business is one to watch.

Watch the ad here

October 2, 2014

Make the Impossible Possible

Bill Strickland’s book titled Make the Impossible Possible is the story of how a projects drop out ended up lecturing at Harvard and transforming the lives of thousands. Bill’s belief that environment can shape experience and enable young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to improve their prospects is a living reality at the Manchester Bidwell Corporation in Pittsburg, USA.

Bill is a legend. His personal story is worth the read, and the MBC is the embodiment of his belief in the power of our environment to share our experience. Kids from ‘the projects’ experience art, jazz, fine arts and attend sessions learning skills which equip them to create a better future. Powerful, inspirational stuff.

At Manchester Bidwell Corporation, we have a simple philosophy – environment shapes people’s lives. By constructing an empowering atmosphere of art, light, music and a staff that strives to realize the genius in everyone, we enable our students to become productive society members.

The Ideas Machine have visited MBC and it remains one of the most important and inspiring lessons in how the space we inhabit can influence what we are able to achieve. Youngsters who would otherwise have been written off, dropped out, or worse are seen tending orchids, listening to jazz, making beautiful ceramics, cooking for one another…. awe inspiring.

August 5, 2014

Amazing story of the two thousand year old computer

History has masses of lessons for innovators, and The Ideas Machine team love this one…. hail the Antikythera. Acknowledged as a work of genius, it is a effectively an ‘analog’ computer……. yes, a computer, discovered at the turn of the 20th century and over two thousand years old. The Antikythera’s geared mechanism has been an historical and scientific challenge for various academics for years and remains an object of awesome mystery. It represents an incredible technological achievement, the like of which we tend to attribute to our own and recent centuries- the Antikythera is a lesson in widening that perspective. Remember how much history has to offer when we think about innovation.

In 1901, a group of divers excavating an ancient Roman shipwreck near the island of Antikythera, off the southern coast of Greece, found a mysterious object – inside a lump of calcified stone were several gearwheels welded together after years under the sea. The 2,000-year-old object, no bigger than a modern laptop, is now regarded as the world’s oldest computer. It was seemingly devised to predict solar eclipses and, according to recent findings, calculate the timing of the ancient Olympics! Amazing, we like to think of things like calculators and computers as ‘modern’ inventions of our century- but the Antikythera is 2000 years old! Check out how the discovery confounded academics for years and how its mysteries are now being unraveled in the Youtube film here.

June 19, 2014

Menstrual Marketing- true genius

This ad from Helloflo, entitled First Moon Party is rare in being based on insight, executed with humour and gentleness, and relevant across at least two generations. It is singly the best bit of marketing we’ve seen in a very, very, very long time. No-one wants to talk about periods, fewer want to broach the awkwardness of a conversation between tween and peers, parents and even fewer would put their marketing budgets on the line and bet on being funny enough to carry this off. HelloFlo The Ideas Machine salutes you. This is a great product- personalcare packages delivered on the right date, tailored to your needs, the website is totally tonally in tune with its audience, and they are utterly deserving of success.

Fantastic Menstrual Marketing from Helloflo ! Check it out .

Helloflo delivery boxes

June 1, 2014

Top 5 Successful Innovation Behaviours

The Ideas Machine team has worked on hundreds of innovation projects over the years and we’ve seen how thousands of different people approach innovation. Here’s our top 5 list of successful innovation behaviours.

1. Passion

Often used in conjunction with innovation we know, but nothing beats it in our experience. Having the passion to make something happen is the single most important factor in successful innovation. It is what helps individuals and teams when times get tough, it is also what brings the energy required to keep a project moving to conclusion. Moreover it is what allows teams to fail, brush themselves down and start again. Successful innovators really, really mean it.

2. Discipline

Less frequently identified by the writers on this topic, but in our view, discipline is a crucial factor in any innovation team. Discipline, rules, boundaries and structure all ensure an innovation programme isn’t a one-off whim. Creating some discipline around the innovation process it is what makes an innovation team gel, it is what creates a plan and outputs that an organisation can buy into , and it is essential in keeping costs and timings under control. It’s absolutely no use at all to just tell folks to ‘go think outside the box’ with no framework and no structure. Discipline doesn’t mean closing the solution space down, it means you are more likely to succeed if you structure what you are trying to achieve and why.

3. Curiosity

Simple and true; being curious, not taking the first right answer, challenging your assumptions and being willing to question and go find out are what sets successful innovators apart. Curious clients are the ones who recognise the need to keep discovering, accept a non linear hypothesis and they are the least likely to fail because they missed something.

4. Ego-free

Every team has a leader, but the leaders who create the environment for people to create and implement new ideas tend to be those who can put their ego on the shelf for a while. This is particularly true for corporate and FMCG teams –The Ideas Machine does lots of projects with large organisations – when innovation is happening within a large corporate, someone is usually tasked to ‘lead’ and often a C level executive sponsors the programme. What makes one team succeed where others fail, in our experience, is being able to leave some of the workplace hierarchy behind- to accept ideas from other departments and other disciplines- and to give junior staff a voice.

5. Leadership

Making innovation happen requires doing things differently, and often involves changes to current process or approaches – successful innovation needs leadership. This is not always about one person, over the course of an innovation process or project- different people can take the torch – when someone takes the torch, and they mean it, the ideas created stand a much better chance of becoming real. Successful innovation is rarely a ground-up thing – sponsorship at a senior level, someone to clear the roadblocks, confirm the budgets, reallocate the team resources… all of these sound relatively dull, but they are what leaders of successful innovation processes do.

We’ve called this a top 5, it is subjective, based on our experiences – for more on The Ideas Machine case studies and approach, check our latest projects page.

May 12, 2014

Suzuki Method: Inspiration to change how we work ?

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

February 20, 2014

The Secret to Successful Omnichannel Retailing

Retailers’ worst fear is customers coming in store to browse, touch, feel and try, then leaving to go price hunting online – ultimately buying from an online retail competitor. Worse, and what brings retailers out in cold sweats is a customer standing right there in a heated, well lit, beautifully merchandised store and buying from someone else via their smartphone.

Dark days, and high pressure stuff in a world where we can bid and win on an item on eBay in less than the time it takes the Barista to serve up a latte, where Amazon delivers whatever, wherever, whenever at the stroke of a smartphone and where price savvy customers will seek out bargains online.

Even more alarming for off line retailers seeking to maximise the value of their floorspace are apps like RedLaser ( over 27million downloads), allowing customers to scan UPC codes and see if items are available nearby and at what price- there is literally nowhere for traditional retailers to hide.

Onmichannel retailing as it is called – selling via multiple on and offline channels is not all a race for the bottom. Getting digital sales channels right can enhance an in-store purchase too – in a great article on this stuff, MIT Sloane Management Review– cites examples of both sides of the coin. One of their stories is about a girl who can’t find what she wants in a shoe store, she is about to leave, when the assistant pulls out the ipad with other lines, more sizes to order and complementary accessories. The assistant helps the shopper get her dream shoes, delivered to her home.

Making the ‘digital transition’ to Omnichannel retailing is a necessity- the article has some excellent examples for retailers seeking to keep their customers and remain competitive. The ideas for retailers range from owning a niche, bundling, in-store exclusives, through to on /offline promotions and synergies. Interesting, they also note the gap between manufacturing and retailing getting smaller at the back end, and the importance of personalisation, use of data and analytics on the marketing /consumer front end. Fascinating – what happens to traditional publishers when Amazon is contracting with authors direct ?

Redlaser 27 m downloads

February 14, 2014

Is Tinder the route to love, or Such swipe Sorrow?

Valentine’s Day got me thinking about how all things digital are changing our relationships. When the path to true love for many lusty Tinder users involves more swiping than Shakespeare, what future is there for courting and romance ? According to Bloomberg Business Week, Chief Executive Officer of Tinder, Sean Rad, said, “the word ‘dating’ doesn’t even mean shit to us. What does that even mean?”

Tinder insists it is a ‘friend finding’, not a ‘mate finding’ app, it offers a ‘hot or not’ option to swipe through potential ‘friends’ mates based on their picture and location. Millions are using Tinder as a quicker, instant date /mate option over traditional dating sites. So has the path to true love becomes a numbers game ? What impact will Tinder have on dating sites like Match.com andOkcupid ? Are the days of time consuming completion of date site profiles going, going gone when the instant hotline to love or ‘hook ups’ on Tinder beckons ?

More of a traditionalist, (and married to a wonderful man with no need to trawl the web for my life partner) I prefer the amazing example set by the Royal Shakespeare Company in the world of online love. They famously tweeted a modern version of Romeo and Juliet – a fantastic idea and one I am sure Shakespeare would wholeheartedly have approved of. As Hockney is to the iPad, so William Shakespeare would, I just know it, have embraced the opportunity 140 characters presents. Such Tweet Sorrow ( @Such_Tweet) was an exercise that restored my faith in love and the digi-sphere. Tinder is the more tragic.

Check out this article – covering what users do on Tinder, and how Tinder execs insist they are in the business of ‘friend finding’ not date seeking. You decide!

Finding Friends on Tinder

February 1, 2014

How Betabrand gets amazing customer engagement

Love this! US online clothing retailer Betabrand offers instant discounts to customers in return for their pictures in Betabrand clothes and accessories, simple enough – This example gets it right on every level – lovely tone of voice and personality -collections of great pictures in their Wall of Fame Model Citizen section- this is the best example of brand fans I have seen in a while. It is also a clear example of how important and ‘sticky’ user generated content can be, and how to make your customers work for you in the online space.

Betabrand have really got the language right too. I love their ‘Model Citizen’ concept to house all the pictures!

They ask for weird and whacky and they get it!

22671632-betabrand_modelcitizen

Innovation wise, this is an example of a brand really thinking about how to engage in conversation with it’s fans online. They have spent time understanding how customers can be advocates and are generous enough to allow their fans space to share their own stuff on site too…they mean it, and that all adds to the love-in.

Calling the section Model Citizen, tongue in cheek and playful and celebrating the Wall of Fame works.

Celebrating those who celebrate you is a top tip when it comes to customer experience innovation.

How good are you at recognising the people who love your brand /product ? How easy is it for them to engage and publicise their enthusiasm on your site ? How many clothing brands do you know who’d have a picture of a kid in a green onesie sporting a pair of their up market sun glasses ?

Check the images out on Betabrand’s Model Citizen section. See what happens when you relax the brand control uptightness a bit, relinquishing a bit of that ‘control’ can pay back in spades.

Betabrand Customers in their clothing –

January 26, 2014

Why celebrating failure is important for innovation

So the blogosphere is all over GoogleX, the skunkworks ‘hub’ where only the most intractable and real problems make the cut for an ambitions group of moon-seekers – and a place where they celebrate and relish failure.

The idea that failure is good for innovation is of course nothing new; we have been banging on about celebrating failure for years. Those of us who know what it feels like to have messed up big time, or seen a dream project slip sulkily down the drain of lost hope know it is easier said than done. It is only a properly innovative, grown up company ( note: not necessarily a large one) that actually manages to deal with this stuff, never mind celebrating it. I applaude Google for making their failures as much a story as their new ( and utterly incredible) intelligent contact lenses!

Fast Company way back in 2005, cited some excellent examples of failure and its importance to innovation: from Brit James Dyson, to Italian design icon Alberto Alessi , I love their list of those who manage and flourish in the face of failure.

I particularly rate the quote from legendary sculptor Henry Moore who said: ‘The secret of life is to have a task, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is: It must be something you cannot possibly do.’ Now there’s a challenge to innovate if ever I saw one!

CC www.theguardian.com