Innovation | The Ideas MachineThe Ideas Machine

October 10, 2017

What Imogen Heap has to teach us about Innovation

Imogen Heap is known for her experimental approach in the creative arts, so in many ways it comes as little surprise she is a big fan of the opportunities ‘Blockchain’ offers to artists (Check our her excellent blog ImogenHeap). Her creative think tank Mycelia for Music is a great example of artists taking a proactive approach to the impact of technology on the creative industries Mycelia

On the homepage, the organisation /collective describes its objectives thus :
Mycelia is …
Founded by Imogen heap, we are a growing collective of creatives, professionals and lovers of music.
Our mission is:
+ To empower a fair, sustainable and vibrant music industry ecosystem involving all online music interaction services,
+ To unlock the huge potential for creators and their music related metadata so an entirely new commercial marketplace may flourish,
+ To ensure all involved are paid and acknowledged fully.
+ To see commercial, ethical and technical standards are set to exponentially increase innovation for the music services of the future,
+ To connect the dots with all those involved in this shift from our current outdated music industry models, exploring new technological solutions to enliven and positively impact the music ecosystem

One of the team’s goals is to ‘connect the dots’ exploring new business models and new technology solutions. Their Creative Passport initiative is a case in point, seeking to bring an artist more seamlessly to the technologies and platforms that support their work, and to ensure all the elements of the creative process are acknowledged, tracked and recorded. The Creative Passport is described as follows : For creatives in the music industry, there is no standard database or beacon of information for artists and their works.
Imogen, for instance, across the various PROs, labels publishers has over 20 different IDs accounts and numbers, none of them connected to each other.
With the creative passport, not only would all these Identities be linked under a single umbrella, but also all the works and the roles that an artists’ had over the years could be officially verified and offered to the music sector.
Right now most of the information on an artist, or a song, comes from non-verified sources if any is not shown at all. This is basic information regarding session players, mixing and mastering engineers, songwriters, or any of the the many other collaborators behind a piece of music.

A kind of digital creative fingerprint and authenticated wiki. Cool Stuff. To keep up with the activities remember to check the Mycelia website and sign up for their latest.

September 30, 2017

Will a robot take your job ?

Interesting debate with some students we are teaching about innovation this week. We have been discussing AI, Robotics, Machine Learning,The SIngularity and all these exciting tech-driven futures. They suddenly got worried about being made obsolete by machines….asked whether unchecked ‘innovation’ is always a good thing ? I found a website set up by the BBC on the back of some research from Oxford University that might help if you have wondered the same thing. The researchers have listed lots of professions and calculated the percentage likelihood the job role will be replaced by a robot.

What is your automation risk ?

The page on the BBC website is titled- Will a Robot Take Your Job ? The short answer, and we find a rather heartening one, is – ‘not if you are a publican’. Cheers to the future people.

September 5, 2017

Open Innovation What Next

Open Innovation is a theory of innovation coined by Henry Chesbrough in his 2003 book ‘Open Innovation’. He talked about innovation that is not vertically integrated, but that happens as a result of know how or technology coming in from outside the firm, or similarly resulting from the same flowing out from the firm. These two broad principles around how Open Innovation happens he calls ‘knowledge flows’…. and suggests they fall into two types, ‘outside in’ and ‘inside out’.
Since 2003 Chesbrough has written much on the topic of open innovation. With the development of increasingly sophisticated software for companies to take advantage of the wisdom of the crowd, and an estimated 80% of firms engaging in some form of open innovation activity… it is now time to ask what next for Open Innovation ?

Open Innovation has proliferated since 2003, a simple web search on the term today yields hundreds and thousands of examples. From simple collaboration with solo partners, firms are now able to source multiple inputs to challenges and problems. Collaboration outside the traditional boundaries of R&D and innovation inside the firm is easier, faster and more efficient than ever. There are few big name companies which do not have significant open innovation initiatives, from pharma to fmcg.

What this increase in collaboration means, (whether ‘inside out’ or ‘outside in’) is that organisations need to adapt to the behaviours and structures conducive to partnership and co creation. These requirements are necessarily different to those required for classic, more controlled innovation and R&D processes. Indeed Chesbrough in a recent article, outlines some of the challenges of open innovation and states ‘Open innovation efforts face a number of important challenges, two of which I’ll discuss here: managing its impact on internal innovation processes and transferring results to the business unit. Outside-in open innovation brings new ideas into the pipeline; that is one of its strengths. But if an outside-in effort brings many new ideas into a company’s innovation pipeline, and the company has not invested in downstream capacity to process these ideas, the influx can create bottlenecks that slow the overall innovation process. And Not Invented Here syndrome, which is prevalent in many strong technical organizations, further complicates the acceptance of external knowledge inputs by the organization.’

Another reminder that when it comes to innovation in particular, theory can be far removed from the challenges faced in practice.

Chesbrough is predictably optimistic about the future of open innovation, citing successes of the innovation challenges set by companies like GE, and showing examples at local community level of open innovation benefiting the community. He concludes:

‘a future [ of open innovation ] that will be more extensive, more collaborative, and more engaged with a wider variety of participants. It will extend beyond technology to business models, and it will embrace both product and services innovation. Just as no man is an island, no firm that restricts itself to the confines of its own R&D lab will be successful in an open innovation world. As one R&D manager observed to me, “Before open innovation, the lab was our world. With open innovation, the world has now become our lab.”

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

November 15, 2014

Happy Anniversary

One year in, The Ideas Machine is still getting great teams together to work on challenging, ground-breaking projects.

Founder Victoria Harrison-Mirauer is working as Faculty in the Innovation and Strategy team at Ashridge Business School, which means we are bringing the latest academic research to our real world client projects too.

Celebrating being a year in, is a great feeling, so here’s a thought or two for anyone thinking about ‘going it alone’ or starting a business.

It is hard, (they will all tell you that), but working for people you don’t like, dragging yourself to an office just for the pay cheque, and getting nothing out of the team /people you work with…….that’s harder!

We remember this time last year, just before the Ideas Machine started, founder Vic quit a project with a couple of real weirdos. It was hard for her to resist the classic path, the BFJ ( BIG F***ing Job), and instead to set up The Ideas Machine, to get a team together and go hunt for business…..any regrets ? We asked Vic, she said, “None.”

Life is too short to spend your working hours with people you don’t relate to or respect. The Ideas Machine is going from strength to strength, plenty of interesting creative challenges on our books at the moment; including making a client training film next week in Newcastle, and a triumphant ad for Funding Circle last month which is on it’s second burst of TV spend… watch this space.

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.

September 15, 2014

Disrupt or be Disrupted

The New Yorker’s Jill Lepore writes eloquently about the impact of the ‘cult like’ followers of Clayton Christensen’s theory ‘Disruptive Innovation’ an answer to the question why do organisations fail ?

In a nutshell this theory holds that the organisations cited in the research failed because they didn’t defend themselves properly against ‘disruptors’ , they had their backs turned and missed critical market trends, consumer need or technology advances- they themselves failed to disrupt and were disrupted.

Disruption is about a competitor winning out by breaking the market rules; technologies and engineering advances are usually in some way part of a disruptive story. Businesses making computer floppy disks or camera film for example failed to keep themselves invested in a developing future- someone came along and exploited the consumer need with shiny new stuff and BOOM…. bye bye old, hello the new.

The New Yorker article is interesting because it rightly talks about disruption being more descriptive than predictive and therefore not hugely useful as a means of analysing a corporate strategy or innovation plan-

Nonetheless, when you think about the industry you’re in, the stuff you make or sell, the services you offer and the needs of your customers- it pays to keep a eye on what might be around the corner. Disruption is an increasingly common outcome of new dot.com business models- the web and mobile technologies means B2C and B2B divisions have blurred- companies and customers can connect directly without the need for middleware- and the pace of technological change, consumer power etc means the urgency and as Lepore would have it ‘panic’ is reaching fever pitch.

Peer to peer lenders like Funding Circle in the UK are a good example of new dot.com business model disruptors. Funding Circle model connects lenders direct to borrowers through an online platform, disrupting the traditional role played by the banks for small business lending. So far over 30,000 small businesses have chosen this route over the bank; the thin edge of a disruptive wedge ? Interestingly several banks are investing in these new online investment platforms- an anti disruption tactic ?

Similarly airbnb and homeaway two great examples of a direct channel disrupting the old ways of renting rooms and holiday homes.

I guess the lesson of the New Yorker article is that while it may not provide you a crystal ball, disruption is an unavoidable lens through which to consider our present and to critique our strategies.

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.

July 30, 2014

Built in Obsolescence

So according to trend hunters PSFK these rubber Italian Sunglasses will last forever ( or at least they won’t break when you sit on them). Silly colours and a bit of a fashion challenge for even the most chic Italian- but it got The Ideas Machine brains thinking.

There are loads of products which ‘fail’ needlessly, or which only last a year or two because obsolescence has been ‘built in’ to keep the consumer wheels turning. These glasses, ( which could be a little more stylish but bear with us) could spell the end of replacing broken shades at the end of a summer road trip…… and the slowing of profits for those who rely on us breaking our sunglasses regularly.

The Ealing Comedy Classic, The Man in The White Suit, starring Alec Guinness, takes a comic look at innovation in the textile industry. The point it makes is a serious one for brands and innovation; not all innovation is good for business. When stuff lasts too long, commerce loses out. It’s why Willy Wonka’s everlasting gobstopper was never his best idea. It’s why we can buy white goods and electronics for next to nothing ( and why iphones have breakable screens). So innovation needs to be tempered by what the market needs, namely that there has to be a reason to come back, upgrade, replace. Marketers need to balance the need, quality and reliability with the built in obsolescence tolerance of their customers.

The Ideas Machine was wondering at what point we consumers might get fed up, how many times do you have to replace the screen on an iphone to wonder about a competitor offering ? We were also musing on the down-sides of all this consumerism, piles of unwanted broken electrical goods and waste.

Even though they are probably the least fash -tastic shades we’ve seen in a long time, we applaud the Italians at Italia Independent and their rubber sunglasses, and we are instructing The Ideas Machine team to invest in a pair!

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

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