The way ideation works depends on how it is directed.
Creativity is best achieved with nurture and new insight.
During a room44 ideation session there is a moment when somebody in the room will realise that the ideas on the wall can be started immediately. The “…and we can do that now” moment is how we judge the success of the process.
Seeing where ideas overlap, developing embryonic ideas and providing the right stimulus for ideas to emerge is our skill.
Future-thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.
If you’re planning a strategy project, get in touch.
The ideas economy is great. Having ideas is where innovation-based strategy starts.
The problem that business leaders have, is not looking for great ideas; it’s choosing one.
Unless ideas translate into action, a launch and an experience that consumers value, what started out as a good idea with potential will never make it as an innovation.
Everybody loves biscuits
Nearly everybody loves an ideation session. Loads of biscuits, a day out of the office and, at the end of the day, a wall covered in coloured Post-Its.
The energy, the buzz, the empathy, the synergy and meeting of minds that ideation sessions generate are testament to the power of creativity.
And this is where the work really starts When you get back to your desk, the sugar crash hits right about the time the first client calls and you’re back into the humdrum.
Work with room44 and that won’t happen. Sure, you’ll still get the client calls but you’ll also have expert resource working in and alongside your company to get the first idea to market – then the second…
Assess your options
Our specific method of assessing your product options will make the order of priority clear, the thing to do next apparent and the eventual result measurable.
We have delivered products that started as an idea on a Post-It and know every part of the supply chain intimately. If you want to hear about some examples let’s talk.
In addition to strategy, we have delivered:
- product design,
- positioning,
- creative design,
- communications strategy creation,
- prototyping,
- branding,
- testing and manufacture,
- supply chain builds… and we’ve done it many times over.
If there’s a practical element to delivering a product to market without distracting your team from what they’re paid to do – we’ve done that.
In our opinion, ideation needs to lead to an actionable plan that gets actioned.
Future thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do.
This is a tale of missed opportunity. It features an emerging trend, an industry struggling to grow and short-term decision making.
In March 2017, we picked up chatter about a concept that we thought would interest the insurance industry. We interviewed the UCLA Anderson Professor, Hal Hershfield, who had invented and developed the idea, and he clearly thought so too. Professor Hershfield was generous in describing his vision, his ambition and the benefit that he envisaged for consumers.
The idea? It’s a piece of technology that takes an image of a person’s face and modifies it digitally to represent that same person in the future, maybe in 20, 30 or 40 years’ time.
Professor Hershfield’s research showed that, when confronted by themselves in an older, more vulnerable state, people are inclined to make different investment decisions.
Hyperbolic discounting
We’re all very aware of our own inclination to take a reward in the short-term over waiting for a bigger one later. This concept, hyperbolic discounting, is widely studied. In times of recession, shoppers buy more chocolate and small cosmetics purchases, rather than go without completely when they can’t afford to buy a car or have a holiday.
So, the thinking behind Professor Hershfield’s concept is well-supported and evidence-based.
Hershfield’s believable representations of an older ‘you’ raise the question of what the results of your investment decisions might be. Recent studies of Generation Z revealed the consequences of these people having been born into a world of uncertainty: peak water, war, terrorism, global ecology choked on plastic, and other significant factors leave young people making very short-term decisions on the basis that the future is not guaranteed.
Candidate sectors
There are a few industries that need an injection of ‘invest for tomorrow’, one is insurance. We took Hershfield’s idea to a well-known UK insurance brand. We explained the concept, but only briefly, because they were too busy to look at new ideas. Too busy doing business and making money – and when you’re selling the future, that’s a hard argument to win.
The result was that they didn’t get the low-down on emerging technology, and Professor Hal didn’t get a new customer. Two years have passed without their customers having the benefits of that technology, and any potential competitive insulation has evaporated. Hal Hershfield’s invention is having a significant impact on those consumers with access to it. Insurance companies are turning on to the idea.
Our commitment to you
room44 is committed to continuing to bring you new insights. The value of searching for trends and seeking competitive advantage is crucial to the sustainability of business. Thanks to our constant exposure to emerging trends and innovations, we recognise unique opportunities in ideas that, at first, might seem disconnected.
Do get in touch. I promise a conversation will get you thinking differently.
This is where we arrange to talk. Click here to book time.
This is how we train teams. Download the prospectus here.
Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.
Since the banking crisis changed (or in some cases, confirmed) the general perception of bankers (think rhyming slang), there’s been a need for visible change in the financial industry.
Eventually it did arrive. Technology improved enough to create products that customers had been requesting for ages…
- Monzo kicked it off with its pre-paid card and account.
- ApplePay got good.
- Starling took off. Revolut spun out.
The new wave of disruptor banks was in full flight and nothing could touch them. Until it did.
The fast follower position is a strong one.
The MO is to see what the upstarts try and do it better.
Apple has always been good at that. So, it stuck with what it knew and launched Apple Card. This offered everything we love about Apple and more: pay by phone, carry a shiny metal card – all hail the great and the good – but hold on…suddenly the all-powerful Mr. Zuckerberg stepped up.
Enter Facebook Libra. A digital currency, PayPal challenger, that you can use to make transactions on FB platforms as easily as sending a private message. Bitcoin might have seemed a bumpy ride, with its value fluctuations, but here we are with a new concept: a stable platform and a captive audience using a tested idea.
To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway (to be honest, I’ve done this so many times now that you’d think it gets old, but it doesn’t): asked how he went bankrupt, Ernie said “gradually, then suddenly.” As an epithet for innovation, it’s worth remembering. Even when you think everything is different, everything changes.
The mega trend
Since Fannie and Freddie (keep an eye on this), RBS, and all the rest was always going to be an upheaval in the banking market. It didn’t happen immediately. It started slowly and then it hit with a vengeance. Now banks are going to scramble again because innovation, to them, means what it’s always meant: a new name for an account, a couple of tweaks and a bit of cashback.
Apple and Facebook will make a dent in world banking and who gave them the time to do it? The guys who decided that innovation was more of the same with a different label.
Who created the products consumers will use? Innovators.
If you don’t know how to be one, get in touch. We do, and you have nothing to lose. Click here.
Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.
Sometimes innovation feels too hard and takes too long to begin when common sense says ‘good enough’ is fine.
Radical solutions may be the best way forward but a single step moves the game on far enough for the next step to feel more possible – and the next…
A personal story
Here’s an example of my own where ‘radical is the end point but an analysis of the situation revealed a more pragmatic plan.
In 2016 I raced age group triathlon with Team GB. Lots of work and then it was on to the next campaign. Next, I had a bike crash. Three months later, on my very first ride after recovering, I had another one. Just riding to work my front wheel fitted perfectly between two paving slabs. What followed was a sudden teeth/paving slab interface and a cracked sternum. Cause and effect.
Eighteen months later I started to think about riding a bike but had no interest in repeating the experience.
Design thinking
I started looking around at ways of getting back on a bike. Being inclined towards new ideas my first stop was eBikes. They’re great. However, it’d need some investment. Sure, it’ll extend my range and relieve the use of my car but right now I need to ride a bike to avoid city traffic charges and parking costs.
After lots of looking around at possible solutions I realised that I didn’t fall off my bike because I can’t ride a bike. I fell off because a 23mm tyre fits between paving slabs. My tool of choice was inappropriate for the environment.
Getting back on the bike
In response I applied the values we teach and upcycled, recycled and designed a bike for this environment.
The picture at the top of this story is that bike. Wide tyres, a saddle that avoids the need for suspension, mountain bike gears and a rack to carry a laptop or shopping.
On top, it’s a parts bin special. There are charities out there, re-purposing donated bikes and doing so for far less than high street retails.
This one cost me less than £200 and perfect for my need, today.
Here’s my product development trajectory. Short term actions that are good enough, a mid-term plan with more deliverables plotted against the size of investment and a longer-term commitment to know what’s emerging so we can leapfrog to that if necessary.
This is the pragmatic side of innovation that demands we keep an eye on trends as they develop but which gives me what I need, and want, now.
This trend identification programme could be what you need too. It doesn’t have to be hard or take long.
Learn more about outside insight here.
Future thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do.
Meet Soda. She’s going to show you how disruption happens.
Talking to client companies often starts the same way. We see a trend that could be a threat and/or an opportunity and take it to them. The client is too busy with work to worry about a problem they haven’t got yet.
So, we talk over a few things that have happened recently that might have knocked them off-course, and we show how those things started as signals. Recently, the trends that we saw early (because we were looking), which looked like they’d take market share in about five years, have made it to market in eighteen months.
That’s the beauty of looking ahead: you see stuff sooner. If you’re not looking, things take you by surprise. To borrow a line from Ernest Hemingway about how he went bankrupt: “Gradually, then suddenly.”
Now Soda will show you how disruption looks when you’re not keeping an eye on the future.
To learn how Soda and the rest of the room44 team will help you to see and make the most of trends, click here for details of our Programme for Changemakers.
Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.
The ideas economy is great. Having ideas is where innovation starts.
However, unless ideas translate into action, a launch and an experience that consumers value, what started out as a good idea with potential will never make it as an innovation.
There’s a saying that goes; start putting ideas into one hand and crap into the other and see which one fills up first.
Nearly everybody loves an ideation session. Loads of biscuits, a day out of the office and, at the end of the day, a wall covered in coloured Post-Its.
The energy, the buzz, the empathy, the synergy and meeting of minds that ideation sessions generate are testament to the power of creativity.
The problem is that most times nothing changes. When you get back to your desk, the sugar crash hits right about the time the first client calls and you’re back into the humdrum.
Work with room44 and that won’t happen. Sure, you’ll still get the client calls but you’ll also have expert resource working in and alongside your company to get the first idea to market – then the second…
We have delivered products that started as an idea on a Post-It and know every part of the supply chain intimately. If you want to hear about some examples let’s talk.
In addition to strategy, we have delivered:
- product design,
- positioning,
- creative design,
- communications strategy creation,
- prototyping,
- branding,
- testing and manufacture,
- supply chain builds… and we’ve done it many times over.
If there’s a practical element to delivering a product to market without distracting your team from what they’re paid to do – we’ve done that.
In our opinion, ideation needs to lead to an actionable plan that gets actioned.
Future thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do.
Five healthcare trends and five pieces of advice to help you find the next best-selling consumer healthcare product
Launching new products takes energy, tenacity, focus and bloody-mindedness (don’t underestimate the bloody-mindedness). In the healthcare market, this has never been truer.
With the advent of machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotic assistance, augmented guidance and real-term reductions in funding for services, new commercial models are being developed to force ‘health’ providers into being businesses, in a way they haven’t needed to be for decades.
Here are five emerging trends to consider:
- In 2019, there is a global shortage of over 10,000 doctors.
- Access to databases recorded from millions of symptom presentations creates a consumer resource never seen before.
- Technology may help doctors see more patients, but it also puts more health decisions into the hands of consumers.
- Insurance providers are asking consumers to take preventative measures to avoid financial penalty.
- 365/24/7 health monitoring will augment genomic profiling, provide us all with our genetic predispositions, and tell us how well we individually mitigate the risks of disease through our lifestyle and nutritional habits.
Innovation is not a complex process, but it does require regular attention. How to start? Bear this in mind:
- Unanticipated consequences abound – it’s up to you to be alert.
- To maintain a view of trends, you must not only look in the usual places, but also in some unusual ones.
- Unless you develop a 360-degree view of your market, danger lurks. The UK hat industry is a good example. After decades of successful production, the entire industry failed, largely due to agricultural policy promoting cash crops like oil seed rape, and reducing support for grass crops like those that provided straw for hats. Could something similar happen to you? Would you see it coming?
- When you start to look for new insight, things take on a different complexion. You’ll notice that we talk about ‘consumers’ of healthcare instead of patients. This is deliberate. Every market is best viewed through the lens of consumers or end-users. ‘Patients’ may be technically correct but, in the end, we are just consumers looking for a solution to a problem.
- By taking a step outside your own business environment, you revert to being a naïve consumer, and this is where we all see market need differently.
Take innovation one step at a time: the secret to successful innovation lies in the risk you assign to a project. Framing an innovation objective requires thoughtful planning to ensure it lands with your team in the way it needs to.
- Tell your team you’re going to Mars and the job will seem unachievable.
- Tell them you’re building a rocket, and they will struggle (unless you already build rockets).
- Ask for a door that might fit a rocket, and they’ll come up with it in no time at all.
Develop good habits. Take time, every day or every week, to examine your surrounding competitors, customers and prospects. Critically, record what they are doing.
Lots of templates exist to help with this. A good place to start is with the room44 Business Model Canvas (BMC). This template provides a safe place to test business models. In working through ideas you naturally find yourself asking questions that may be tough to answer. This is where you can focus your search for trends.
Filling in some of the blanks in your landscape will make your assessment of what might sell, and what will meet resistance, much easier.
Finally, do all of these things publicly.
Being obvious about your level of activity sends messages to everybody. Your teams will latch on to the idea and begin copying your new inquisitive ways. Suppliers will start to see opportunities and bring ideas to you. Customers will see you as progressive and enquire about new products.
All it takes is energy, tenacity, focus and (let’s not forget) bloody-mindedness.
To see how room44 has used insight to re-shape business strategies, click here or sign up to our free weekly newsletter for comment on all areas of innovation and product strategy.
room44 specialises in helping clients put together their future-proofed, innovation-based roadmap.
You can start today.
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It’s easy, as a business owner, to believe that innovation isn’t your job. Invention, product development, competitiveness, even novelty – but probably not innovation.
In fact, everyone can innovate.
Step back and shake it off
To step back and shake off the pressure of everyday business can seem impossible. As a busy SME operator, you might find the suggestion ridiculous – until it’s not an option and becomes a necessity.
Like you, we spend a lot of time thinking about how we run a business, how it will grow, what we can do to make a step change and keep ahead of the market. Like you, we have issues of resource and cash flow.
We don’t know what we don’t know
We believe, unquestionably, that having a plan that extends to five years (and beyond), that envisages what we’ll look like then, that considers what will be happening in the market to influence what we do, is achievable.
Stepping out of our daily routine and working with somebody else to guide creative thinking works too. External help shines a light on what we don’t know we don’t know. Many times, there are some things we can change, and others we can’t, but why limit the thinking to the short term?
Intellectual investment pays back
Every intellectual investment you make in thinking with an innovative mindset will pay back immediately.
Innovation, per se, is a money shot. It takes time to settle on a great idea that your competition hasn’t had yet, and to get it to market first. But giving yourself regular time and space, so that innovation is even a possibility, is worth every minute.
Once you see things as they could be, not just as they are, the vista opens: the opportunity becomes clearer, the barriers lower and what was just an idea turns into a viable option. Or maybe you just have the idea in the first place.
Here’s an offer:
Let’s call or meet. I’ll ask you three questions and we’ll work out what will make the quickest return on your investment of time, so that you know if ‘innovation’ is what you’ll call whatever you decide to do next.
Before we talk I’ll send you our free guide to “Seeing it differently”.
Here’s the link.
Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.
In the post-war years, Winston Churchill was a keen advocate of a united Europe, insisting that the UK would benefit from being in the club, rather than an outside observer. Boris Johnson’s 2014 book The Churchill Factor applauds him for the stance that eventually took us in to the ‘European Experiment’.
Not long after that, Johnson led the campaign to leave Europe, and we all know how that turned out. Many believe that a second referendum now would give a different result. Who knows? What we can be sure of is that people change their minds and, as market research companies know very well, what people say and what they do aren’t always the same.
China used to be a secretive sort of place with little known about its leaders or their ambitions. Today the country holds a good chunk of world debt in its hands and is one of a very small number of manufacturing powerhouses that feeds the world market with consumable products. And yet, with Brexit now a reality and the GBP exchange rate as it is, Eastern manufacture is less viable. There is a significant trend towards companies setting up manufacture in the UK again.
Is the trend observable elsewhere too? It may be for different reasons, but America – once the exporter of everything we aspired to owning and the dream we all wanted – has begun putting up trade barriers to control imports. The ‘America First’ cry suggests a change in the supply chain that has become deeply established over the last thirty years.
Cyclical? Yes. Circular? Not yet.
Plastic is the friend of the supply chain. It protects, controls, insulates and encapsulates whatever it surrounds. It gets things from A to B with less waste and more efficiency: until we start to get critical of the full cost of using plastic in absolutely everything and realise that we can walk across the sea. Recent reports indicate that food waste figures are rising along with the use of plastic to protect it. For a while, the interested parties will lobby for no change and eventually, when the situation has become almost irretrievable, they’ll lose the argument and the whole way we ship and source will change. Can I be sure about that? Well, yes – to an extent, because that’s what happens.
How many times have you lived through a company divesting itself of interests only to start acquiring businesses soon afterwards? Governments are great at de-centralising and re-centralising. It happens so often that we are almost immune to the rationalising that goes on to justify the expense of the activity. Google becomes Alphabet, Smith and Wesson becomes AOB, the Department for Trade and Industry becomes the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
The words we choose to describe an activity change because somebody feels a need to redefine themselves. Maybe they’ve pivoted into a different area of interest, or want to distance themselves from something. In any event, it’s called ‘Communication’. It reflects an activity called Positioning and we used to call it all Marketing.
How is this useful in the realm of innovation?
Products usually meet their moment. Sooner or later an idea is right for the time. What is thought of as groundbreaking and trail-blazing today will lose its shine tomorrow. What has no value today will accrue some down the line. It’s why people have sheds full of screws and nails, and sewing boxes with scraps and off-cuts. It’s the human way. Inherently we value everything.
The point is that ideas shouldn’t be discarded. They should be kept in view with the reasons for their feasibility constantly displayed. As you work along your innovation strategy that sets out your trajectory along a timeline and a line of technical difficulty, these ideas will become more, or less, reasonable. Their pros will match a market need and their cons will push them down the priority list, but not off it – depending who is looking, when and from what perspective.
The message then is this: don’t discard an idea just because it looks stupid now. Its time will come and it will meet a need on your strategic plan when the time is right.
Of course, this assumes you have an innovation strategy guiding your business holistically, and that your team is used to the plan changing to meet the evolving needs of your market.
You don’t have one of those? No problem. Let’s start on that now.
Future thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do. room44 innovates
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