Notes from The Marketing Leadership Roundtable webinar “Employee-Driven Innovation: BT's Innovation Central”

http://tinyurl.com/mbso3r

“As marketers struggle to improve their innovation pipelines with fewer dedicated resources, many are experimenting with employee-driven innovation strategies. Unfortunately, most marketers find that few employees have the combination of skills, context, and motivation needed to make meaningful contributions to their innovation agendas.”

Key points

Why innovate? In soft economic conditions, companies that don't invest in innovation don't rebound as much as companies who do. "Starving investments in down markets sets us up to fail when markets rebound."

How do we balance the expertise and experience of dedicated innovation teams with the scale and customer proximity of employee-driven innovation initiatives?

BT created an innovation central team with the objective to get greater participation and higher quality input from employees

BT’s process has two guiding principles:

· Open the door to innovation: Create an environment where employees are encouraged to participate in innovation

· Franchise the innovation expertise: dedicate experts to boosting the organization's ability to innovate

Tools to open the door - employees are encouraged to participate, provided with enough context to contribute meaningful ideas and are rewarded for contributions:

New idea scheme

Innovation charters

Global scouting program

Recognition and reward systems

Tools to franchise innovation experience - Proven innovators act facilitate the process so that innovation is available to all employees and provide coaching when an employee has a great idea.

Innovation central team

Coaching network

Innovation toolkit

In this Advertising Age article Al Ries muses on the difficulty of weeding out good creative ideas from bad and observes that "most people tend to make their judgments against a background of 'accepted standards,'or conventional wisdom."

As an example, he contrasts the classic Doyle Dane Bernbach "think small" campaign for the VW Beetle with other automobile advertising of the 1950's. Existing automobile ads contained people, used artwork rather than photographs, included mutiple illustrations and used color.

The Beetle add was simple, black and white and included a realistic photograph. This ad is credited as the start of modern advertising. The new form of ad worked because it stood out from the crowd. It said what needed to be said simply, and in a way that reflected the brand values of a small, simple car.

Ries concludes with this statement "People don't want to be different. They want to be better. Clients want advertising à la mode. And most creative directors want the same thing. They want advertising "in the fashion" of the times, only better.That's why it's hard to recognize a great advertising idea. It doesn't look right because it goes against accepted wisdom. "

Interaction designers have the same problem. People often ask them to create something "out of the box" or "really innovative." When they see the wireframes/concepts they react from the context of what they already know. When presenting an idea that's really revolutionary, it's important to explain who it's for, and why it will be efffective.

 

Heineken to Agencies Outside NYC: You Need Not Apply

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Heineken USA's creative review has an unusual qualification for agencies: Non-New York shops aren't welcome.

In a statement confirming the review this afternoon, the White Plains, N.Y.-based importer explained that it was planning a Manhattan marketing headquarters and "is pursuing a New York-based agency in conjunction with the office move."

As a result, it's taken creative duties on its flagship Heineken and Heineken Premium Light brands, previously handled by Wieden & Kennedy's Portland, Ore., office, and placed them up for grabs between Wieden's New York office and Manhattan hubs of three agencies it has worked with previously: StrawberryFrog, TBWA/Chiat/Day and Euro RSCG.

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Of course, in these cost-conscious times, marketers may be increasingly wary of paying for their agencies to travel to them. A Heineken spokeswoman said the decision was driven by a desire to collaborate better with agencies, not to save money.

In June 2007, 15 producers and executives from WNYC and PRI met with Kembel and d.school instructors in a ring of red sofas on the platform at Palo Alto's Caltrain station, a nod to the school's "user-centered experience" ethos. "The exercise got us thinking about how to remake mornings," says John Keefe, WNYC's news director. "So we're sitting at the train station during the morning commute, and all these people are rushing past. It was this beautiful moment." ...

A three-day crash course taught the producers the basic steps of d.school innovation: observe, brainstorm, prototype, and implement; repeat as necessary. When they went back to Manhattan, everything was up for debate. Instead of hiring from the usual pool of public-radio producers, they sifted through 1,700 résumés collected from such eclectic sources as Craigslist and the Native American Journalist Association. The usual media brainstorming sessions also shifted. "Here's how idea meetings work in TV news: 'We did that, I saw that, I hate that!'" Hockenberry says, his voice rising. Instead, following the design firm Ideo's guidelines, the team encouraged wild ideas while deferring judgment.The result of all that foment debuted at the end of April.

David Wong posts about The Seven Commandments All Video Games Should Obey. #1 and #7 particularly resonate with me...

#7 Thou shalt let us play your game with real-life friends. - the reason the Wii is so compelling to non-gamers

#6 Thou shalt not pad the length of your games.

#5 Thou shalt not force repetition on the player.

#4 Thou shalt make killing fun.

#3 Thou shalt admit when enough is enough.

#2 Thou shalt make sure your game actually works.

#1 Better graphics do not equal innovation and/or creativity. - but they sure look better on the box!

Great article about Bill Nye in the NY Times. This interview makes living in L.A. sound somewhat attractive, especially if I could have a neighbor like Bill.

 A friend recently asked me:

"...the students have done some user research and we've begun modeling using behavioral variables, etc. For a kitchen appliance (recipe finder, shopping list builder, etc.) or similar household device, I wonder if you would ever have a "couple" as the primary persona, for the purposes of the persona description."

Good question! This is a tricky aspect of persona creation. When designing a consumer product, you often have to consider a household full of people who will interact with the solution you're designing. When I've encountered this problem myself, I've never created a "couple" persona. Instead, I've found these alternatives to be more useful:

- One persona, with "characters" in the story to provide context
- Two personas in different households
- Two personas in the same household (rare)

I'd only place two personas in the same household if I was trying to express an important interaction between them, for example, how a mom and kid would use a kitchen appliance very differently. In this case, the dad would be a character. In writing the persona description I'd start by talking about "The Miller Family," name all three and describe the household shopping, cooking and eating behaviors. Then I'd go into more detail about the perspectives and needs of the mom "Mary Miller" and the kid "Benjamin Miller." Mary's husband Curtis would appear in the overall household part, but wouldn't have as much detail, and would not be the "star" of design scenarios the way the other two would.

What a nice present for Earth Day. Google maps now has transit directions!

 http://tinyurl.com/6ene7g