insights on innovation

Claudia Kotchka

Claudia Kotchka is Vice President of Design Innovation Strategy at Procter & Gamble and gave a great presentation this morning.  She attempted to describe what "design thinking" is all about, admitting that she had never tried, but thought it to be one of the most powerful ways to attack innovation.  Perhaps most interestingly, she drew on the behavior of designers, often referring to "them", but emphasized numerous times that "but it isn't about designers. Anyone can learn to think and act this way."  Unfortunately for the Institute of Design, a leading graduate program in design thinking where I teach, she also emphasized, "What's great is that you don't even have to go to school to learn it!"  I'd argue "business thinking" is similiar -- why go to school?  You can teach it to yourself, especially given the plethora of books written on the subjects. Obviously school gives you structure and access to the environment where you can study the topic. 

Her presentation emphasized a number of behaviors including 1. being user centered; 2. being collaborative; 3. challenging existing mental models; 4. use of abductive thinking  ("what could be"); and 5. using prototypes and experiments.  She had a funny stroy where a team was working in this design-oriented way and the manager she assigned to the project called her in a panic one day. "Claudia, you must stop this project.  These people are just jumping in and working on ideas with NO process.  You need to stop this and teach them the P&G way..."  Claudia said she decided to go along with the flow and a great new product, Mr. Clean Magic Clean Bathroom Brush, came out of it. I'll refer back to her presentation more as I reflect on the conference.

Front End of Innovation Conference

I'm out in Boston at the Front End of Innovation Conference.  It's the 4th year and the conference just keeps growing.  There are around 650-700 people in attendance and, as you can see on the conference site, great speakers. What I like most about the conference is the diversity of professions represented.  Since it is not run by any one discipline, it draws people from R&D, design, marketing, senior management, and increasingly, innovation groups.  Day 1 was excellent and I'll be reporting on some of the presentations in subsequent posts. So far, the biggest themes are Design Thinking, Collaboration, and Blue Oceans...