getFreshMinds.com | Ideas so fresh--they should be slapped!

Are your shoes in the way, but there's no place to put them?

There's never been a simple, elegant solution to the issue of shoe storage in my life.

Shoes are the destroyers of otherwise neat houses.  They're strangely-shaped objects that don't stack neatly, don't hang hang well on hangers and nearly always end up in a mismatched heap in a corner of the closet.

At least, when they're not making the entryway into a treacherous obstacle course.

That is why I love this staircase from Unicraft Joinery, in Hamilton, Victoria (Australia).

What I like about it is that it uses a normally overlooked space to store items that are usually in the way, while still keeping the shoes close to the doorway.

Of course, there are always the concerns about someone leaving the drawers open, but (in my experience) having shoes lying randomly on the floor is just as deadly!  I always pay attention to the ground at night when I'm climbing stairs.  It's the open areas that get me.

A solution might be to have small lights installed that go on whenever the drawer is open.  Could be easily done with LED lights, a switch and a battery.

In most houses, stairs are simply ways to get from one floor to the other. They often take up a lot of room and it's hard to use the space under them.  So, it's really nice to see ideas about how to get more utility out of a space-hogging item in a small house or apartment.

Flashy, beautifully-designed items like the iPhone might grab headlines, but there's nothing better than a design-solution that solves a real problem!

Now, if only we could install this in my small, shared apartment...!

Is this how we'll shop in the future?

I remember when the Mall of America opened in Minnesota, and it was so exciting that my best friend had her birthday party there.  (I was 10, so it really was a very big deal.)

The Mall of America isn't the latest, greatest mall anymore.  There are bigger ones, and not even the in-mall rollercoasters are so unique anymore.

So, what's the next feature that will capture shoppers attention?  Is it this...?

Enjoy!  It's a little like those old "this is what the future will be like" films!

 

What do you think?  Would you like that feature in a store?

Or is it just good for laughs? :-)

The value of this idea will come as no shock...

Do the little things drive you insane?

I love creations that make life a little simpler, or that solve a basic problem that most people face everyday.

Because most of us grumble about things that irk us, but we rarely put our money where our mouths are.

Recently, I wrote about how Ikea's flexible ice trays have dramatically reduced my cold-drink-related stress.  No more ice cubes down the drain, no more broken trays, no more ice flying dangerously through the air.

I can finally (gasp) add ice to a glass without feeling like an incompetent nincompoop!

Well, here's another solution to one of those daily annoyances that most of us usually just put up with.

Ta Da! Rotating electrical outlets.

Obviously this isn't the sexiest innovation out there, but it doesn't have to be.

Why?  Because I bet most of you took one look at it and thought "Hey, I know exactly where I could use one of those!"

Thanks to Sparkbugg for alerting me to this!  If you want it too, go buy your own rotating outlet here.

When you hear hoofbeats...

"...don't look for zebras!"

Doctors say this to remind themselves not to look for rare diseases just because a patient has strange symptoms.  It's usually only a unusual manifestation of a familiar problem.

But, it's never wise to completely shut your mind to less-common possibilities!

A couple days ago, the Muskogee Phoenix of Oklahoma wrote about a women who was obviously trying too hard to see something different in her everyday life...

When Sharon McConough heard her dog barking like crazy, she thought she was dreaming when she looked outside.

Deer and raccoon regularly visit her Ranger Creek home east of Fort Gibson Dam, but she was shocked to see a zebra last Tuesday night....

“It was about midnight, and I’d just shut off my computer and I got up and went to look outside. It’s so weird, you can’t imagine what it’s like to look out a glass door and see a zebra trotting down the driveway.”

...Although she’s stayed up every night since, she hasn’t seen her striped visitor since his Tuesday visit. But she’s still on the watch and wonders how a zebra came to be running loose in her neighborhood.

Amazingly, she was right! 

Norman the Zebra had escaped from a nearby ranch and was happily gallivanting around Sharon's yard, wrecking havoc with her sanity!

Norman's back home now, and Sharon has some great photos.

Just a quick reminder that the obvious answer is not always the right one. 

After all, if Sharon had just assumed that the hoofbeats came from a horse, she wouldn't have such an interesting story to tell!

First Zebra: Philip Fourie
2nd Zebra: Norman by AP

Does anyone think they're more creative than you are?

I love reading the wildly-popular Copyblogger, especially today when Brian Clark wrote about creativity.  His post Do You Recognize These Top 10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking? is right on and worth a read. 

But today, his blog is making me hopping mad.  Not because of what Brian said--his post was great--but because "someone who has over forty years of success at being very creative indeed" thought he needed to knock some sense into all the aspiring creative thinkers out there.

This [list] is more of a back-slapping, ego-boosting exercise than anything realistic to base your life on. Real creative people don’t need it, and nothing in it could possibly turn a dullard into anything like a real creative person.

I'm not going to beat around the bush here.  People who say things like this tick me off.

They make me so mad I want to go find a water noodle and beat some sense into them.  (Yes, the soft, squishy toys don't hurt, but it's the thought that counts.)

Why do statements like that get me up in arms?  Because they're completely false.  I've been practicing creative thinking since I was 10, and I KNOW that creativity can be developed.

Take me for example.

I tried out for a creative problem-solving team in elementary school.  As part of the audition, we had to write down as many creative answers for the category "things that are green" as possible. 

I listed every tree and plant in the forest. (Oak, Maple, Poison Ivy...)  Not one of my answers was creative, but my list was so long that I earned enough points for non-creative answers that I still made the team!

Since then, I learned a lot more about creativity, am a certified Lateral Thinking instructor and can almost call myself a "Master of Creativity and Innovation". 

But I would never tell people that I'm much more creative than them and that they're doomed to always be a dullard.

I've seen way too many people go from "I'm not creative" to having tons of ideas.

Edward de Bono uses a great analogy to teach why creativity is a skill.  He says that the mind is like a car: 

"People can be born with either a Porsche for a brain, or a Smart car--but it's how they use it that matters."

A Porsche driver has tons of potential, but unless they actually learn how to drive their car, they're not going to get anything exceptional out of it. 

A Smart driver doesn't have a lot of natural ability, but a really fantastic driver will be able to get an amazing performance out of the teeny auto.

If you doubt me, come see a Smart darting in and out of traffic on a German autobahn.

Just like the Smart, not everyone is born with a high-performance creative-thinking brain.  But, no one is born with the ability to parallel-park a car!

Creativity...

• Is learned by making the effort to become creative.

• It comes through being willing to come up with bad ideas until a good idea emerges.

• It comes from being willing to try new things and to look at the world through different eyes. 

• It's about seeing opportunities in the things that piss you off, and suspending judgment until an idea has had a chance to germinate.

But mostly, creativity comes from wanting to be creative and deciding that you're going to do it.

And if anyone like Brian's "highly-creative" commentator tries to tell you otherwise, ignore them.  If they believe that their creativity is a divine ability and that they've never improved with practice, they're lying to you.

If you liked this post, try...

How to take an idea to the next level

Do You Have Trouble Being Creative?

Parenting with new perspectives

Creative thinking can definitely throw out some surprises. For example, the people who just started thinking about a subject are frequently the ones who come up with tons of new ideas.

Andrea Learned at Learned on Women recently wrote about this very subject, even if she didn't know she was talking about creativity.

Andrea pointed out an article in the NY Times about how a lot of men have suddenly become major inventors in a new arena. She writes "men are actively changing the mommy space into the parent space - by inventing products that make it easier for them to manage previously considered 'mom-specific' tasks." 

It's true!  Men are coming up with everything from a baby-bottle nipple attachment that can screwed onto ordinary water bottles to a luggage attachment that makes it easy to get car seats (and babies) through the airport in one piece to a timer that tracks feeding/changing/napping schedules so sleep-deprived parents have less to remember.

There's even a vest that gives dads a rugged outdoors style so they can "can change, feed, and entertain your child with ease and no one will be able to tell you are wearing your diaper bag." (<-- In many manly colors.)

So why is this happening now?  Why all the new ideas for products to improve the baby-parenting experience?

Simple: It's because men are diving into parenting!

This is not a gender issue.  I'm in no way suggesting that either sex is better at coming up with new ideas.

What is happening is exactly what occurs in many established industries when there's a shake-up to the old order.

This is a group of people who are new (as a whole) to being caretakers of children.  There aren't yet any "social norms" for those fathers--they're basically just figuring everything out as they go along.  They're taking a leap into the unknown!

The men who have chosen to be full-time parents are actually very well-suited for lateral thinking. 

They're choosing to take a less-common path in parenting and aren't afraid that people will judge them.

This means that they're not only less likely to accept it when someone tells them a problem is "just the way things are", they're also more willing to risk that people won't like their idea.

And their very presence is forcing companies to become more open for innovation.

Baby-product companies can't just tailor their offerings to mothers anymore, they have to figure out how to appeal to parents in general.

Refocusing, especially after having the same target market for decades, isn't easy.  Those companies are desperate to get their hands on products that appeal to men.

DadGear.com, one of the new companies springing up, has a fantastic statement on their website.

 Our goal for our products is not just neutral or unfeminine, but style that reflects who we are - guys. Guys who take pride in caring for their kids.

It's incredibly refreshing because those men are opening the gates for new ideas that will benefit all parents.

Both fathers and mothers are going to see those products, and start seeing ways to improve products to meet their needs better. When even the diaper bag can be turned into a stylish, functional piece with personality, there's hope for everything!

Positive Thinking is essential for good ideas

Today is Positive Thinking Day over at Kirsten Harrell's Think Positive blog. 

She's raising money to benefit the Christopher and Dana Reeve foundation, and I urge everyone to go take a look.

Learning to think positively is one of the best ways to have more and better creative ideas.  It's also one of the most overlooked.

The reason is simple: we spend most of our lives learning how to be excellent critical thinkers.

Our schools teach us how to evaluate information expertly, to justify our arguments with quantifiable data and (especially) to find and eliminate weaknesses. 

Then, we get to the workplace, and have the added pressure of needing to know right away whether a new idea is something that is worthwhile for the company to pursue. 

When it's about the bottom-line and efficiency, it's absolutely essential to examine every idea through a magnifying glass.

As a result, when presented with a new idea, people immediately start thinking...

• What's wrong with it?
• Why won't this work?
• What parts of this idea are obviously unacceptable?
• How much will this cost?
• Who else has already done something like this unsuccessfully?
• Is this really going to work?

Notice how none of those questions are about what is positive about the idea?  (And it's even worse if people are evaluating someone else's idea!)

No one asks...

• What's really good about this idea?
• How could we make it work?
• What parts of this idea are worth building on to come up with new ideas?

The big trouble is that most people don't even notice that they do this.  It's so easy and natural to jump into critical mode that everyone does it immediately.  And everyone thinks they're being helpful.

What's really helpful though is to stop giving ideas a "will this work" test by making a deliberate effort to seek the positive aspects of every idea.

Creativity guru Edward de Bono has a very effective way to do this called Plus, Minus, Interesting (PMI). 

The concept is very simple.

(P) List all the positive aspects of the idea--even if you hate the idea.

(M) List the negative aspects of the idea--even if you love the idea.

(I)  List any interesting thoughts that came up that are not positive or negative.

It helps to have a set goal of positive and negative points to achieve (like 10 positives and 10 negatives), and to stick to that goal.  That makes you stretch to see benefits/negatives in an idea you hate/love.

It's also very important to start with the positive things about an idea, instead of the negative.

This works because it forces us to balance our original (usually critical) thinking about an idea's value with a look at the other side. 

It looks easy, and like something everyone does already, but it's not.  Usually people focus on only the positives or negatives about an idea, and only give the other aspects a glance.

Want to give it a try in the spirit of Positive Thinking day? 

Try evaluating this idea:

"Creative thinking should be a required subject at school."

Give me 3 positives, 3 negatives and 1+ interesting things that could happen if this occurred.

Like this post? Try...
The Power of Positive Thinking in Innovation

~~~

When it's not worth innovating for more features.

One of the posts I wrote in August, What products drive you insane and how could they be improved? had a great comment from Jon Burg that is definitely worth sharing.

Jon, of the Future Visions blog wrote:

I've said this time and time again, more doesn't equal better.  Ultimately we utilize technology to drive towards a goal, for the voice function cell phones it's communication, for digital cameras it's about preserving a moment, for a computer mouse it's about interface and elemental control.

There is a rash of new "2.0" companies offering "more", but few are truly delivering "whatever you're doing now, do it with us better - read: easier and more naturally".

Find yourself wanting to argue with him?

I did at first.  It's easy to be seduced by the lure of flashy new technology and a slew of sexy new features. Every month, the internet is buzzing with the latest gotta-have-it product that does everything anyone could every want it to do.

But does that every-thing-but-the-kitchen-sink purchase actually do what you really wanted it for?

Three weeks ago, a good friend of mine purchased a new cell phone, the Nokia N73.  It has a fantastic zoom on the camera, the ability to edit phots and upload them to Flickr "on the go", a music player, email capabilities, pc back-up functions, online games and even a barcode scanner.

It was pretty impressive.

Fast forward two weeks.  My friend wakes up in the morning to discover that his brand-new phone--that had been sitting untouched on the table all night--won't work.  Why?  The large, formerly-drool-worthy 2.5 inch color screen had cracked overnight.

And, without that fabulously technologically-advanced screen, the phone is completely useless. Not only can't my friend do any of the fancy stuff, he can't even call others.  If the phone rings, he can answer it.  That's it.

This is exactly what Jon was talking about.  My friend was seduced to buy a flashy new phone that "does everything" on top of being a phone. 

But, when Nokia tried to make the phone do "more", they concentrated so much on the additional features that they neglected to make the phone reliable. 

One tiny glitch, and my friend is left with a useless device that cannot fulfill his need for a phone.

Innovation is marvelous, but is it worth adding on so many features that the most important function of a technology--in this case, the phone's ability to send and receive calls--is endangered.

A phone can have all the fancy bells and whistles, but if it doesn't help people communicate, it's still a miserable failure.

True or false: Customers are a great source of ideas. (Part 2)

How can companies get great ideas from their customers?

As I wrote about in Part 1 of True or false: Customers are a great source of ideas, it's not enough to just ask customers what improvements they want, or what new products they're desperate to buy.

Why?

Because customers usually don't know themselves what they really, really want.

In fact, most of us don't know what we want until we see something on the market that blows us away because it fulfills a need that we sometimes didn't even know we had.

Does that mean that people and companies should just come up with ideas on their own without the input of prospective customers? 

Only if they want to learn that customers hate their new product or service after it goes to market!

So, here's the Catch-22:

There's no point in asking customers what they really want--because they usually don't know.  But it's even worse to NOT to ask customers what they want and end up with a failed invention.

How in the world can companies come up with great ideas then?

The trick is to stop asking customers what they want, and let them show you want they want!

No, please don't spy on them in their homes...! But do watch what they're doing very closely.

Design company Ideo uses this tactic very successfully. When they're innovating, Ideo employees spend a lot of time simply watching customers do the thing they're thinking about.

• When Ideo was asked to redesign toothbrushes for kids, they watch kids brush their teeth.

• When they were challenged to create a better shopping cart, they watched shoppers in a grocery store.

• When Ideo was looking for a way to attract new customers to a bank, they watched how people managed their financial data.

In every one of those cases, Ideo designers found opportunities in the actions of customers. They observed that:

• Although children have smaller hands, they grip toothbrushes with their fists, instead of their fingers like adults. 
  
  So... Ideo created a toothbrush with a bigger handle that's easier for small hands to grab.

• Regular shopping carts are horrible for maneuvering and that shoppers frequently leave their carts at the end of aisles for more flexibility.
  
  So... Ideo created a shopping cart that is easy to turn (to make it easier to navigate crowds) and with removable baskets so customers can have the flexibility to go down aisles without their car while still having something to put the food in.

• Many bank customers have trouble saving consciously, but also round up purchases to the nearest dollar to make record-keeping easier.
  
  So... Ideo came up with the "Keep the Change" savings program, where customers' purchases are automatically rounded up to the next dollar and the change is deposited in a savings account.

Interesting, isn't it?   

What other products or services have you see that have arisen from observing how customers act?

And, what ideas have you come up with after watching people?

 

True or false: Customers are a great source of ideas. (Part 1)

If a company asked you what your biggest complaint about their product is, you'd be able to tell them off the top of your head, right?

Over at grokdotcom.com, Robert Gorrell talks about how he completely struck out this morning when he tried to answer "What's the #1 complaint about point-and-shoot digital cameras?"

His guesses:

1. Shoddy image stabilization
2. Grainy low-light images
3. Poor red eye reduction

Sound pretty good, don't they?  But he wasn't even close.

The number one complaint that customers have is... the response time between clicking the button and the camera actually taking a picture!

For example...

	When you want a photo that looks like this. <---
	But get a photo that looks like that. <---

There's nothing worse than a great shot ruined because it took too long to take the picture.  Yet, that wasn't even one of Robert's top-of-the-head guesses!  But when he heard that complaint, he immediately thought:

"Yes!  Exactly!  That's my least favorite thing about point-and-shoot digitals, too!  So, why didn't I know that?  Am I backpedaling from my previous answers?  Absolutely."

Would you have guessed it?  I didn't... never even entered my head, even though my friends and I constantly lament the amazing photos that we just missed. (And the funny faces I constantly make by accident!)

This is exactly why customers are horrible at being a direct source of new ideas for a company--because they don't always know what factors are the most important to themselves!

After all:

Customers aren't looking to improve the product or find new opportunities.
They just want to use it!  Therefore, there's no reason to make a note of opportunities.

Customers have no motivation to hang onto their ideas and pass them onto a company.  No one is listening, and the idea won't be appreciated, so what's the point of going to the effort of writing it down and turning it in.

But, most importantly, most people (not just customers) have a really tough time thinking beyond what they know.
If a slow camera response time is normal and what they've always experienced, the average customer wouldn't notice it as a problem.  But when the problem is pointed out, it suddenly becomes glaringly obvious.

For those reasons, it's a waste of time for a company to just ask random customers for ideas.  It's very rare that anything extraordinary could come of it.

Does this mean that customers are not a good source of ideas?  No, they are a great source of ideas--just not from direct questioning tactics!

Tomorrow, I'll tell you how it is possible to actually get ideas from customers!