A review on Weird Ideas that Spark Innovation

By Marie

The Cor Notes

You just need to be skilled and motivated at gathering knowledge from diverse sources, and then at figuring out how it might be put to new uses. all great technologies are blends of other technologies

Insanely Great Language

Insanely Great Language

Invent. Reinvent. Repeat.

Source: HP banner ad

RS s logic about this article

You need to have variation & ideas that are floating around the group or the company wide variations and you need to have people who have what RS call vu jad which is the opposite of dja vu . It's this ability to keep seeing the same old thing as brand new.

Weird Ideas that Work

Whole trick is to get somebody who sees the product differently, to have as many different design solutions around the same old problem, or to a new problem, as possible.

Sutton Weird Ideas that Work

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Hire Slow Learners (of the organizational code). 1-1/2 Hire People Who Make You Uncomfortable, Even Those You Dislike. Hire People You (Probably) Don t Need Use Job Interviews to Get Ideas, Not to Screen Candidates Encourage People to Ignore and Defy Superiors and Peers Find Some Happy People and Get them to Fight Reward Success and Failure, Punish Inaction Decide to Do Something That Will Probably Fail, Then Convince Yourself and Everybody Else That Success is Certain Think of Some Ridiculous or Impractical Things to Do, Then Plan to Do Them. Avoid, Distract, and Bore Customers, Critics, and Anyone Who Just Wants to Talk About Money Don t Try to Learn Anything from People Who Seem to Have Solved the Problems You Face. Forget the Past, Especially Your Company s Successes.
Sutton, Robert I. 2002. Weird Ideas that Work: 11-1/2 Practices for Promoting, 11Managing, and Sustaining Innovation. New York: Free Press. Innovation.

RSs favorite quote quote

Do something that will probably fail, and then convince everybody around you that success is certain.
This is how the best venture capitalists and the best product development managers work, because it's such a paradox, but it's how Silicon Valley works.

The View
increase variance in available knowledge see old things in new ways break from the past

The Review
Professor Sutton s ideas can be viewed as a menu for innovation. As with any good menu, time will introduce variations, additions, and adjustments, but the foundation is a solid base with which to start.

The Connections
1. Get the right people (Ideas 1, 1.5, 2, & 3) 2. Build the right environment (Ideas 4, 5, & 6) 3. Work on the right projects (Ideas 7 & 8) 4. Filter out the noise (Ideas 9, 10, & 11)

What We Know For Sure About Innovation

Big mergers [by & large] dont work Scale is over-rated Strategic planning is the last refuge of scoundrels Focus groups are counter-productive Built to last is a chimera (stupid) Success kills Forgetting is impossible Re-imagine is a charming idea Orderly innovation process is an oxymoronic phrase (= Believed only by morons with ox-like brains) Tipping points are easy to identify long after they will do you any good Facts arent All information making it to the top is filtered to the point of danger and hilarity Success stories are the illusions of egomaniacs (and gurus) If you believe the cause & effect memoirs of CEOs you should be institutionalized Herd behavior (XYZ is hot) is ubiquitous and amusing Top teams are Ditto heads Statistically, CEOs have little effect on performance Expert prediction is rarely better than rolling the dice

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
Michelangelo

Summary
Finally, if you look at these, a reasonable conclusion is that, although creative places can be a lot of fun at times and being happy is linked to creativity.