Tom Fishburne: this one time at Brand Camp

think outside the bin

 
This cartoon was partly inspired by my friend Paul at Idea Sandbox and his brilliant Idea Killer BINGO card.

All businesses talk about the importance of innovation yet most struggle with it.  I don't think they suffer from a shortage of ideas.  I think they suffer from an inability to recognize and grow the ideas once they have them. 

It's far easier to block, water down, or sabotage an idea than it is to help it grow. That's because more organizations are equipped with cutting tools than with growing tools.

When I joined General Mills years ago, we held ideations constantly.  They were fun, they were often elaborate, they were creative.  They yielded some fascinating ideas. Yet the most remarkable ideas never went anywhere.

I once discovered a small box of files under my desk.  Inside the box were the outputs of an ideation five years earlier.  As I flipped through them, I realized that half of the ideas in the box were identical to some of the best ideas we had generated since I joined.

Aside from realizing we weren't nearly as original as we thought, I learned that filling a box with ideas is easy.  What is difficult is nurturing an idea and running with it. Getting it through the organizational stage gates without suffering the death of a thousand cuts.

Rather than hold "yet another ideation", stage an "idea liberation".  Mine the ideas that are already floating out there.  Breath fresh life into them and see if you can take them further. Instead of looking for reasons why they won't work, look for reasons why they will.

Find a way to think outside the bin.

ideation nation

I like ideations as much as the next guy.  Particularly when there are good snacks.  I just think they are too often treated as a cure-all.  Need an innovation? Just hold an ideation.  I don't think that an isolated brainstorm once a year is the best approach for coming up with innovations.  I think it works better when innovation is a constant, continuous process involving everyone. 

We have something at work we call a "wikiwall", which is this massive magnetic whiteboard where we're all constantly tacking up new ideas and building on old ones.  It's always there and ideas are inspired by all sorts of things at random times throughout the year.

There's also this funny "find your inner hippy" dynamic that often happens in setting up an ideation.  It often feels that if you set the right mood (room, props, music, snacks, etc.), the ideas will just come.  This environment can feel really superficial, because when you leave the room the dynamic is often different.  In the cold light of the day-to-day office, it easier and more acceptable to criticize and squash ideas, rather than find creative ways to grow and adapt them.

Anyway, I visited another company's ideation not long ago and they'd rented jumbo beanbag chairs to place all around the room.  It got me thinking of the whole ideation phenomenon, and led to this cartoon.