Instant Brains
Although the best ideas are often unpredictable flukes or coincidences, there are some occasions when you are called upon to generate new ideas quickly. Say a client says to you, "We need some fresh ideas for the new project -- let me know if you can think of anything." And the next morning you deliver a list of fifty suggestions.
It's easy, if you remember that new ideas are old ideas in new places. In The Max Strategy, I reviewed the history of some great ideas, reducing each to its seed of innovation. I've summarized the ideas here, and added questions to turn these great old ideas into propellant for making new ones.
Some of the ideas will apply and some won't -- I'd go through quickly, looking for immediate connections, making notes. Once you're through, you can then go back, looking for the next generation of ideas.
1. Coca-Cola was "discovered" when pharmacist John Pemberton found two shop boys drinking one of his headache syrups.
How can we engage the energy/creativity of youth?
Who should we let "play around" with our products/services in order to reinvent them? (Steve Wozniak developed the first Apple computer to show off for his fellow members of a computer club -- is there a club or is there a kids/teens/school angle?)
Could we give our products to high school/college students to use and ask for suggestions?
What about the opposite -- is there a senior angle? Should we be going to senior centers?
2. Sam Walton loved to experiment with promotions at his Wal-Mart stores, especially placing products outside the store -- for instance, he put a popcorn machine outside, then an ice cream machine.
How could we take our work outside?
What could we do so that passersby would see something different goingon?
How could we manage our first impressions? (There's a consulting firm to accountants, R.A.S., who reinvented the receptionist as the Director of First Impressions.)
Sam Walton also turned his security guard into a "greeter" -- is there an analogy here? How do we greet our users? (The owner of the St. Paul Saints minor league baseball team greets visitors as they enter, and so does a bubble machine.)
3. Cannondale bicycles are called Cannondales because the first day of the company's existence, an employee was sent to a pay phone to call the phone company to get a phone line. The clerk for the phone company asked for a company name. The new little business didn't yet have one. The clerk insisted that the account had to have a name. So the employee looked up and saw a sign proclaiming that he was at the Cannondale train station, so that's what he gave. Everyone liked it and it stuck.
Look around the room -- what ideas are sitting there? How did the products/objects you see around you get there?
Why did you choose the place you're in?
4. One of the most popular flavors of the China Mist Tea Company is "mixed berry." It was created when three left-over partial batches of fruit flavored tea were mixed together rather than being thrown away?
What are the leftovers from our endeavors that might be used here?
What has been thrown away that could be salvaged for another use?
Dave Thomas of Wendy's was trying to find a use for the "hearts" of lettuce that the company was throwing away after using the rest of the heads for hamburgers. He asked himself, "Who could use these? Livestock feed, maybe? Someone who sells salads?" And that's when he realized that he could use it himself in salads, something Wendy's did not offer at the time. Wendy's now sells more salads than any other fast food chain.
The leftovers need not be physical product, of course, they could be unused or underutilized brains or hands or land --
Sam Schoen, the founder of U-Haul, built the company on the principle of "unused land and labor." He observed that gas stations had empty asphalt and employees who could take time from selling gas to rent trailers.
When I was a young market researcher for what was then Armour-Dial, I discovered a file cabinet full of old ad test results for the company's commercials. I put these in a data base, so we could compare new test results to the old ones, and suddenly the worthless old data were valuable wisdom.
5. Most of our energies go to shoring up weaknesses, but there is great leverage in pushing strengths. Jean-Pierre Rampal told me, "Some nights I go out and play a piece perfectly; then the next night, I go out and play it better."
What aspects of the endeavor are perfect? How could they be changed?
6. David Wing, a consultant to retailers, was working with a failing men's store in downtown San Francisco. He spent some time at the store and made three suggestions: (1) add a large fish tank, (2) move all the merchandise around within the store, and (3) open early enough to be available to men on their way to work. Part of the logic was to be different for its own sake -- to make the store look different and so customers would see the merchandise differently (new context, new angles).
What can you do to move the project out of its normal context, to make people stop and look ?
This leads to the question, Where do you NOT expect to find this current undertaking?
Plus,
What pieces can you move to a new place, or put in a different order?
What could be different just for the sake of being different?
7. Claude Olney was a college professor who evolved his successful video program "Where There's A Will, There's An 'A"' (over a million sold) out of his attempts to help his son get better grades in college.
Who can you help? Who ELSE?
How does home or family life fit in?
How can work and home/family fit together to create a synergy?
Olney's program was successful because he tossed out the usual "study harder" approach and instead noted the habits of his own best students.
Who DOESN'T need help and why? Who can we observe?
8. George deMaestral invented Velcro after observing how tenaciously cockleburs stuck to his wool pants.
Create a list of annoyances -- your own and those you want to help.
Befriend your problems -- remember how Dave Thomas started selling salads: Who could you sell your problems to?
9. Dave Fosbury won an Olympic gold medal with his "Fosbury Flop," where he passed over the bar upside down. He stumbled upon this technique only after his coach gave up on him, leaving the young high-jumper free to revert to the old-fashioned "scissors-kick," which evolved into the "Flop" as he tried to get his butt out of the way.
What old-fashioned technique could be brought back?
What old designs?
How were related endeavors handled in "the old days"?
(Look for ideas in old magazines or newspapers. For instance, the head, of a major Shakespeare festival told me that they keep a collection of fashion books from various eras and look through them to try a find new settings for classic plays.)
10. Muhammad Ali learned his outrageously boastful posturing by watching the raving of the professional wrestler "Gorgeous George."
What dramatic boasts could you make? (Thomas Edison set up press conferences to announce breakthroughs that hadn't happened yet - he wanted the pressure to perform.)
What outrageous predictions?
Who's getting the publicity in related fields and why?
Ali also realized that his job wasn't just boxing, but drawing and entertaining a crowd.
Redefine the endeavor -- narrow it, broaden it.
How can you add value to your project by taking over some of the tasks of those you work with?
11. Don Hewitt created the television program "60 Minutes" when he realized that television had the equivalent of books and newspapers but did not have programming comparable to magazines. In other words, he combined two old ideas -- television and magazines -- to create a new combination.
Find other places/industries to look for ideas to mate with yours.
Are their ideas to be borrowed from the media?
How about from a nearby mall?
Each section of a drug or grocery store?
12. Steve Allen started doing interviews with audience members after his guest failed to show up one day.
Imagine the awful things that could go wrong with the project and what you might do to counter each disaster.
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Now that you have created a list of possibilities, pick the one you like best and then try to pair it up with every other idea on your list -- after all, a great idea is usually just two good ideas put together.
Dale Dauten is a syndicated columnist and author of The Gifted Boss.
