After 15 years of design research as a growing and now dominating force within the business of developing products and services of real value for the consumer, the question about what’s next is beginning to rise.

As the power and methods of design research is becoming known by everybody who wants be sure to make money in a world of ‘more products faster’, it is obvious that we all need to find the next tool or weapon in the battle to develop the next big thing, before the competition.

Here’s my bet, and I’ll be blogging a bit about that for a while, because I think it is explosive… Corporate Collective Creativity. With design research as a standard process we need to look for a new creative potential to release. We believe that potential could easily be the vast research and innovation resources that exists within every company – but that usually stays largely untapped due to a variety of organisational, psychological and even physical reasons.

Most senior designers have years of experience with being two things: design developers – and facilitators of processes that synthesizes the right framework for the innovation work. Almost always painfully ignorant to the specific project designers gather information from the market and from inside the client’s organisation … where they often find many of the answers already – inside the organisation, right under the client’s nose, usually, though, well hidden or just not actively seeking to become of value. Simply because the organization does not recognize the value or is able to facilitate it.

If the corporate world can learn to activate and cultivate the vast research and innovation resources inside their organisation, the speed and precision of development can be seriously increased. We believe they can learn that from us and our colleagues in the design business.

Look at this picture – proof that the US is the mother of innovation culture. In Denmark we also have a tradition for caramel apples. Tradition with a big T, that is. It’s never changed and it is still only possible to get the red classic version that is superimposed bottom right. Randomly browsing I stumbled over this: http://www.amyscandykitchen.com, where the main picture is from.

It’s a perfect illustration of how important it is to look at something you like (the red caramel apple) and think: “that is really nice – how can I make it even better” (look at the that striped monster in the bottom corner of the tray). Thinking “We can do better…” is the heart of progress (a possible path to wealth). Thinking “…and then we can do better again, immediately!” is the heart of innovation (the safest path to survival)- always moving, changing, improving things. Look at this picture and learn a bit about what it means when innovation is a cultural business drive – not just a contemporary management book theme. In the States this drive to innovate somehow repeats itself in just about every business area you look at. Try to impose the feeling from these two pictures on your own field of business, and consider if you do as well as Amy. We can all learn from her:-)

As described on engadget, Monster Media has created several innovative kinds of interactive / ambient displays that extend our perception of commercial in the urban/public space by directly engaging the user/consumer in the commercial.

With this approach a completely new path for innovative commercials has been paved.

Engadget describes it this way: “we’ve most certainly seen window-based advertising used to lure the untrained eye to any manner of wares, but Scion‘s latest iteration certainly takes interactive promoting to new heights. In order to market its limited edition tC Release Series 4.0, it partnered up with InWindow to cover a series of street-side windows with bubbles which reacted to movements made by captivated individuals walking by. Granted, the installation isn’t nearly as addictive as say, trying to wrangle up every single Pokémon, but it definitely managed to hold the attention of a few geeked-out civilians. Check it out for yourself, the video’s right after the jump.”

Do check out the video demos on the Monster Media website.. You-ll find some amazing stuff there…

Adobe did it again – a great campaign video..

Check it out at http://adobecards.com/

(more…)

If companies really want to innovate, it’s time they invited designers to join their boards of directors.

Denmark should almost design its BNP, according to the government. Growth and welfare should largely be borne by design and ideas in our ‘creative nation’, where innovation is on all businesses’ strategic agenda.

But how many businesses have innovation experts on their board of directors today?

I mean really idea-centric people who live from seeing possibilities everywhere? Design types with a Richard Branson gene who dare use their intuition to drive growth?

Few, in reality. Most boards of directors at Danish companies are ‘cast’ on a self-affirming and not necessarily idea-generating principle: too many people who think in the same way, even though they seemingly often disagree. Too little contrast and too much ‘group think’.

The idea person is missing

Funnily enough, one profile always seems to be missing – the idea person. Him or her whose natural instinct is to think off-the-wall from a business perspective. A professional who gives decision-makers the courage and ideas to grasp new opportunities, even when this requires a change in strategy. Someone whose job is to innovate – to generate ‘the next big thing’ by creating tension between opposing fields of expertise.

Look at the new generation of big Danish design companies who are growing rapidly in terms of business and competencies right now. Here are some of the most strategic-creative talents Denmark has to offer.

On board already

Many of them already work strategically at management level in businesses in Denmark and abroad. This is a huge potential that’s merely waiting to be harnessed as a catalyst on boards of directors. If this happens, the design mindset will be well and truly anchored in the mindset of boards of directors – and contribute strategically at a far higher level than is the case today.

Look also at the Danish Design Association, recently founded at the Danish Chamber of Commerce’s offices at Børsen in Copenhagen. This trade association will put the new, more international and more business-orientated design concept on the nation’s business map. At the same time it will move much of the design sector out of the ‘drawing office’ and in a more professional, strategic and market-orientated direction – namely, by joining boards of directors.

In other words: let the designers in – it’s time for business as unusual.

Innovation is painful, or so people keep telling us. Don’t you believe it.

I’ve lost count of the number of articles I’ve read recently expressing the Woe-Is-Me-I’m-An-Designer-and-It’s-Difficult Attitude.

According to these design ’gurus’, innovation is painful. Arduous. And downright difficult. Only REAL experts should be allowed to tamper with this precious process. Well, I don’t buy it.

So when I read yet another article selling this theory – published last week in a leading Danish newspaper – you can imagine my reaction. Enough is enough. This debate is careering off-track at breakneck speed. Now’s the time to set the record straight.

Innovation is not rocket science. Nor is it painful. It’s about delivering solutions for us all – consumers, politicians, the environment, businesses. Solutions that help us meet the challenges we face as nations, individuals and organisations at a global and local level.

Transforming a good idea into reality can be painful. But searching for that idea isn’t. Nope. It’s fun. And everyone can play the game.

So stop the guff, so-called inno-gurus. Your mantra that innovation is difficult is a load of ego-driven rubbish. And it’s alienating the very people design should speak to. No wonder businesses shudder with fear in response.

We need to a more down-to-earth approach. Let’s stop focusing on the rights and wrongs of the innovation process and get down to the nitty-gritty: ideas. Innovation is about transforming ideas into a product or service that the world needs – and having fun while we’re at it. It’s that simple.

So when this innovation hype finally stops, people will realise that innovation isn’t rocket science. It’s about solutions.

And in Denmark we have the world’s best and most unique innovation think-tank. So let’s move the debate on. Now. Want to talk about REAL innovation? Start discussing solutions.