the art of innovation thomas kelly

[...]... range of innovations, including one of nature’s clever designs, the tricuspid heart valve Three triangular patches of tissue open and close the valves of the heart Could a heart valve inspire a sports bottle? we wondered What if you sealed the top of the bottle with a rubber septum that opens like a heart valve? Asking that question led the team to design a simple self-sealing valve at the mouth of the. .. awkwardly turn the machine (while still trying to hit the right keys) to show the screen to the customer From these critical observations came the inspiration for NEC’s design of the Versa product line The floppy drive could be swapped out for another battery when the salesperson took to the road The salesperson could pull up a chart and deftly swivel the screen so the client could see In the end, the Versa... call The travel agent went around the room, grabbing phones and placing them in a circle on her desk One by one, she’d phone the people she wanted to talk to, putting them all on speakerphone so she could talk to them together Sally loved the versatility of the system she’d cobbled together If she needed to privately confer with one of the parties, she’d take him off the speakerphone and cup the handset... service used their carts as a base station and ran up and down the aisle "cartless" for better mobility They saw traffic jams where shoppers had to pick up the back of their carts to slide by other slow-moving or oncoming ones I interviewed a professional buyer who purchases carts for a large store chain, and discovered the trade-offs of steel versus plastic, as well as the surprisingly high cost of lost... push the cart sideways Push it forward again and the wheels would lock back in place With the cameras rolling, ABC’s Jack Smith wheeled the cart down the aisles at Whole Foods and earned plenty of gawking looks Clerks and managers loved the cart and even said that with a couple of modifications, they’d want one We took the afternoon off to celebrate and get ready to return to our regular clients The cart... medical instrument used on heart patients during balloon angioplasty The company sold an inflation device for the tiny balloon that the doctor inserts with a catheter through the femoral artery in a patient’s leg The balloon is guided up into the obstructed coronary artery and inflated, compressing the plaque and stretching the artery ACS told us that the new inflation device— like the existing one—had to... clients The cart was done, the show was aired, and we thought that was pretty much the end of it But the morning after the Nightline segment ran, our phones wouldn’t stop ringing I took dozens of calls from executives around the country who’d seen the show Most of them didn’t give a damn about shopping carts Instead, they wanted to know more about the process we used to bring the cart into being One CEO... they like, what they hate, where they have latent needs not addressed by current products and services (More about this step in chapter 3.) Visualize new-to -the- world concepts and the customers who will use them Some people think of this step as predicting the future, and it is probably the most brainstorming-intensive phase of the process Quite often, the visualization takes the form of a computer-based... heard tales of Jobs giving a block of stock to a draftsman, taking everyone to Star Wars in the middle of the day, quitting early for a volleyball game And yet, they got things done David didn’t exactly follow the rules himself There wasn’t room for a machine shop, so he got some two-by-fours and lots of corrugated fiberglass and covered up a central atrium The floor was the asphalt roof of the dress... "still a little too fuzzy." We encounter that a lot: the fuzzy problem versus the welldefined problem So Sean started with the basics, sending a team of people into offices to take photographs, watch, and ask questions If you ask them, most people will insist that they file in filing cabinets or on their computer (remember the promise of the paperless office?) But observe people at work, and you’ll find . Table of Contents Title Page Dedication Acknowledgments Foreword 1 - INNOVATION AT THE TOP 2 - WINGING IT IN START-UP MODE 3 - INNOVATION BEGINS WITH AN EYE 4 - THE PERFECT BRAINSTORM 5 - A COOL. GROUPS 6 - PROTOTYPING IS THE SHORTHAND OF INNOVATION 7 - BUILD YOUR GREENHOUSE 8 - EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED 9 - BARRIER JUMPING 10 - CREATING EXPERIENCES FOR FUN AND PROFIT 11 - ZERO TO SIXTY 12 - COLORING. 3.) Visualize new-to -the- world concepts and the customers who will use them. Some people think of this step as predicting the future, and it is probably the most brainstorming-intensive phase of the process.