Innovation through Design Thinking

The speech given by Tim Brown covered the theory of innovation through design thinking. A large part of his theory surrounded the fact that customers have to be happy with the experience, with the products and services that come together; to not fully focus on the end product. Design is the fabric of our lives and has a huge impact on our desires, wants and needs.  As Timothy Brown discussed, design "can be used to tackle a whole range of creative and business issues".  By doing this you gain a strong competitive advantage over others in your industry. You set yourself apart from others and you make your company stronger. By using knowledge management you not only support yourself but you create an area where "Design Thinkers" can come and create new innovative ideas. Design Thinking is made up of basic three entities: People (desirable), Business (viable) and Technology (feasible).  Designers create things that they believe the world needs.  They try and look from people's points of views and have empathy towards those experiences.  Brown shows the overlapping of the three in which there are some interesting attributes that develop.  The overlapping of Business and People gives the designer the ability to create Emotional Innovation used in marketing and branding.  The overlapping of Technology and People gives the ability to have Industrial Innovation.  Lastly, the intersection of Technology and Business gives the ability of Process Innovation.  Inspiration, ideation and implementation are three phases that Brown discussed as being part of the innovation process. 

Democratizing Innovation

Eric von Hippel offers multiple examples where an ordinary user solves a problem through innovation instead of relying on a manufacturer to produce a solution. His research found innovative users creating improvements to mountain bikes, library IT systems, agricultural irrigation, and scientific instruments. Often it is the person  that uses the product everyday that is best able to offer criticism and tips on how to improve the product. With these common issues user communities arise, freely communicate with each other, advance ideas and sometimes even “drive the manufacturer out of product design.” The knowledge base that is created by the users helps to improve and create a product that is most likely superior to anything a single manufacturer could produce itself. This widely distributed inventing practice is a good trend because users tend to make things that are functionally novel. Not only is it “freeing for individuals” but it also creates a large knowledge base. Below is a brief outline of the speech given in the video.

Democratizing Innovation

I. Users innovate for themselves

            A. Turns innovation economics on its head

            B. go behind the scenes

II. 80% of innovations came from users instead of manufacturers

            A. Mt St. Helens dust in police cars

            B. center-pivot irrigation

III. User vs Manufacturer Innovation

            A. developer expects to benefit by using it

            C. when the developer expects to benefit by selling it

IV. Necessity is the mother of invention

V. Lead Users

            A. have needs to that foreshadow general demand

            B. expect to obtain high benefit

VI. Lego Mindstorms

            A. hackers

            B. sales rise

VII. Users often freely reveal their innovations

            A. kite surfing example

            B. Community design better than engineers

VIII Users aren't smart enough / Skateboard

IX. Video / Lords of Dogtown

Thriving in the Era of Rabid Collaboration

The majority of this speech addressed the issue of using collaboration to advance efficiency at the higher education level. From the knowledge point of view, the message that was conveyed was that Universities have a great advantage with their networking capabilities to develop and maintain new operation applications run through collaborative open source methods. Dr. Wheeler spoke about the opportunities and challenges that cloud computing and collaborative solutions development present for higher education. Below is a rough outline of Brad Wheeler's speech that I produced as I was watching the video:

Thriving in the Era of Rabid Collaboration

I. Fast digital networks

            A. high performance networking

            B. battle with commercial carriers

II. Networks enable collaboration

            A. Research networks at universities

            B. Different activities than your rivals, strategy

            C. Can higher Ed have competitive advantage

III. Collaboration as a strategy for higher ed

            A. An unnatural act

            B. Collaboration and cooperation is different

            C. Co-Laboring

                        faculty, institutions, slope of retreat, value

            D. The new normal

IV. Meta University Idea

            A. physical experience at the campus becomes more valuable over time

            B. The free shared stuff ( The Cloud)

V. Collaboration starts at home

VI. Trust is the key to IT

            A. At the Edge

            B. With Leverage

VII. IT Governance

            A. Accountability framework

            B. Matrix example

VIII. Above Campus Services

Neural Network Example

              A neural network is a software simulation of a biological brain. These networks are sometimes called Artificial Neural Network or "ANN". The purpose of a neural network is to learn to recognize patterns in data. Once the neural network has been trained on samples of the data, it can make predictions by detecting similar patterns in future data. A Neural network can be considered as a black box that is able to predict an output pattern when it recognizes a given input pattern. The neural network must first be "trained" by having it process a large number of input patterns and showing it what output resulted from each input pattern. Once trained, the neural network is able to recognize similarities when presented with a new input pattern, resulting in a predicted output pattern.
              An example of the use of a neural network in the finance industry could be in reference to the determination of giving out a bank loan. Imagine a highly experienced bank manager who must decide which customers will qualify for a loan. His decision is based on a completed application form that contains ten questions. Each question is answered by a number from 1 to 5 (some responses may be subjective in nature). The problem is that most real-life problems are non-linear in nature. Our ten question application has almost 10 million possible responses. The bank manager's brain contains a Neural Network that allows him to use "Intuition". Intuition will allow the bank manager to recognize certain similarities and patterns that his brain has become attuned to. He may never have seen this exact pattern before, but his intuition can detect similarities, as well as dealing with the non-linearities. If we had a large number of loan applications as input, along with the manager's decision as output, a neural network could be "trained" on these patterns. The inner workings of the neural network have enough mathematical sophistication to reasonably simulate the expert's intuition. This way a neural network application can go over loan applications faster and more efficiently.

Creating Inspired Collective Intelligence

The main goal of this video was to talk about how a company can move from producing work that is just "good enough" to "truly inspired." The term used to describe how companies separate themselves this way is called the margin of difference. The majority of the video discussed the five keys to establishing the margin of difference. The five steps include Social Networks, Social Capital, Conversations, Engagement Process , and Individual Thinking. Social networks and social capitol really fall into the same category. These topics are considered the "life blood" of your company. Establishing relationships and keeping a line of communication open with both employees and other companies is a great way of trading ideas and gaining insight and experience. Conversations and the engagement process covers how employees get ideas conveyed to one another and the type of activities that accomplish this. Individual thinking is the root of all the ideas and work that a company produces. Employees should be focused on their work, producing new ideas that may be improve efficiency and help open a totally new income stream. This video provided a step by step process for how to help improve a company to produce work that is inspired instead of what would be considered only good enough.

Collective Intelligence MIT Video

This video contained both brief speeches and a panel discussion about the topics of collaboration and collective intelligence. The persons speaking included a cultural anthropologist who studies media usage of young people in America and Japan, a worker at Linden Lab, known for it's creation of an online 3D virtual reality collaboration tool called "2nd Life," and a professor at the University of New York at Buffalo and creator of the Institute of Distributed Creativity. The overall discussion evolved around defining collective intelligence as being a group of people forming together to make decisions.


The one point that caught my attention the most was the "amateur expert collision" that was brought up by Cory Ondrejka. This is the idea that because of the massive advancement in technology like the internet, people that were once considered "amateurs" are now starting to populating the same arenas where professionals once dominated. The point was made that amateur doesn't mean incompetent, it means un-credentialed. The professionals in the world have things like degrees, certificates, and lingo that help create a barrier between them and the amateurs. The advancement and availability of information technology has allowed these amateurs to gain professional insights and are closer to comparing their knowledge with professionals. This portion of the discussion was the most interesting. 

Zappos Video

Well, first let me address what I saw in the video. The speech given by Tony Hsieh was organized well and covered the topic of being "happy" and creating a positive culture at work. By creating this positive work environment, the employees will perform their jobs better, which will improve customer service, which will improve sales etc. Hsieh provides examples, mainly through his company Zappos, as to the benefits and success of operating a company this way. This video falls right in line with the overall topic that we've been discussing in class. Just like in the Nucor Steel example, this idea of creating a positive culture at work will help the company become more efficient and profitable. Hsieh's sites studies and books that he's read that discuss this "struggle " to find happiness. He ends his presentation by saying that his overall goal with his company Zappos is to bring happiness to the world......

Ok, so that's what I saw in the video, but again being the pessimist that I am, I'm not "drinking the cool-aid." First let me say that I don't want to argue that this business plan is dumb because its obviously working for Zappos. Since I don't consider myself a business minded person, I don't fully understand how the company can offer some of the deals they do. Like the free shipping both ways, the free books, the shuttle rides. My only guess is that they some how make up for these costs by raising their product prices...? Anyways, it is my feeling that Zappos is not successful because of their company culture. With everything that was presented in the video, the only thing that I saw going for Zappos was their great customer service / free shipping. Its these points that would make a consumer use Zappos over some other internet provider. Are they trying to separate themselves from competitors like Amazon with the argument...... Our company has a better culture...? From a customer standpoint I could care less about the company's culture. Does the company have the product I want? Is it priced fairly? Can the product be shipped to me quickly? These are the questions that I am concerned with. While having a positive work environment wouldn't hurt, I don't think it solely produces company profits. I think that Knowledge Management is far more important to a company's success than theories about happiness. Perhaps, I am not seeing the situation right and maybe this "culture" idea is part of the knowledge management process. In the end, I guess Tony Hsieh gets the last laugh since his company is very successful using this business plan.