Art of Innovation 15. Getting In the Swing

Chapter Takeaways

• The End.
  

Decision Time
Let your most feared deadline be your motivation.

Give and Take
Give your ideas early for feedback.

Hitting the Practice Range

• Watch your (potential) customers.
• Play with your workplace to send positive "body language" to employees and visitors.
• Think verbs, not nouns.
• Break rules and "fail forward".
• Stay human by scaling your organization.
• Build bridges within the company, out to the customers and ultimately to the future.
  

Art of Innovation 14. Live the Future

Chapter Takeaways

• The future is uncertain.
• Take the time to imagine what it could be like in order to help innovate today.
  

The future has already arrived, it's just not widely distributed.
- William Gibson

Toy With the Future
Visit toy stores and explore other industries for ideas.

Empowerment Products
Advances that give people feelings of empowerment without taking away the experience will be huge, particularly as the population ages.
Visit the relevant industry hot spots, where the buzz is.

Make Concept Cars
Building concept products frees the designer from common constraints. Sometimes concept projects can lead directly to an innovation, but that shouldn't be your primary goal.

Make Movie Trailers
Companies that can forecast little futures in shorts or trailers will have a great edge. This forces them to find their unique selling proposition.

Read All About It
Read science fiction for a fun way to get a sense of the distance future.

Project 2010
A look into the future at Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_10/designtoc.htm

Art of Innovation 13. In Search of the "Wet Nap" Interface

Chapter Takeaways

• Simplicity rules.
  
• Anticipate version 2.0, the first version is just to get it out there.
  

Fighting Feature Creep
The Wet Nap interface refers to products that can be used as simply as a moist towelette - tear open and use.

Give Simple Directions
Provide fewer options and people will be more likely to choose the right one.

Simple as a Frisbee
You're got to get to market and gain market share, then work on Version 2.0 to make it better.

Hands On
Envision yourself with the product. Use a prototype of just a block. What would it be like using it in a particular context?

Letting Go
Sometimes a new product will challenge your partners as well as your customers.

How to Create Great Products and Services

1. Make a great entrance: users should feel welcome.
   
2. Make metaphors: focus on the customers' true needs rather than engineering requirements.
3. Think briefcase: make your customers want to bring your product with them.
4. Color inspires: colors works best when it's early in design. Let it be part of your product persona.
5. Backstage pass: waiting is easier when your customer knows what's behind the scenes.
6. One click is better than two: make your product work faster and easier. User default modes.
7. Goof-proof: allow error recovery.
8. First, do no harm: avoid causing discomfort.
9. Checklist: make a checklist of the essentials and make sure to cover them.
10. Great extras: people respond to the right small touches.
    

Art of Innovation 12. Coloring Outside the Lines

Chapter Takeaways:

• Failure is a necessary step to success.
• Strive to innovate in small and large companies alike, although the latter is harder.
• Find a balance between being different and being reasonable.
  

Fail Your Way to Success
"Fail often to succeed sooner"

Grown Men Afraid of Little Mouse
Bigger companies often have bigger penalties for risk taking.

Making New Rides
Look for long-term potential in new trends.

Spirited Skies
Even the most established industries can find room to innovate and differentiate themselves.

Being Big and Acting Small
P&G, Gillette and others have demonstrated their capability to successfully innovate despite their size.

Breaking Work
Changing the way you work can in itself be the innovation.

Linux Breaking the Rules
Linus Torvalds went against the convention that software was intellectual property and started the open software movement.

Give and Receive
Web has tons of smaller versions of the open source method - email, auction, greetings cards etc.

Coloring Outside the Lines
Create unconventional products with unconventional tools, the trick is to never fall in love with the tool.

Not Too Far Out
Influence the organization and allow yourself to be influenced by it.
"Go ahead and color outside the lines, but try your best to stay on the same page."

Art of Innovation 11. Zero to Sixty

Speed counts. Example - product making it to market before the holiday season.

Engage your team in fun competition.

Always test your ideas.

Art of Innovation 10. Creating Experiences for Fun and Profit

Chapter Takeaways

• Think of an entire experience, not just a single product.
• User retailers, who have been doing this for ages, as an example.
  

Going Off-Broadway
Think about experiences, not just products.

Make Experiences Entertaining
Learn from retailers who have been focusing on entertaining experiences already.

Learning from Vegas
Stay away from trapping your customers, like cattle.

Make the Human Connection
Turn even the most mundane into an event.

Tell a Story
Create an experience out of telling a story - how did you get here? where are your products from?

Fix It
Look for broken experiences and fix them.

Save a Life, Take a Journey
"Make simple things simple and complex things possible."

Little Experiences Count