To close this little "trilogy" about Design Driven Innovation (DDI), lets have a look at the values that are strongly associated with DDI(If you're not sure what DDI is, you can still have a look at the first and second "episodes"!).
There are 5 main values:
Value of the brand The meaning and language
of the product determines the user experience itself and also the coherence of the brand.
Competitive advantage Being first means being able to decide the rules
of the game which defines the criteria to which you are confronted.
Customer loyalty Increasing customer loyalty is mandatory. If you want to know your customers,
work well with them, and put design at the center of the interaction.
When the
product is strongly answering the markets needs or is communicating a clear brand
message, it is very hard for customers to look for substitutes or
even accept a competitor's product, and price don't matter as much anymore.
Knowledge Being first also means being able to learn first from the
reactions of the people who are hopefully interacting with the brand and be the
first to learn how to interpret the new products. Unusual networks
Last but not least, the ability to maintain a leading position in an uncodified
relationships network, whether in attracting the best talent or in making improvements through user-lead innovation.
To close the subject for now, you can check the challenges faced by Samsung in this video, it is not short but quite interesting
Creativity is not enough (check the previous post if you haven't already!), so here is the trick in this video about Artist driven innovation lab in Berlin:
Listen,
interpret and target are the actions we need to take in order to go from a network of relationships to the definition of innovation. For an innovator, this is listening to its users, interacting with them, encouraging
them and sponsoring them, but also giving them space and support. That is what leads to the ability to
entice and raise interest while discovering them.
Interpreting is the key. It's when we clearly shows that we have understood and learned from the performers, their knowledge, technologies and activities. It's a series of passages that
reflect precise and deep dynamic research rather than the speed of brainstorming.
In order to
prepare people to understand and accept the new, we need to
implement the third action: “target”. Once again we need
interpreters, their credibility and ability to convey a new vision,
to prepare the ground, to explain, anticipate and may be create: curiosity
In "not-service" industries, it does not matter if the product is made for the end
customer (B2C) or for a company (B2B), its success is determined by
the level of innovation that it introduces and this is the result of a perfect
blend of technology and meaning.
In order to do this, one of the most
innovative strategy is building the improvement phase on user led innovation with what is called DDI: Design Driven Innovation.
It certainly
does not hurt to be a creative company, but being only creative it is not a sufficient
condition.
It is
essential to build a network of relationships with non-encoded subjects that can
interpret the socio-cultural changes that occur in contexts where people live
(home, work, socializing) – potentially and positively connected with User Led
Innovation.
The ability
of these interpreters is to have a vision of how the future could be from the
best starting point, but also understand how people could give a new meaning to
things in new contexts. This is the key to successful innovation strategy based
on the design.
But who are
these interpreters, how to find them , how to recognize them? There are other
companies in other sectors that have the same problem, Technology providers are
looking for new ways to use their products: pure scientists , humanists,
artists and cultural organizations . The best way is developing three main
skills: listening, interpreting and directing.
There is a word in India called ‘Jugaad’.
It has been described in many ways – ‘Frugal innovation’, ‘resourcefulness’,
‘creative improvisation’, or as the Financial Times Lexicon put it :
Jugaad (a word taken from Hindi which
captures the meaning of finding a low-cost solution to any problem in an
intelligent way) is a new way to think constructively and differently about
innovation and strategy.
So how is jugaad related to user led
innovation? Because many, if not most, of the time it is the user that uses
‘jugaad’ to come up with a new idea, or to a solution to a problem, it is the
user that innovates to create something.
Research has shown that the jugaad spirit
is more alive in fast growing emerging economies like India, parts of Africa
and Latin America. It is believed that ‘jugaad’ is used more widely in these
countries as usually, jugaad is used to turn adversity, for example the lack of
natural and financial resources in India, into an opportunity for innovation.
They are usually bottom-up solutions.
Let’s focus on rural India – Here local
innovators have been developing ‘user led’ ideas for years. Rural Indians are
always innovating, and have always been innovating. Just looking at the agricultural
sector in India - farmers with low levels of formal education have transformed
or created new types of machines or new types or irrigation systems to suit
their needs. Young IT technicians have created mobile applications that relay
daily local market prices to farmers. Information sharing platforms for
agriculture, DIY manuals, SMS based agricultural services, satellite imagery
based weather predictions and crop responses, etc.
Mansukhbhai Jagani’s motorcycle-based
tractor is both cost effective — costing roughly $318, and fuel efficient — it
can plow an acre of land in 30 minutes with just two liters of fuel.
Other interesting innovations include the
pedal powered washing machine, the small scale eco friendly sanitary napkin machine,
rural fridges made from clay, mobile phone charging stations for areas with no
electricity, compost aerators, solar powered mosquito trap, smokeless stoves - list is endless.
That user led innovation and jugaad is
common practice in these areas is without doubt. The problem is that many of
these innovations happen at a very small scale, and often, are not caught by
regional and national radars. The challenge that lies ahead is for NGOs,
researchers and other institutions to be able to tap into this wealth of
innovations and to help to create awareness about these innovations – to scale
up and replicate to help more users benefit.
Grassroots innovation networks and
organisations such as the ‘the Honey Bee Network’, the Ashoka Foundation,
Centre for Science and Villages have been documenting such innovations, and
helping rural innovators develop their ideas and get credit for their
‘informal’ innovations. In 2013 the Government of India proposed to
initiate an ‘India Inclusive Innovation Fund’ by National Innovation Council
with a fund base of Rs.5,000 crore. This is a step in the right direction, and
will help create an ecosystem where such innovations will be sustainable and
scalable, an ecosystem where such rural innovators will thrive. Read more about Jugaad Innovation here:
Crowdsourcing is being used to help companies develop their products of tomorrow and make more money, but is there also something more than making money that it can help with? Of course the answer is yes! One of the biggest projects of crowd sourcing is being used right now on satellite images over the Indian Ocean to help authorities search for the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. Crowdsourcing website Tomnod, is using map imagery from US-based satellite imagery provider DigitalGlobe, and allowing its users to comb over thousands of square miles of ocean in search of any clues as to where MH370 went down. More than 2,000,000 people have already tagged features in the imagery provided in search of the wreckage.
When tragedy strikes, many people want to help but are unable to go and have boots on the ground in the location, but with crowdsourcing sites like Tomnod, it allows people from all over the world to join together to help. The search is still on going but it surely is going faster with the help of crowdsourcing and with the people out there that are willing to lend a helping hand. While tragedy is a good cause to bring people together to help out, so is history. Another interesting story of crowdsourcing for non-profit comes from an article I found from Fox News. UK mobilizes crowdsourcing army to analyze massive archive of World War I info
Historians in England are releasing war journals from WWI to the public to get help sorting through them and taking out the pertinent information about the daily lives of soldiers and how different decisions that were made affected things during the war. Crowdsourced volunteers are also asked to research weather patterns during the period of their specified journal entries to see how that may have affected soldiers as well.
Crowdsourcing is proving to be a very useful tool to help in innovation and now in ways to volunteer. It is allowing people that normally wouldn't have the chance to help with social projects for the betterment of the world.
As for the term financial crowd funding, we understand the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. The following video explains the process:
The initiative could be a nonprofit campaign, a
political campaign or a financing campaign for a start-up company. There are
numerous crowdfunding platforms where consumers ask for or donate money, such
as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, RocketHub and RockThePost to name just a few. The primary idea of “its not about what you do, but why you
do it,” is critical in the concept of crowdfunding. By focusing on a bigger
purpose, project creators will be able to create a unique community of
likeminded individuals. Proponents of the crowdfunding approach argue that it allows
for good ideas, which do not typically fit the pattern required by conventional
financiers to break through and attract cash through the wisdom of the
crowd.
Each
campaign is set for a goal amount of money and a fixed number of days. Once the
project is launched, each day will be counted down and the money raised will be
tallied up for visitors to follow its success. If the project doesn’t reach the
target, the money has to be given back to its sponsors, which can be a
difficult and costly process. That's the conflict at the heart of many
crowdfunding platforms: while the company policy says creators have to give
refunds on failed projects, the website doesn't have a mechanism to do it.
Furthermore,
there is a misconception that creating a successful crowdfunding campaign is as
simple as hitting submit and waiting for it to go viral. While this has
happened to projects, the vast majority of projects will require a decent
amount of effort on the part of the project creator. Utilizing social media,
creating email distribution lists before the project launches, contacting local
media, are all necessary steps to take if you are serious about your
goal. Another common misconception is that crowdfunding is just useful for
small businesses and startups. While it creates a funding opportunity that
certain smaller businesses may not have received in the traditional way, it
also is a great outlet for established companies.
The primary
reasons can be identified on why people - unconnected to a project or business -
are willing to support it:
They connect to the greater purpose of the campaign
They connect to a physical aspect of the campaign like the
rewards
They connect to the creative display of the campaign’s
presentation
Crowdfunding
also comes with a number of potential risks or barriers. An impact on the
reputation can come up by failure to meet campaign goals. Or reaching financial
goals and successfully gathering substantial public support but being unable to
deliver on a project for some reason can negatively impact the reputation. IP
protection: many Interactive Digital Media developers and content producers are
reluctant to publicly announce the details of a project before production due
to concerns about idea theft and protecting their IP from plagiarism. And also the
concern among supporters, that without a regulatory framework, the likelihood
of a scam of abuse of funds is high. The concern may become a barrier to public
engagement.
Recently,
as witnessed by one of the biggest successes and at the same time failures in
the history of financial crowdfunding - The
British software company Canonical attempted to raise a record $32m (£20.5m)
through crowdfunding to build top-end smartphones that run with the
Canonical Ubuntu system and Google’s Android system. At the closing day it has
raised an unprecedented $12m, but because it failed to hit its target it had to
return all the money.
In sum,
crowdfunding is a great opportunity for businesses and entrepreneurs. But anyone
who considers using this innovation has to be aware of the upcoming challenges
and know in detail about risks and misconceptions of this concept. If the
evaluation is done properly and the project is convincing, crowdsourcing is one
of the most promising funding sources of the future.
