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Creativity and creative thinking posts
Recommended posts: Ackoff, Idealized Design and Bell Labs - TRIZ: Managing Creativity - How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers
Related: Innovation tagged posts - Books and articles on creativity - Six thinking hats (managed creative thinking)
Paul Graham has some excellent ideas. I have written about some of them previously: Innovation Strategy, What Business Can Learn from Open Source and Google and Paul Graham’s Latest Essay. Y Combinator, which he founded, provides seed funding. Here are some ideas they would like to fund:
Related: Our Policy is to Stick Our Heads in the Sand - Find Joy and Success in Business - Innovative Thinking from Clayton Christensen
Zipcar is an intriguing idea where you rent cars by the hour. The whole process is a significant change from the previous rental model (gas, parking and insurance included). Zipcar makes deals with local governments to secure zipcar parking near public transportation. They also have deals with universities, apartment buildings and businesses all of which provides a new level of easy customer access with cars available in many locations. The internet is used to schedule and provide up to date information. It is a great idea for those in cities where you can design your life so a car is rarely needed. But having access to a car in those times can be very convenient.
The images show zipcars available near the White House in Washington DC. The White House is in the middle of the bottom of the image (Lafayette Square is immediately north of the White House).
The rates are not cheap when you look at per hour costs. But when you look at replacing the need for a car the savings can be large (if you do not drive too much). And for those that doing without a car is not realistic zipcar can be used for any needs for a second car. It is still a pretty large change in mindset. To try and help people give the idea a try Zipcar is trying the Zipcar Low-Car Diet challenge.
During the month, we’ll ask that you check in and let us know how your diet’s going. You can send us emails, even video clips, to share your thoughts and stories. We’ll post excerpts on our website to help keep everyone motivated!
Related: Traffic Congestion Non-Solution - Airfare Innovation Example - Urban Planning - Deming on Innovation (more…)
In the webcast Dean Kamen discusses his latest innovation: robotic arms for people (amazing stuff). Once again he is doing great stuff. It is great what engineers can do (many worked together to get the progress so far) when given the opportunity. We need many more such efforts.
The research was funded by DARPA. DARPA, for those that don’t know, also made reading this blog possible. They funded the development of the internet. I was giving a talk, while I was working for the Office of Secretary of Defense Quality Management Office, on Using Quality to Develop an Internet Resource (back before blogs, but after the web, in 1999). I was trimming things as I spoke and cut the tidbit about DARPA and the internet because I figured everyone already knew that (and I had to trim as I was speaking). In discussions afterwards I found many didn’t know DARPA’s involvement.
Related: Better and Different - Water and Electricity for All - Google Innovation
Dean Kamen Lends a Hand, or Two (August 2007):
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| Training new employees and then paying them to quit, sounds pretty bizarre; Zappos is not afraid of doing things differently. Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit - And You Should Too:
Zappos sells shoes—lots of them—over the Internet. The company expects to generate sales of more than $1 billion this year, up from just $70 million five years ago…
Zappos has also mastered the art of telephone service - a black hole for most Internet retailers. Zappos publishes its 1-800 number on every single page of the site - and its smart and entertaining call-center employees are free to do whatever it takes to make you happy. There are no scripts, no time limits on calls, no robotic behavior, and plenty of legendary stories about Zappos and its customers. This is a company that’s bursting with personality, to the point where a huge number of its 1,600 employees are power users of Twitter so that their friends, colleagues, and customers know what they’re up to at any moment in time. But here’s what’s really interesting. It’s a hard job, answering phones and talking to customers for hours at a time. So when Zappos hires new employees, it provides a four-week training period that immerses them in the company’s strategy, culture, and obsession with customers. People get paid their full salary during this period. |
About 10% of employees take them up on the offer.
Do any of you readers want to convince Zappo’s to buy a couple airlines (Jet Blue and Southwest don’t seem to go where I need to go, too often) a cell phone company, an internet service provider and a credit card company? I could appreciate the good service in those areas 
If I were them I would start with the credit card company - I really don’t understand why someone doesn’t provide good service in that area - with the huge profits it provides and competitors that treat customers like rubes to be fleeced. Airlines you have to be crazy to buy (so don’t try to convince them of that one first).
My friend, Sean Stickle, went to work for custom ink a few months ago. I don’t think they offer to pay new employees to leave but they are devoted to customer service and to not just saying customer service is important but focusing attention on delivering it. They publish “Uncensored Customer Reviews” on their home page. There are some companies that really do value customer service even while most companies do everything they can to provide horrible service.
Related: Respect for People - Understanding Psychology - Starbucks: Respect for Workers and Health Care - Company Culture - Enhancing Passion in Employees - Respect for Workers - Mistreated Customers Let the World Wide Web Know
McDonald’s Branding Makes Food Tastier for Tots
The study had 63 children, aged 3 to 5 years old, tasting five pairs of identical foods and beverages — one in McDonald’s wrapping and the other in unbranded packaging. The researchers then asked them a simple question: “Which one tastes better?” An overwhelming number of the children said the food in the McDonald’s wrapping was tastier.
Oddly enough, this applied even to vegetables and milk. Sixty-one percent of the children in the study preferred the taste of carrots and 54 percent preferred the taste of milk if they were reminded by the packaging that it came from McDonald’s.
This is another reminder that tackling problems directly is not always the best strategy. The packaging doesn’t actually change the taste, but really it is not the taste that is likely a concern but rather the perception of taste. To me this is very similar to the studies on people preferring wine they are told costs more.
Ignore psychology at your peril: in marketing and in management. Deming’s management system include 4 interdependent areas: understanding variation, systems thinking, theory of knowledge and understanding psychology.
Effects of Fast Food Branding on Young Children’s Taste Preferences (I think this is the study referenced in the article though it was published in August 2007 - John).
Related: Indian researcher shows most people do judge a drink by its container - Marketing in a Lean Company - The Psychology of Too Much Choice - Be Careful What You Measure
In 2005 I posted about some of the problems with drug pricing. It is nice to find at least a couple of people at MIT that want to have MIT focus research on the public good instead of private profit. As I have mentioned too many universities now act like they are for-profit drug or research companies. That is wrong. Drug companies can do so, institutions with purported higher purposes should not be driven to place advancing science below profiting the institution.
The DDC also would serve as a mechanism for prioritizing drugs for development, noted Finkelstein. “It is a two-level program in which scientists and other experts would recommend to decision-makers which kinds of drugs to fund the most. This would insulate development decisions from the political winds,” he said.
I see their idea as one worth trying. Lets see how it works. Their book: Reasonable Rx - Solving the Drug Price Crisis by Stan Finkelstein and Peter Temin
Related: USA Spent $2.1 Trillion on Health Care in 2006 - Measuring the Health of Nations - Antibiotics Too Often Prescribed for Sinus Woes - $600 Million for Basic Biomedical Research - articles on improving the health care system
Why is 37signals so arrogant? by Don Norman
I don’t agree. Not compromising leads to solutions that are unlikely to be all things to all people. But with an intelligent and knowledgeable leader will lead to excellent solutions for those that share desires. Now I don’t think this is the best strategy, especially for growth. But it can be an excellent strategy for startup, innovators and those seeking 1,000 fans.
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Part of the deal is that if 37signals helps you pay, you have to share what you’ve learned with everyone. Not just everyone at 37signals, but everyone who reads our blog. So expect to see some blog posts about these experiences.
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We just ask people to be reasonable with their spending. If there’s a problem, we’ll let the person know. We’d rather trust people to make reasonable spending decisions than assume people will abuse the privilege by default.
Dr. Deming proposed supporting education of any type for employees (point 13 in the 14 points). That is not often done, but 37 signals is not alone in doing this. Great stuff. Create a great environment for people to work in and you can get great things done. Also good old PDSA at work - try things on a small scale and then institute those experiments that succeed on a wider scale.
Related: Google Experiments Quickly and Often - Vacation: Systems Thinking - Getting and Keeping Great Employees - Joy in Work - Complicating Simplicity - Workplace Management
Yahoo’s Severance Plans a Defense Against Microsoft?
The severance packages would extend regular compensation for a period of four months to two years, depending on the employee’s job level. Employees would also receive continued health benefits, financial assistance for finding a new job (up to $15,000) and accelerated vesting of stock options. The move comes as reports are circulating that Microsoft will go hostile in its acquisition bid, waging a proxy battle to replace Yahoo’s board rather than raise its offer.
Interesting. Yahoo is does seem to be losing staff so there is a business reason (even for those that don’t think the way I do about benefiting all stakeholders). It also seems to fit with respect for people to me. I actually am leaning toward thinking this is something lean/Deming companies should adopt to show that the company does not support treating employees as costs to be reduced. I could see those that see companies more like balance sheets than system would object to implementing a new idea that makes MBA style layoffs more difficult. I am fine with that. I’m sure Yahoo! is actually driven partially by the poison pill feature of such a plan (which isn’t the greatest place to start but I can live with that). I haven’t thought this through completely but I like it now.
Related: People are Our Most Important Asset - Getting and Keeping Great Employees - Hiring: Silicon Valley Style - Tilting at Ludicrous CEO Pay - Curious Cat Management Job Board
That kids get tired of many toys long before the toys are worn out is not a recent revelation Those frustrated by this waste surely number in the millions in the last few decades alone. Some attempts to reduce the waste exist: garage sales, goodwill, saving for younger siblings… but the waste remains frustratingly high. While I am sure some override the cultural bias against (at least in the USA) gifting used, perfectly serviceable, toys, that practice doesn’t seem to be acceptable to many parents doing the giving (I doubt most kids would care - at least until they absorb the throw away culture as their own). Netflix for the Toddler Set highlights an attempt to deal with this waste aided by technology.
Good, I hope it is successful. It does remind me a bit of something I saw online recently (a joke I assume) looking for something that was like Netflix but for books. Um, libraries have existed for quite a long time.
Related: New, Different, Better - Science Toys You Can Make With Your Kids - Classic Children’s Books - Capitol Kids (in Madison)
Six Principles for Making New Things by Paul Graham
Great advice. Similar to the evidence Clayton Christensen documents in the Innovators Solution on how to innovate successfully. New products and services often start out simple and limited and often are dismissed as unacceptable in various ways. But they solve a real problem and over time are improved and grow market share.
Experimenting quickly and often (iteration) is extremely important and given far to little focus. The PDSA improvement cycle provides a tool to encourage such thinking but still few organizations practice rapid iteration.
Related: Deming on Innovation - What Job Does Your Product Do? - Innovation at Google - Experiment and Learn - more posts related to Paul Graham
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Some people think business is only about making money. I agree with Dr. Deming that the purpose is much larger than that. Even if you take a view similar to mine though, it is not often companies intentionally help those that compete with them. But here is an example where Samuel Adams acts like a good neighbor:
So we looked at our own hops supplies at Boston Beer and decided we could share some of our hops with other craft brewers who are struggling to get hops this year. We’re offering 20,000 pounds at our cost to brewers who need them.
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We’re not looking to make money on this so we’re selling them at our cost of $5.72 a pound plus $.75 a pound to cover shipping and handling
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The purpose of doing this is to get some hops to the brewers who really need them. So if you don’t really need them, please don’t order them. And don’t order them just because we’re making them available at a price way below market. Order them because you need these hops to make your beer. We’re not asking questions, so let your conscience be your guide.
I can see a farmer helping out his neighbors in a similar way. But I don’t see companies acting this way often. I applaud Boston Beer’s action even as my cynical nature sees this as possibly more a marketing gimmick than just solely an effort to help. Still I applaud it. Too few organizations seem to have progressed beyond thinking that business is amoral. Actual good behavior is worthy of praise compared to what else goes on so often.
Related: Obscene CEO Pay - Open Source Management Terms - Tricking Customers With Sneaky Fees - Make the World Better - photo of Samuel Adams’ gravestone
Copilot is a cool application that lets you control someone else’s computer. So you can receive technical support remotely. You let someone access your computer and copilot takes care of the sometimes very complex task of linking the two computers up (getting through firewalls, etc.). You can use it to fix your parents computer after you move away… or you can can have your kid fix your computer for while you pay for part of their college… (I am not sure which description fits you). Copilot is now free on weekends by Joel Spolsky:
While he doesn’t mention it I am sure they figured out this is a great marketing tool also. If you try this product there is a good chance you will find it very helpful. Fogcreek Software is looking for a Summer interns in NYC. I have posted about Joel many times, including: Management Training Program - Joel Management - The IT Iceberg Secret - Seven Steps to Remarkable Customer Service
Related: Dangers of Extrinsic Motivation - engineering internships
Basically I just think this is cool. I could try and explain how it shows creativity and reducing waste… but really I just like it. From the designer:
The website should link to more designers homepage… It really is time for the linking ability of the web to be used more consistently. Far too often people discuss some person, book, center, term, report… and don’t take advantage of links to add value to the content presented (I don’t know if the designer, kechenyi camille, even has a web site but the failure to provide useful links is a very common waste) so that advice stands whether it is useful in this case or not.
Related: Simple Solutions That Work - Engineering Gadgets and Gifts - Nice Looking Toaster - Cheap Creativity
I like using Amazon, most of the time. But their decision to erect barriers for communication I find extremely annoying. Any time anything goes wrong you might as well be dealing with some organization in the middle of nowhere without phones, any internet connection or even physical mail. I ordered a printer from them a couple weeks ago. Today I get an email that “the following item from your order is not currently available for purchase. This item has been canceled from your order. If your credit card was charged, a refund has been processed.”
First, it is very lousy service to sell someone something and then figure out you don’t have it to sell a few weeks later. Second, if you find you have done such a lame thing - buy it from someone else and deliver it as promised. Third, don’t make it nearly impossible for the customer you just wronged to contact you. This is the equivalent of providing lousy service and then closing the door in someones face refusing to deal with your failure.
And if you really want your business to take those customer unfriendly actions: just sell stuff you don’t have, then tell people a couple weeks later you are not going to sell it to them after all and then tell them if you charged them (you can’t even bother to see if you did? pretty lame) then you will give them their money back it still makes sense to give them the chance to buy another printer from you instead of just closing the door.
Granted some people are going to decide they don’t want to deal with such bad service and chose to deal with a more customer focused company but some will actually still give you another chance - make it easy for them to buy another printer. For example write them instead of what I received something like: sorry for our bad service, and to show we really mean that (we are not just sending you meaningless drivel our consultant dreamed up to say we care when our actions say we don’t) we will discount a replacement printer you buy in the next two weeks by $50. Here are 5 similar printers. Follow the links to purchase one of these printers (or view many others on our site) and we will also express mail the printer selected at no additional cost.
The sad thing is that there are not many alternatives to Amazon that actually provide good service. Though Crutchfield is one - for electronics.
Related: Customer Hostility from Discover Card - Amazon Innovation - No More Lean Excuses - More Bad Customer Service Examples 
- 12 Stocks for 10 Years (yes including Amazon)
Another interesting experiment from Google: Using Prediction Markets to Track Information Flows: Evidence from Google
Interesting paper. I would guess most readers of this blog won’t be able to apply prediction markets to there workplace in the short term but never-the-less I find the paper interesting.
Related: Management is Prediction - Google Experiments Quickly and Often - Secrets of the World’s Best Companies
I am reading a fascinating book by Jessica Snyder Sachs: Good Germs, Bad Germs. From page 108:
This is a great example of a positive special cause. How would you identify this? First you would have to stratify the data. It also shows that sometimes looking at the who is important (the problem is just that we far too often look at who instead of the system so at times some get the idea that it is not ok to stratify data based on who - it is just be careful because we often do that when it is not the right approach and we can get fooled by random variation into thinking there is a cause - see the red bead experiment for an example); that it is possible to stratify the data by person to good effect.
The following 20 pages in the book are littered with very interesting details many of which tie to thinking systemically and the perils of optimizing part of the system (both when considering the system to be one person and also when viewing it as society).
I have recently taken to reading more and more about viruses, bacteria, cells, microbiology etc.: it is fascinating stuff.
Related: Science Books by topic - Data Can’t Lie - Understanding Data
Latest robot in Toyota’s line showcases violin skills
Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said robotics will be a core business for the company in coming years. He says Toyota will test out its robots at hospitals, Toyota-related facilities and other places starting next year. He hopes to see partner robots in use by 2010.
“We want to create robots that are useful for people in everyday life,” he told reporters at a Toyota showroom in Tokyo. Watanabe and other Toyota officials said robotics was a natural extension of the automaker’s use of robots in manufacturing, as well as the development of technology for autos related to artificial intelligence, such as sensors and pre-crash safety systems.
As I have mentioned before Toyota continues to invest and plan for the long term. And that future is not limited to automobile manufacture. We posted previously on Toyota’s partner robots. The Curious Cat Engineering Blog Robotics category has a great deal of posts on robots.
On the Toyota web site they list the following areas of non-automotive Toyota business (I don’t understand why robots are not included here): financial services, new business enterprises, marine and most surprisingly Biotechnology and Afforestation.
Related: Toyota as Homebuilder - Toyota Engineers a New Plant: the Living Kind - Toyota’s iUnit webcast (personal transport) - Toyota’s Early History - Interview with Toyota President - More on Non-Auto Toyota - 12 Stocks for 10 Years Update
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How Curiosity Empowers Toyota by Keith McFarland:
For more than 70 years, Toyota’s curiosity has allowed it to build, brick by brick, a commercial fortress. It has scanned the globe for the best ideas—from styling to manufacturing to quality management—and imbued those ideas with a power that often surprises even the people who came up with them in the first place.
Curiosity seems like just what a cat (or company) needs to grow and learn and improve
Related: Curious Cat management articles - posts on the Toyota Management System - lean manufacturing portal
I have mentioned Kiva before: Microfinancing Entrepreneurs (on our Curious Cat Economics and Investing blog). In addition to being a good cause Kiva really shows some great management strategies. The use of Information Technology to connect people directly is a wonderful example of using IT effectively (understanding psychology).
Kiva lets you loan money directly to an entrepreneur of your choice. Kiva provides loans through partners (operating in the countries) to the entrepreneurs. Those partners do charge the entrepreneurs interest (to fund the operations of the lending partner). Kiva pays the principle back to you but does not pay interest. And if the entrepreneur defaults then you do not get your capital paid back (in other words you lose the money you loaned). I plan to just recycle repaid loans to other entrepreneurs.
I have just placed an additional $150 in loans to 6 business entrepreneurs (in Honduras, Indonesia[2 loans], Tajikistan, Uganda and Ukraine), along with a $100 donation to Kiva (adding to my previous Kiva loans of $350). Since our last post the Oprah Winfrey Show, President Clinton’s newly released book Giving and others have sung the praises of Kiva and made it a challenge to find entrepreneurs of Kiva to lend to (Kiva is working on building their capacity - to keep up with the demand. That seems to have been partially fixed (for awhile the supply of the entrepreneurs was completely exhausted) in last few weeks (though still they limit you to no more than $25 per entrepreneur - in order to allow the large numbers of people that want to lend to at least have the chance to loan something).
If you lend through Kiva, add a comment with a link to your Kiva page and I will add you to our list of Curious Cat Kivans.
Related: Kiva: Microfinance Loans - helping people succeed economically - Thinking About the Future
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