Innovation in the Workplace

The two of us attended an evening presentation at Steelcase/OE presented by Richard Benoit (Advanced Solutions Group, Steelcase R&D) and José Colucci (Director Health & Wellness IDEO, Cambridge Office). Benoit and Colucci demonstrated how much these two organizations have a deep understanding of behavior and how that affects space planning and any user interface.

Benoit began with today’s trends and felt that everyone innovates or that they have to (they don’t have to). He dissected organizational cultures to help identify the difference in organizations—if you want to innovate or you need to help clients innovate.

Case examples:

• Qualcom: Everyone is responsible for innovation. New ideas are encouraged from everyone in the company. If your idea is picked, you become the “CEO” of that idea and project.
• Boeing: A silo culture (not a shared culture) where innovation came from a group or department. There was a chasm between the engineers and those making the engines (neither thought the other knew a thing about what they did). They moved the engineers to a mezzanine inside the manufacturing hanger.
• Nike & Apple: The pairing of the sensor in your shoe that allows you to store and sync your workouts and your tunes. Nike, the “do it” culture with premium gear, and Apple, who decided that we needed music on a device that took care of that gap and designed the iPod and founded iTunes.
• Mayo Clinic: Shared culture, clinic culture. Patient Care Experience.

Colucci’s presentation was a glimpse into the IDEO approach: human-centered design.
“People tell you what they think you want to hear.”
“People tell you what they think they do but they don’t.”
And more truisms about interviews and user meeting’s information.

Examples of how people at IDEO think:
Paul Bennett, IDEO – Dignity: “I am curious about understanding how to design more dignity into the work my colleagues and I do. We’re lucky in that IDEO looks for opportunities to explore domains and problems where this kind of human emotion is central—and in many cases, we can help amplify that. People need spaces left for trust, mechanisms for human expression, compassion, and honesty to shine, ways to inherently allow their better selves to come to the forefront, to be in the moment.” — “The Curiosity Chronicles” of Metropolis Magazine.

Wounded Warrior Home: The IDEO partnership with Michael Graves on homes better designed to meet the needs of returning soldiers (3 bedroom homes).

Why Social Innovators Need Design Thinking: This piece by Tim Brown has implication for our work.