Timeline
From Innovationclass
Contents |
Week 1
Jan. 15-
Jan. 17-
Week 2
Jan. 22-
Jan. 24-
Week 3
Jan. 29-
Jan. 31-
Week 4
Feb. 5 - Creativity is the basis for innovation; creativity of the mind, the environment and people. Our class will explore the extent to which organizational and individual innovation intermix. We found that behind innovation is fear; fear of idea failure and success. In discussion of our papers we concluded that while creating our organization we focused and shaped our companies in accordance to the factors we find essential. Most people shaped their organizations to adhere to a "common culture". This culture included the environment, community, relationships, and inclusion of both work and play in the office. These collectively are the key to maintaining innovation.
Feb. 5 - We began with a discussion of the difficulties of creating innovative organization. Students struggled with many issues: whether or not to read others' posts first, how to limit themselves, what choices to make, fear of group reactions, the difficulty of expressing themselves in printed words only, etc. Ultimately, deciding how to make and keep the organization innovative was the hardest part.
The class, also, discussed the factors that were most valuable/important to their organization. We covered those that focused on a few key points: a stimulating environment, a core value theme and the idea of a company culture. - Emily
Feb. 5 - Today's class focused on the writing process that everyone went through when creating their 25 person organization. We reflected on how to create an innovative culture based on the people, processes, technology, and environment. Determining which factors to focus on was one of the many challenges people had with the assignment. Other difficulties our class conveyed while creating an innovative organization were feasibility and fear. However, despite these challenges, most people were confident about shaping their organization around a common culture: a culture of execution. This common culture included maintaining play in the office environment, working collaboratively as a cohesive unit, and building strong relationships with people in the organization. The class concluded with the question: how do you know what yield innovation and what does not? And so, the journey continues. Do not forget to read the posted articles and see you Thursday.
-Marilyn
Feb. 5 - Tuesday's class was primarily a discussion of each of our innovative company write-ups. Slayden reminded us in the beginning of class to think about "factors" in our write-ups and the importance of different ones. The factor that was discussed the most in our innovative company write-ups was environment. This seems to be the most important issue to concentrate on when thinking about how to make a company innovative. Everything is sort of based on environment. We talked about how employees cannot be truly efficient with their work if they are not in an environment that they are comfortable in. We also discussed the importance of being able to have some fun time in the work environment and being able to have open spaces where employees can talk freely rather than being stuck in restrictive cubes. Although it might seem at first like employees are not getting things done, if they are allowed tohave some"free time" like this, then they can be more productive later on. Slayden also brought up the fact that some of us in the class may have been nanny's previously. Perhaps we saw how important the environment is when dealing with children that we thought this idea would be just the same when dealing with employees in the workplace. Just something interesting to think about. We also talked a bit about the structure of our innovative companies. We pondered the question of whether it is more innovative to have all of the employees report to one "boss"like figure or if it is better to have less of a structure in this way. Slayden commented on the fact that sometimes people respond really well to fear and that this might make them work harder and be more efficient because perhaps they might be afraid of getting fired or something similar.In general, we also talked about our feelings on doing work that is posted to the whole class. Some of us expressed that this makes us want to look at what other people are saying first before we write our own piece of work. It is really interesting how we all care in some way how other people perceive us and our work. - Maggie
Feb. 7- Innovation is a process of trial and error. We discussed the difference between principles and rules. Rules often times have a negative connotation associated with them. They are considered "must do's", that are somewhat restrictive and rigid, however have some flexibility. Principles are overarching guidelines that one chooses to follow. Principles have bending room and allow change. In our class we will develop principles...not rules!! The article on "The Most Innovative Companies" discussed the transition from traditional types of innovation to new age factors. Innovation is a hard goal to accomplish for experts; the beginners are the true cultivators of innovation.
Feb. 7 - Failure is good. We experienced this when rearranging the classroom. Despite our failure, we learned a valuable lesson: innovation does not happen over night. Rather, it involves a process of trial and error. Our discussion about arranging the room focused on our process which included our resources, limitations, and strategies. Additionally, Slyaden shared the innovative process of creating the Blurr lab which serves as further reinforcement of the value of trial and error. The class began to developed a manifesto for innovation which includes: principles not rules. Principles serve as a guide, while rules are more rigid and are restricting. Lastly, the class defined both factors and types of innovation that the class will begin to delve into with the second assignment as a guide.
Week 5
Feb. 12- How did we use space and why (When rearranging the room): We thought that almost everyone could see one another. Need to use our surroundings like white boards and screens. Also, we must think about what uses we are using the room for. How will we know when we have succeeded in making the room effective when arranging the seating? (Comfort, function, a place where your body and mind can work together)
Innovative Organizations – How does it become and remain innovative without causing chaos? We will soon find innovative people and document them, and we will then find how to get our own minds innovative.
Harvard Business Review –" Breakthrough Ideas for 2008" Assignment: Go to www.thelist.hbr.org and look at the breakthrough ideas. - Check out The Rise of the Creative Class talks about why we live the way that we do and where are we headed. Talks about how creativity is the fundamental source of economic growth. -Where does creativity occur in terms of geography? Midwest?? Probably not. -According to the book, the most creative place is San Francisco. They look at high tech, diversity, and innovation when deciding. The number two city is Austin. New York only made #9. Boulder is very innovative because of high tech it is. Denver makes the list at #13. -Check out Five Minds for the Future -John Seeley Brown; person to pay attention to -New things are often denounced/ridiculed. We like new ideas once they're old. -What did you discover with looking into the top 100 Innovative Companies? Did you look into a company and then change your mind? -Mission driven companies = good
Feb. 12 - We are moving in the right direction in regards to rearranging the room. We established that our arrangement allows face to face interaction; however, spatially, there are issues. In order to assess our improvement, it is necessary to establish a metric. The class must be aware of their purpose and the uses of the room in order to create a space in which the mind and body can work together. The Rise of the Creative Class and Five Minds for the Future were introduced, and the importance of how creativity works, where is is, and how it changes our world was discussed. The class concluded by talking about the brands they are researching.
Feb. 14 - Our third room arrangement proved to be the best and most functional because we took advantage of the context we are working in by incorporating the dry erase boards. Additionally, the class came up with names for their tables. Our discussion about the brands we chose continued and w established that innovation changes ow people live and the game we live in. Innovation creates a ripple effect and causes developments of new kinds in its context. Sears exemplified our new addition to the class manifesto: follow the idea not the leader. Its about a commit to innovation: in order to be innovative you must walk the walk and talk the talk, as well as deal with the pressures of the market.
Feb. 14 - We arranged the room today in a way where each team could use a part of the whiteboard. Also, its easier to work with things when easier to see them. Each group picked a team name. However, we couldn't agree if this was the most useful setup because we never got a chance to use the boards. We're going to try again on Thursday's class, and then make a decision.
There were some problems realized with the Yahoo group. There seem to be too many posts at one time, and a few people are having problems logging in. Therefore, we have decided to move onto starting the wiki. Jesse Munson became the 'wiki' master. On Tuesday, we're going to do a quick wiki tour to get everyone acclimated to the process.
We continued our discussion on the companies we chose from the top 100 list of innovative companies. We talked a little about TiVo and how we individually use it and realized it's a 'control thing' TiVo is about control of your time and basically a recombination of VHS/ hard drive. Vudu was introduced it's a hard drive. Similar to Netflix but don't have to wait for delivery. Vudu is about impulsesâ€"for example if you want to watch a movie right this second, you don't have to wait for the mail like Netflix, unlike OnDemand, you can save the movies, and unlike rentals, you can keep the movies forever if you buy them. This is an example of a distribution innovation.
We came up with one workable definition of innovation: 'a development that totally changes the game.'
We added another idea to the Manifesto: 'Follow the idea not the leader.'
Talked a little bit about the start and cultural impact of the Sears Catalog.
We talked about how a business model innovation has a lot to do with the company's culture.
One of the biggest problems of innovation is to finish or complete the project, much like trying to keep rearranging our classroom to fit our needs.
HW: Research IDEO over the weekend, ideo.com, and next week, we are going to build our own model of IDEO.
Week 6
Feb. 19-
Feb. 21-Today we continued to develop our culture of innovation. The discussion focused on methods that IDEO uses and how we can implement the same principles. 1) The encouragement of wild ideas: Wild ideas can lead to inspiration and fresh thinking. It is very beneficial to capture and writer everything down. 2) Defer judgment: Judgment is an innovation killer. If you fail early you succeed sooner. 3) Build on ideas of others: Great work is accomplished by hot teams. 4) Be visual: Utilize the white boards, photos, post-its etc. 5) Quantity: The best way to get good ideas is to get a lot of ideas. To conclude class we discussed the idea of mind (social) vs. brain (physiological). For HW we need to agree on 10 items of who we are in the manifesto.
Week 7
Feb. 26-
Feb. 28-
Week 8
Mar. 4-
Mar. 6-
Week 9
Mar. 11-
Mar. 13-
Week 10
Mar. 18-
Mar. 20-
Week 11
Mar. 25- SPRRRRIIIING
Mar. 27- BRREEEEEAK!
Week 12
Apr. 1-
Apr. 3-
Week 13
Apr. 8-
Apr. 10-
Week 14
Apr. 15-
Apr. 17-
