// ROAD TRIP
TO
INNO
VATION
HOW I CAME TO UNDERSTAND FUTURE THINKING
Delia Dumitrescu
POWERED BY TRENDONE
Road Trip to Innovation – How I came to
understand Future Thinking is an investigative
tale about a friendly and curious mind that
sets-off on a road trip to find out what innovation is truly made of. Highlighting expert
interviews and companies that are heralded for
their know-how in the fields of future studies,
innovation and trend research, the book offers
an introduction to the theory and methodology
behind these complicated notions in easy and
refreshing language.
What is innovation?
ALL ON BOARD?
The future thinking mindset
Trends
The Diffusion Theory
08
the basics
Weak Signals
WHERE DO IDEAS COME FROM?
Microtrends
Macrotrends
Megatrends
Consumer Insights
Trend Consulting
GOT THE TRENDS. WHAT NOW?
Future Illustration
The Innovation Cockpit
Scenarios & Wild Cards
Design Thinking
HOW TO BUILD STRATEGIC FUTURES?
Stepping into strategic stuff
Forecasting
Strategic Foresight
Strategic Planning
34
scanning
98
ideation
178
transformation
A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF INNOVATION? Watch Think Interpret Act
LaFutura
The Innovation Alliance
A new nature of innovation
ROAD TRIP PROPS
The Trend and Future Dictionary
Acknowledgements
Sources
Index
About the author & TrendONE
222
the
f u t u r e n av i g at o r
246
f i n a l ly
4
// WHAT CAN THIS BOOK DO?
Road Trip to Innovation – How I came to understand Future Thinking is a book
about understanding ways of approaching and building innovation. The
road trip itself is part of the narrative of the book as I travel from city to
city, interviewing people in order to find out, together with you dear reader,
the following: what does innovation encompass, how to spot trends, how
to use trends for creating innovative products, services and strategies, how
companies approach innovation in terms of method (e.g.: design thinking,
trend consulting) and how are trends transformed in a strategic asset inside
companies (e.g.: strategic foresight, strategic planning, forecasting).
The book will offer an introduction into the field of future studies and targets
to raise awareness of the innovation and trend research industry. It will explain
complicated notions in easy language and with a friendly approach. Road Trip
to Innovation – How I came to understand Future Thinking also has educational
purposes for students and trainees; it offers a holistic view on methods and
tools for building innovation to young managers setting up innovation strategy
in their companies and furthermore, it is a good introduction to the trends and
innovations industry for anybody who is interested in the topic.
My findings are based on literature review and data drawn from interviews and
case studies of companies in Europe and the United States. The interviews were
conducted with companies that encompass a broad spectrum of approaches and
with people of varied backgrounds, as I believe in the power of poly-social groups.
Why all these companies and why these people? There is no financial reason.
They were either found by natural research (a.k.a. appeared first in the
Google search engine) or recommended by Nils Müller, as he is the engine
behind this book, mentoring me and connecting me with people from the
industry. There is no advertising reason; they are just some examples out of
several interesting companies that are out there.
5
No.01
creative
idea
The Future Navigator that stands for all the contents of this book with
methods, tools and applications of the innovation process was created and
inserted in this book at the end. It started as a plain piece of paper with
two arrows that cross each other. It was gradually filled with the approaches
presented in this book in order to start a conversation regarding their
meaning and purpose. It can be looked at as a chess table. Anybody who has
additional information and strong motivations can modify it.
Road Trip to Innovation – How I came to understand Future Thinking is the
fruit of my thinking on all the aforementioned subjects: It is based on the
literature that I’ve read and the fascinating and intelligent people that I’ve
spoken with. As we are all different, special and unique persons, anyone
could write this book in their own way and interpret things according to
their own dimensions. This is a first published wave from the sea of opinions.
No.02
innovation
No.03
No.04
roadtrip to innovation
all on board?
The Basics
What is innovation? 12
The future thinking mindset 16
Trends 22
The Diffusion Theory 29
Tensta Konsthall by frontdesign.se
the basics
// WHAT IS INNOVATION?
[ĭn’ -vā’sh n]
1 the introduction of something new;
2 a n e w i d e a , m e t h o d , o r d e v i c e : n ov e lt y.
e
e
12
Innovation is a change; it is “new stuff that is made useful” as Max McKeon
writes in his book The Truth About Innovation. Therefore, the innovation
process, in this book, refers to the journey one has to make in order to obtain
a new, cool, innovative idea and how to manage it. In a nutshell, it is about
how to get the idea and what you can do with it to make it valuable.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
report on the New Nature of Innovation states that a new nature of innovation
is emerging. How? “Innovation is no longer mainly about science and
technology. Firms can innovate in other ways. Co-creation, user involvement,
environmental and societal challenges increasingly drive innovation today.
Collaborative, global networking and new public private partnerships are
becoming crucial elements in companies’ innovation process.”
In the early 1990s innovation equaled product development; this approach
was actually much too narrow. But the modern approach is also problematic
because the plasticity of this term turned the meaning of innovation into
a catch phrase.
Nowadays, everything that is providing value for a company is being
referred to as an innovation. For some companies it may be as simple as
gathering around for a pizza on a Friday night at the office in order to create
a better organizational climate thus internally providing a better basis for
innovation and creativity. As for others, it cannot be called innovation until
the brilliant idea that provides value is marketed – like creating an app that
tells you the ingredients of the pizza just by scanning the barcode of the box.
So, it all depends on how deep you go into the term of innovation, if just
about anything can be interpreted as an innovation. But it shouldn’t be this
way. In my opinion, the prior example dilutes its powers.
the basics
THE FIRST AIRPLANE
These days it seems that innovation as a noun has been thrown into so many
contexts that it has become hype. This makes it difficult for its meaning
to be securely locked in a box. For this reason, it becomes subjective and
highly interpretative. The good thing is the popularity of the word can
only do well to the world. Innovation turns out to be the source and, in the
same time, the target for more and more strategies. Martin Kruse, futurist
at the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies (CIFS), states that “research
into innovation offers insights that can benefit everyone working with
organizational development, management, finance or product development.”
Defining what innovation means was giving me a hard time. Every answer
I got was competing in being more poetic than the one before. Here is one
particularly poetic definition coming from the Future Driven Innovation
paper from CIFS: “Shakespeare calls Man the ‘paragon of animals’, the
greatest work in the history of evolution. This is because we have a brain
with 100 billion cells and so the ability to change the world around us to
give ourselves a better chance of survival. We develop ourselves through
creative production, a process that, since the dawn of financial markets, has
been known as innovation.”
From the same source, here comes the practical definition: “Innovation has
historically been regarded as inventing a new product, producing it and putting it
on the market. It is the result of a creative process with emphasis on value creation.
Today, innovation can happen anywhere in the company. The value created can
be internal, as is the case with human resources, or directed out to the customer as
a product on the shelf. The point is that value is created and reaches the customer
in some way.”
What is important to understand from the start is that there is a difference
between innovation and having a creative idea. Both processes can be
innovative in their own way but we shouldn’t confuse them. Kruse told me a little
story that helps to keep in mind the difference between the two processes.
13
14
the basics
The first airplane was actually visualized by Leonardo da Vinci in the 1480s.
That was just a creative idea. The idea became an invention when the Wright
brothers made a plane out of it, which lifted from the ground in 1903. But
the airplane, at that point, was still not an innovation because it was not yet
marketed.
Twenty-one years later, Continental Dusters (which subsequently became part of
Delta Airlines) gave the airplane its first commercial use, dusting crops. This is the
point in history when the airplane became an innovation.
Similar points of view to Kruse’s are those of Richard Florida and Martin Kenney,
in their book from 1990, The Breakthrough Illusion: Corporate America’s failure to
move from innovation to mass production, consider invention as a breakthrough and
innovation as an actualization.
ea
d
i
e
v
i
rc eat
≠
innovation
the basics
// THE DIFFUSION THEORY
innovation
innovation
innovation
in n o va tio n
innovation
Diffusion is very well linked with the tipping point theory. You’ll see why.
Academics call the process by which new ideas or products are accepted by
groups of people, The Diffusion of Innovation. The term is coined in 1962
by Everett Rogers, professor at University of Mexico. He set up five steps
of the diffusion process and he also tried to build some criteria by which
innovations spread out faster. He explores how the social environment
influences the way a new innovation spreads. This is what it looks like:
i n novators
early followers
early majority
late majority
laggards
diffus
ion th
eory
29
36
scanning
WEAK SIGNALS
Elina Hiltunen
Weak Signals
are signals
of emerging
issues.
HOW TO BOIL A FROG
If you drop a frog into a kettle of boiling water it will definitely try to escape.
The reason being the temperature difference is too extreme (20°-100°). However,
if you put a frog in a kettle of water at room temperature and then start to
slowly warm the water, the frog will hardly even notice when the water starts
to boil.
The moral of this story: we easily adapt to changes; we may not even
notice them if they happen gradually. With this funny and insightful tale
I began my morning discussion with Elina Hiltunen in Helsinki.
Elina Hiltunen, founder of What’s Next Consulting, carried out her doctoral
thesis about using weak signals in organisational environment and has been
interested in this subject since 1998. She is now Finland’s leading expert on
weak signals and focuses on issues like anticipating and innovating future
changes by utilising them. Through weak signals (the first bubbles in the
water as it heats) one can foresee changes.
While talking to Hiltunen, I started to understand what this weak signal
thing is all about and how they are useful futures tools for companies. Elina
offers companies methods, education and inspiring lectures about weak
signals, which she briefly defines as signals of emerging issues. In practice,
she explains, “they can be news stories or observations about technological
and social innovations, posts in the social media, observations of novelty
products in exhibitions, or simply a modest wall-sticker of an alternative
movement”.
Igor Ansoff, a Russian American applied mathematician and business
manager who is known as the father of strategic management, coined the
term ‘weak signals’ in 1975 and, according to him, it is “the early detection
of those signals that could lead to strategic surprises and to an event that has
the potential to jeopardize an organization’s strategy”.
On a more proactive note, weak signals mean that today’s information
can foretell the changes in the future. Nik Baerten, future explorer at
Pantopicon, a studio of future explorers based in Belgium, expounds on the
subject on their blog: “Change often starts with a ripple before it turns into
online
information
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most often used in
weak signal
most often used in predicting
predicting new trends
new trends in technological
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248
the trend & future dictionary
THE TREND&FUTURE
DICTIONARY
A collection of definitions picked up from interviews, articles, books
and blogs discovered and used during the road trip.
WEAK SIGNALS
News stories or observations
about technological and social
innovations, posts in the social
media, observations of novelty
products, or simply a modest wallsticker of an alternative movement.
Weak signals are current oddities,
strange issues that are thought to
be in key position in anticipating
future changes in organizational
environments. / E. Hiltunen
e.g. H&M starts selling vintage clothes.
MEGATRENDS
Last decades, affect many different
aspects of society, and involve
a complex process that often
includes politics, economy and
technology.
e.g. Sustainability
dnertag
e
m
TREND
The general direction in which
something tends to move.
MACROTRENDS
Pattern-based
understanding
of past and present, help to
determine the likelihood of
future events. Their life span is
five to ten years.
e.g. Fair Trade
macrotrend
microtrend
MICROTRENDS
Concrete examples of marketed
inovations: technologies, products,
start-ups etc.
Life span of 1-2 years until they
develop into a stronger trend or
disappear completely.
A microtrend is something new,
intelligent, mass-market ready and
structure changing.
e.g. Ben&Jerry‘s fair tweets: Ben & Jerry‘s
and Twitter use every unused character by
automatically adding a message linked to
the tweet. The aim is promoting fair trade.
the trend & future dictionary
CONSUMER INSIGHTS
A fresh and not-yet obvious
understanding of customer beliefs,
values, habits, desires, motives,
emotions or needs that can
become the basis for a competitive
advantage. / M. Sawhney.
Insight is about what’s happening
in the space between the consumer
and the product, his key motives,
drivers and barriers.
Spotted through close observation,
empirical research and direct
content with the consumer.
e.g. People startig to consume regional
USER DRIVEN INNOVATION
Customers are observed to
understand how they work
with the product and what
unrecognized needs they have.
/ Design Thinking is a broader
approach and describes a whole
process while User Driven
Innovation just indicates that the
user is integrated in your project
development.
User-initiated innovation: the
tion
consumer creates or improves
innova a
product. Von Hippel called this
‘user innovation’.
products being away from their hometwon.
Insight: people are feeling home-sick.
DESIGN THINKING
A human-centered approach to
innovation that draws from the
designer’s toolkit to integrate the
needs of people, the possibilities of
technology, and the requirements
for business success. /
D. Brown.
gnikniht
ngised
CREATIVE THINKING
The term innovation is often used
to refer to the entire process by
which an organization generates
creative new ideas and converts
them into novel, useful and viable
commercial products, services,
and business practices, while the
term creativity is reserved to apply
specifically to the generation
of novel ideas by individuals or
groups, as a necessary step within
the innovation process.
/ Wikipedia
249
If there is one single book I recommend to get a joyful taste of what the work in
the fields of innovation and trends is like, then it is this impressive work by Delia
Dumitrescu. She tells the story of her mental and physical learning trip and easily
manages to shed light on and give answers to most of the pivital questions an
outsider would ask.
Dr. Pero Mićić, CEO FutureManagementGroup
‘Road Trip to Innovation’ is a fun to read, non-pretentious exploration into
the world of innovation told through a refreshing and honest voice.
It’s not about making grandiose statements, it simply gathers and compiles
information from the movers and shakers of innovation into one comprehensive
look; and more often than not, that’s all you want and need – simple, honest, and
comprehensive.
Susan M. Choi, Director of Strategy + Innovation, CScout Inc.
As a ‘Trend Passionionate’ person I love to work with insights and trends as
inspiration for idea and concept development.
The term ‘trends’ covers a broad variety of definitions. This is both chance and
confusion simultaneously.
For my daily innovation work I aspired a kind of navigation tool. ‘Road Trip to
Innovation’ is the perfect synergy of this type of tool: educational and beneficial
concerning the various perspectives of future research and it is fun to read – be
inspired!
Jens Bode, International Foresight Manager at Henkel AG & Co. KGaA
ISBN 978-3-00-035736-7