Leaders listen.

“Companies don’t have any shortage of ideas. They have a shortage in leadership getting those ideas off the ground.”
– Stephen Gates, Global Head of Design at Citi

I’ve heard hundreds of decision makers share their stories about how their executives play the safe hand 99% of the time. These execs are often unwilling, or unable, to take a brilliant bottom-up idea to market. And who can really blame them? Most brands are playing the long-game, which often demands a fiscally conservative approach. And new ideas usually cost a lot of money to get off the ground.

I heard Stephen’s quote earlier today as I was editing a podcast episode for the week ahead. He’s this week’s featured guest on our podcast, Design Story. Hearing this line brought me back to my first consulting gig for a Fortune 500 company. This client was a major automotive manufacturer whom, in part, brought us in to help them with this very problem. They had a huge pool of ideas and didn’t know what to do with them.

To explain….
This is a brand that has always done two things well: they created a quality product and marketed themselves as a lifestyle brand. Nevertheless, their data suggested they needed to consider new products/services to help them expand their brand. If they didn’t, they might plateau, and perhaps, even fade away.

So, this company’s leadership decided they were going to invest in brand reach initiatives. They already had determined the “big winners”, new products or services that they decided to invest in right away.

Leadership also knew, that with over 5000 employees, they had a ton of ideas waiting to be discovered. Surely their human resources had more to offer than the functions they were hired for?

They decided to bring us in to build an innovation funnel. This funnel would allow their associates and employees across the entire enterprise to submit their ideas to a central internal team. This team would vet the ideas, figure out the costs, risks, and potential for the ideas, and bring the best ones to life.

In the end, this engagement was an inexpensive way to improve their brand. Even if none of these ideas take off, this innovation funnel sends a message to their employees: “we’re listening“.

We need more companies like this.
We need more leaders who show they are listening, and executives truly looking for the next big thing.

Until next time,

The Blueprint to a Sustainable In-house Department (Part 2 of 3)

Digital Afterlife

Just the other day I was browsing LinkedIn, and the “People you may know” section included a name that caught me off guard.

Lucas Pearson.

He’s a college friend of mine who died a couple of years ago. After reminiscing for a hot minute about all the good times we had in Pullman, I started to wonder how long his profile will remain active. Other questions started cropping up, too. “Can anyone edit Luke’s page? If so, did they change anything? What other websites did Luke leave behind? Did Luke’s family even have a choice to remove his profile from the website?”

I’m aware these are odd questions, but it’s important to remember how things used to be. Not so long ago, when someone died, their friends and family would gather, remember, and perform a variety of rituals.

After a funeral, at least for most of the deceased, there wasn’t too much else to be done. Sure, the estate needed to be tended to, but that was about it. Nowadays, we almost live two lives. One here on the ground and one above in the cloud. We even have digital possessions that need sorting once we pass on. This is to say – the act of grieving hasn’t changed, but we leave much more for people to deal with once we die. Evan Carroll said it best: “the process of grieving, it seems, needs resolution and putting things away, be they digital or physical, is necessary”

While I miss my friend dearly, his death highlights the odd nature of our online personalities. As interesting as it is to live in a tech-heavy world, It’s also an interesting time to die in one. It doesn’t seem like there is a clear set of rules for our digital personalities after we seize to exist here in the “real-world.”

With this in mind I encourage you to take a look at all the “online stuff” tied to your name. If you died tomorrow, what would the internet tell us about who you were?

Rest in peace, Luke. I personally love being able to check out old postings and pictures, it helps me remember the memories we made together.

Everything is bigger in Texas.

Sometimes Interesting

A supercollider is a large ring designed to accelerate particles of protons and anti-protons until they collide, the purpose being to create high amounts of energy. In the mid 1980’s, the United States wanted to construct the largest particle collider in the world. What was to be called the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) began as an idea in 1983.

By 1987 Congress had approved the $4.4 billion dollar budget for the project, and by 1991 a site had been chosen in Texas and construction began.

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