Point: Consider the role and value of outsiders in innovation

Story: George Lucas, legendary producer, director and screenwriter of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones blockbuster hits, shared these thoughts at the World Business Forum. Lucas described how he got his start making movies by going outside the insular Hollywood system.  When he graduated from film school, Hollywood was not receptive to new ideas and Lucas didn’t want to go there.  He and Francis Coppola moved to San Francisco to start American Zoetrope in 1969.  Befitting their 1960’s cultural background, Lucas and Coppola “didn’t trust anyone over 30.”

The choice of San Francisco had paradoxical properties for young Lucas and the new film company.  The bad news was that San Francisco had little of the movie making ecosystem of supporting companies and infrastructure that make Hollywood the mecca for film making.  The good news is that San Fransisco therefore had little of the movie making ecosystem that constrained the industry to the prevailing ways of doing things.  As a result, Lucas had to invent his own ways of making movies, which led him to develop a long string of innovations in camera handling, special effects, sound, and editing.

Lucas also benefited from the corporate buyouts of Hollywood.  As mega corporations bought Hollywood studios, the new outside owners of the movie industry realized they didn’t know how to make movies.  These new owners decided to hire  people fresh from film schools, like Lucas, to bring in new blood.  The ownership change also created a tumult that allowed people like Lucas freer reign.  Sometimes innovation benefits from benign outsiders.

Action:

• Consider how the prevailing ecosystem of suppliers and partners could be hindering innovation
• Take innovation outside of the existing company and industry boundaries to start true greenfield ventures
• Look for times when outsiders take over an industry (e.g,, foreign investors, industry transformation) — the tumult of ownership changes combined with owners who don’t know “tradition” provide opportunity.

Source:

George Lucas at the World Business Forum October 6, 2009 #wbf09

Point: Use a constraint to convert complexity into simplicity

Story: In 1954, Life magazine published an article on illiteracy among schoolchildren, reporting that children were not learning to read because their books were boring. “Pallid primers” featuring girls and boys who were “uniform, bland, idealized and terribly literal,” its author, John Hersey, contended. Publisher William Spaulding of Houghton Mifflin wanted to change that. He approached his friend Theodore Geisel (later known as Dr. Seuss) to write a much more lively primer. But he gave Geisel a challenge: the book could only use a vocabulary of 225 words, so that beginning readers could read it. Geisel took up the challenge. The result? The Cat in the Hat. Dr. Seuss used clever combinations of the 225 words and fanciful illustrations to create a playful story.

Action: A constraint limits the creative choices you have. Instead of viewing the constraint as merely negative and frustrating, consider the positive side: you can ignore those choices. Strip your problem to its basic elements. Then generate unusual combinations of those bare building blocks to look for a creative solution. This technique can be used in marketing, product development and strategy.

For more: Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel by Judith Morgan, Neil Morgan, Neil Bowen Morgan

Point: Color affects performance

Story: The background color on your computer screen might influence your creativity or productivity, according to a recent study by the University of British Columbia. Researchers gave participants work tasks on a computer. The experimenters varied whether the tasks were presented against a blue, red or neutral background on the computer screen. The results:

People performing tasks that required attention to detail (like proofreading) did better when the computer background was red.

People performing tasks that required a creativity (like creating new products) did better when the computer background was blue.

Action: Set your computer background to red when you need to focus on details. Set the background to blue when you want to make creative connections.

Sources for more information:
New York Times article
Wired Science