Meaningful innovation in a World awash with ideas | Roberto Verganti | TEDxPolitecnicodiMilanoU

If we ask people, what is the most powerful symbol for innovation, most of them will say the light bulb.

I mean, that's reasonable because we assume that innovation is a matter of ideation, there's a problem in front of us, we struggle in the darkness in the search for a solution, and finally, someone comes up with an idea.

But today the world is not anymore like this.

The world is like this.

We live in a world where ideas are not rare, we live in a world overcrowded by ideas.

We see it every day when we open our phones, there are plenty of opportunity, and maybe someone can tell you, you know what, I understand, there are many, many ideas around, but I still miss the big idea.

Why, why we live in a world where there are so many ideas, for three reason, first, people, there is more creative people, second, tools, we have better tools to be creative, and third, especially digital technologies.

Our digital devices, you can easily access ideas wherever they are, so in 2011, you probably remember in the Gulf of Mexico, there was an explosion in an oil rig, and this was the most dramatic accident of oil rig in the history.

And this approach of sourcing ideas, I mean, there are more than a thousand website nowadays, where company can go, post problem and receive ideas for people, so we don't live anymore in a world where ideas are rare, we live in a world awash with ideas.

And this is great, I don't mean that we need to reduce the number of ideas, of course, we need a lot of ideas to solve the problem of the world, but what's the consequence of this, the consequence of this is that the nature of innovation is changing dramatically.

In a way, we are still blinded, and you are still blinded, but you're not blinded because it's too dark, you're blinded because there is too much light.

And unfortunately, the tools for innovation that we use today, they have been created when the world was dark, design thinking, open innovation, they were created 15 years ago, but the world was different.

Their purpose was to create more light, to create more ideas, and they succeeded, in reality, there are much more ideas nowadays, so what's next, how can we profit from this amount of ideas and create change for real, now there is too much light, so to start with, let's dim down the light.

And maybe we can light up a candle here, 30 years ago, if I ask my mom, mom, do we have a candle at home, yes, yes, we have one, you know what, in case the power goes off, you know, in Italy at that time, the electricity was not so reliable, but nowadays, I mean, that doesn't happen anymore, and if it is really happen, we have our phones, you know, close at hand, so, you know, why should we buy candles nowadays, I mean, this industry should have disappeared by now, there's, it makes no sense to buy candles nowadays.

People have never bought candles as much as they do now, they love candles, the family spending in candles nowadays is much higher than how much family spent to buy light bulbs, and why I'm using this example?

I'm using this example because it's a very simple way to explain what is the problem of innovation nowadays, there are two different levels of innovation, one level is the level of meaning, and the other level is the level of solutions.

So, the meaning is the purpose that we want to achieve when we create innovation, the solution is the product, the service, or the process that we create to achieve that meaning, the meaning is the direction, why we do innovate, the solution is how we get there.

So, in a world that is overcrowded by ideas, creating solution is quite easy, but creating and finding new meaningful direction is much more complicated, and the candle succeeded, not because they are better solution.

I mean, the candles we have nowadays don't illuminate better than what we used to have 30 years ago, but they are totally different than the candles my mom used to buy, these are candles that people buy for a different reason, for a different meaning, for a different why, they buy them to create a cozy room, actually to make the light dimmer.

So, we have a lot of solutions, but the more solution we have, the more is difficult to find what is meaningful, and indeed, if you look at the industry of candles, most of the companies that were leading the industry of candles in the past, are not succeeding anymore nowadays, prices candles, founded in 1830, was the leading manufacturer in the industry of candle, they filed for bankruptcy exactly in 2001, when the industry was exploding.

But imagine for a moment that, you know, you do a brainstorming session, you create a lot of ideas, and you're searching for candles that can illuminate better, and, you know, actually there are many, many ideas, there is a lot of innovation in candle, different materials, LED candles, electricity, butane candles, everything you can do to create candles that illuminate better, but imagine for a moment that in this wall that is full of post-its, there is one little post-it there, and there is a drawing, why don't we do a candle where the wax stands inside the jar, and we put the big label around the candle, so you can't see the flame when it's lit up.

I mean, people say, come on, I mean, nice idea, but doesn't make any sense, this is a candle with the wax inside the jar, and the big label in the front, so you can't see the flame when the candle is on, which doesn't make any sense if you're looking for candles that illuminate, but it's totally meaningful if you're looking for candles that create a nice cozy atmosphere.

And Yankee Candle, the company that did this candle, is a newcomer in the industry, but they are leading the industry now, not because they have a better solution, but because they changed the meaning of things, so the first mindset is that when we are in an overcrowded world, a world full of opportunities and ideas, innovation is not about searching for solutions, innovation is about searching for meaning, actually, searching for a new meaning.

And how do we find this new meaning, well, the problem is that the existing methods for innovation, we said before, design thinking, open innovation, they have been created to address problems at the level of solution, they are capable of creating a lot of solution, but when we move this method at the level of meanings, they struggle, they fail.

For example, most of these methods suggest that when we do innovation, we need to start from the outside, so we go out, meet users, engage outsiders, we need to think outside of the box, so innovation should come from the outside in, what happened if we apply this principle at the level of meaning, a company in the industry of thermostats, a few years ago, did an innovation program, they wanted to innovate thermostats.

So they applied this method, they, they start from the outsiders, they met users, they engaged outsiders, they did brainstorming session, and they had a lot of ideas, and most of these ideas were about what we call the programmable thermostat, the programmable thermostat is a programmable thermostat in which you can set up the hours and the moments of the days in which you want the temperature to go up, go down, and so most of these idea was to provide more features to people, so they could program the thermostat better and control the temperature better.

But among those ideas, there was a new one, which was a learning thermostat, a learning thermostat is a thermostat that you can't program, is a thermostat that is self-programmed itself by learning the habits of your family, when you get back home, when you leave, and slowly and progressively, over days, it set up the program itself.

I mean, this was not a bad idea, this thermostat didn't, was not so precise as the other one, you can program it perfectly, but it was a new meaning, it's for people who don't want to spend their time programming thermostat, they want to forget about this, they want the thermostat to do the job, so it was not so precise, so they tried, they built different prototypes, the other thermostat, these ones, and, and they showed them to user, and this is what they found.

We found that consumers prefer to control the thermostat, rather than being controlled by the thermostat.

So they dismissed the idea, they leave it.

A few years later, two former managers of Apple, left Apple and started a company in the industry of thermostat, and they didn't do all this analysis, they didn't move from the outside, they didn't do brainstorming, invite the outsiders, meeting with users, they started from themselves, they started from one vision, their understanding of what could be meaningful for people.

And they believed that for people is much more meaningful when they are home to spend time with their family, rather than spending time next to the thermostat and programming the things.

They did it, they founded a company called Nest.

They launched the first learning thermostat, and people love it.

What does it mean?

It means that when we start from solution, when we search for solution, it is fine to go outside and search for input from outsiders.

But when we search for new meaning, the new meaning should come from ourselves.

Innovation should move the other way around, not from the outside in, but from the inside out.

And this is quite reasonable because, I mean, the solution can come from others, but the meaning, the direction.

I mean, we cannot ask the direction to someone else.

The direction should come from us.

Also because, I mean, at the first mistake, at the first problem, and when you do innovation, there are several problems.

If you don't really believe in it, you stop.

If you don't really believe in it, people will never love it.

In a way, I mean, doing innovation in a world awash with ideas, is like making gifts, what is the mindset you have when you make a gift?

The problem is not the solution, you can buy whatever you want.

I mean, you can buy everything.

You know, you need to do a Christmas gift to your girlfriend or boyfriend.

The solution is not the problem.

The problem is, what is it meaningful?

And you cannot ask her, I mean, you can call her, hello darling, what do you want for Christmas?

I mean, she will take it, but she will never love it.

And you cannot ask outsider, you know, can you give me, can you do a gift to my girlfriend?

Come on, she will feel it, she will smell it, that it doesn't come from you.

A gift that a person love is something that is comes from you, come from your own interpretation of what is more meaningful for her.

It's your capability to expand her possibilities.

So, when you move innovation one level higher, in a world that is awash with ideas, innovation moves the other way around, inside out.

It comes from your understanding of what could be more meaningful to people.

What people could love.

Well, this is just the start.

But then, then we need a second mechanism to balance this.

Because it doesn't mean that everyone, everything we love, people will love.

I mean, if we don't love it, people will never love it.

But it doesn't mean that if we love it, people will love it.

So we need something else there.

We need a third mindset here to counterbalance this.

And to understand this mindset, let's go back to the example of the company who tried the learning thermostat, but they dismissed it.

I mean, the idea was in front of them.

But they say no.

Why, let's look carefully at the title of this person.

What is his role?

This is the President of the Division of Environmental and Combustion Controls.

I mean, controls.

If your role is the President of a Division of Environmental and Combustion Control, guess which word you're more sensitive to.

Control.

And this is the point that in a world awash with ideas, we use filter to, to filter information.

And we tend to see what we want to see.

So, of course, we need to start from us, there's no other way, but if we start from us, then we need to be sure that we don't see what only what we want to see.

That we don't keep going in the same direction.

In other words, we need criticism.

In a world awash with ideas, we don't need more ideas.

We need to cure the ideas that we used to interpret life.

And criticism doesn't mean to be negative, it means going deeper, starting to see things in a different way.

And slowly, slowly, slowly turn in a new direction.

How, let's go back to the story of the two founders of Nest.

I told you, they didn't do any brainstorming or user analysis.

They started from a vision they had.

Something they believed in.

And how did they start, they, they left Apple, they met in a restaurant, and this is the story, Tony, I want to start a company, and I want to start a company with you.

What do you want to do?

I want to build a smart home company.

You're an idiot.

Doesn't sound like a brainstorming session.

No one wants to buy a smart home, smart homes are for geeks.

I mean, maybe you can be a little milder when you give criticism to people.

But in any case, the point is that Tony Fader was not dismissing the ideas of Matt Rogers.

He believed in him.

Actually, they moved farther, and they moved farther in a new direction.

Otherwise, they would have been created another programmable thermostat.

So, this is the core of what doesn't mean to do innovation in an overcrowded world.

It means that we need to start from us, there's no other way.

From our understanding of how the world is changing, from our understanding of what can be more meaningful to people.

It's our gift.

But that's just the start.

This is an unwrapped gift that we need to mix with the gifts of someone else.

And who is this someone else?

Someone who has two characteristics, a person who has another gift, different than the gift we have.

Believe in something different.

But who believes in us as a person.

And this clash between different gifts and mutual support makes us slowly, slowly, slowly turn in a new direction.

So, innovation in a world awash with ideas is not a matter of tools or processes.

It's a matter of people.

Is a matter of meeting the right sparring partners.

It's like in boxing.

Who's the sparring partner?

A sparring partner is someone who join you in your journey.

Who believes in you.

But then is also fight with you.

It challenges you.

Not because he wants to kill you, but because he make wants to make your gifts stronger.

So, this is the point, in a world awash with idea.

Don't search for ideas.

Search for people.

Thank you.