Why You’re Doing Customer Research All Wrong [Inc.] – It comes as no surprise that many innovative ideas hit the cutting room floor before ever seeing the light of day in consumer testing. The author suggests that too many great ideas don’t get chosen for testing and this is where the problem lies. While I agree that this is a grave problem for customer research, it’s not nearly as reprehensible as the omission of consumers from ideation sessions, and the failure to converge in the ideation process. In fact, I’d argue that the problem could be averted with two steps upstream in this process. First, start with the end in mind when planning a brainstorming session and invite customers and executives to help generate stakeholder-inspired ideas. Secondly, make sure those ideas get clustered and prioritized before anyone leaves the room. Ideation should include both divergent and convergent thinking!  This results in more collaborative value-added ideas and less ‘intuitive’ choices about which ones merit further testing.

Affinnova studied 100 testing campaigns that its clients had done in the past. Typically the testing process went like this: A company came up with a long list of potential ideas to test, whittled it down using mostly executives’ intuition, and then tested the much shorter list of ideas. Affinnova, on the other hand, took the initial brainstorming list and tested everything on it, presenting the ideas in groups and asking participants to select their favorites.

Looking To Hire And Keep Great Innovators? Focus On The 3 Rs [Co.Design] – When companies look inward in a quest for amping up their innovation capabilities, they undoubtedly see the potential of their human resources. The three Rs of getting and keeping innovative employees are Recruiting, Retraining and Rewarding. Given the very premise of the article a fourth R, Reflection, seems mighty important. While the ROI (yikes, another R word!) of a strategic debrief may be hard to justify in some cases, the cost of ignoring valuable lessons learned from experience can be catastrophic. Consider how many times companies learn the same lessons over and over again. It’s Ridiculous. Besides, a healthy organization that engages its employees in regular reflection is likely to keep those folks feeling engaged, valued and loyal, thereby reducing the need to look outside for more innovators.

Innovation relies on people more than other processes. This reliance on employees, management, and executives in an organization requires that the “right” people are attracted, and then given the appropriate tools and techniques for a sustained innovation success. Their passions and capabilities also must be ensured to align with the needs and expectations of the firm.

Building Self-Control, the American Way [New York Times] - Although this article is focused on parenting strategies for cultivating self-discipline, I think the lessons can be applied to nurturing innovative thinkers. This article talks about the importance of play in allowing children to practice and develop skills like self-control, self-esteem and social interaction. Companies who rely on their people to continually generate creative ideas should explore opportunities for productive play experiences that challenge and nurture their employees’ essential abilities to manage themselves through intrinsic motivation.

Fortunately for American parents, psychologists find that children can learn self-control without externally imposed pressure. Behavior is powerfully shaped not only by parents or teachers but also by children themselves. The key is to harness the child’s own drives for play, social interaction and other rewards. Enjoyable activities elicit dopamine release to enhance learning, while reducing the secretion of stress hormones, which can impede learning and increase anxiety, sometimes for years.

Tags: brainstorming, cocreation, customer research, human resources, innovation, play, quickies, recruiting, reflection, retraining, rewarding

5 Responses to “ChittahChattah Quickies”

Tamara – the self-control article focuses so strongly on children yet you extend it to adults; Other than being able to reference Piaget (although not spell him) I don’t know diddly about developmental theory, but I’m wondering what your take is on extending childhood thinking to adults? When might it apply or not apply?

Comment by Steve Portigal 02.23.12 @ 9:51 am





That’s a big question, Steve! Adult learning theorists suggest that adults learn best when they understand why something is important to know or do, when they have freedom to explore learning in their own way, when the timing is right for them, and when the process is experiential, positive, and encouraging. I resolutely believe that such conditions can be created to support organizational learning. In the case of using play as a pedagogy (i.e. a teaching/learning methodology), Stuart Brown MD has written a great book called Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. He insists that people of any age can learn through play and that it is a primal instinct that (like brainstorming) provides numerous benefits beyond the task at hand. The biggest obstacle in teaching adults seems (to me) to be the risk factor. Grown-ups tend to be more risk averse (and often for good reason) than children which impacts their ability to immerse themselves in experiential learning and an iterative, prototyping approach to knowledge and skill development. But I believe this action-reflection process, which is critical in developing self-discipline, is fundamentally human regardless of age. Does that begin to answer the question?

Comment by Tamara Christensen 02.23.12 @ 10:05 am





Wow, it’s like you’ve studied this in grad school or something I love this!

Matt Jones posted something somewhat tangential to this about risk today – http://magicalnihilism.com/2012/02/23/yep/ – tangential but I was reminded of it when I read your thoughts about risk.

Comment by Steve Portigal 02.23.12 @ 11:58 am





I am curious about what “risk” refers to here, more precisely. Resistance to introducing “play” (broadly construed!) as ways of introducing new innovation or ideation techniques in the context of consulting gigs can seem less about feeling exposed to personal risk, and more about feeling frivolous in the face of serious business questions/deadlines/shareholder expectations and so forth. Perhaps these are simply elements of professional risk, or ways of justifying/masking personal risk? It’s a really interesting thing to think about!

Comment by Julie Norvaisas 02.24.12 @ 9:49 am





Concept optimization is the perfect companion to co-creation. By removing the bottleneck of traditional concept testing, it allows you to bring more of your co-created ideas to consumers for quantitative evaluation. Without optimization, executives often cherrypick from the co-creation submissions to decide what to test further.

Comment by Jeffrey Henning 03.01.12 @ 6:19 am