All posts by Steven Bell

Books, Creativity & Innovation

Best Books In Design & Innovation

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It’s that time of the year. Many publications and websites are issuing their “best” of the year lists. I always check BusinessWeek’s best business books list to see if our library has acquired them all. But I made a new discovery this year. I found that BusinessWeek also produces a separate listing of their picks for the top ten books on design and innovation. I thought I’d share that list here.

I can’t quite say these books are ranked, but the first book listed is one I’m reading right now (well, sort of, I started reading Subject to Change about half way through). That’s Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam. This book has attracted a great deal of attention and deservedly so. The idea of communicating through doodling is big right now – you’ve no doubt seen those popular UPS whiteboard commercials – although I don’t think that guy is actually doing the drawing. I’m enjoying the book although I’m not sure I’ll be drawing my way through presentations. But I am learning much more about the power of visual communication, and how to reach people with visual messages. In addition, even if you never use drawings in communicating with others, there is value in using drawing to work through challenges or to simplify complicated ideas. Visual thinking through drawing can provide an alternate and creative approach to problem solving – and it fits in well with a design approach.

Unfortunately I have not had time to get to most of the other books on BusinessWeek’s list, but I plan to get to a few of these in 2009:

Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy by Judy Estrin

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns
by Clayton Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, Michael B. Horn
If you don’t have time to read Christensen’s latest or it seems of only marginal interest, you can grasp the book’s core ideas by reading this IdeaConnection interview with Christensen in which he discusses the book.

The Endless City by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic

The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation by A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan
This one also showed up on BW’s best business books list. I try to pay attention to any article or ideas coming from Ram Charan, one of the most interesting consultants in modern business.

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies byCharlene Li and Josh Bernoff
This one should be of particular interest to the library community because it focuses on using social networks to create and share ideas, and explains how companies are using it to reach new customers.

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
Here’s a title well known to the library community as it was mentioned in more than a few librarian blogs. Not surprising given the interest in the social communication tools that Shirky discusses. Personally, I just didn’t get into this one, but the ideas may really resonate with you.

The New Age of Innovation: Driving Co-Created Value Through Global Networks by C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan
One reason I may try to take a look at this one is because the authors discuss the importance of creating unique experiences for customers. Note that there is a link to a video interview with the authors – another good way to get the gist of the book if you don’t have time to read it.

The Numerati by Stephen Baker

The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World by Amar Bhidé

Here’s to better reading for new ideas in 2009. The bloggers of Designing Better Libraries appreciate your support and readership, and we look forward to continuing our mission to share with the library community the best ideas in design thinking, user experience, innovation and creativity. We continue to believe that by integrating these ideas into our practice we can design better libraries with the end goal of giving our user communities the best possible library experience.

Creativity & Innovation

Latest Inside Innovation Available

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The newest edition of BusinessWeek’s IN (Inside Innovation) is found it the December 1, 2008 issue, but you can also find it online. This issue features two interesting profiles. First it examines the work of David Rockwell, an architect who shifted his career to design and now creates designs for building interiors, products and processes. Even in a down economy Rockwell’s firm is growing and adding more staff.

Can you encourage innovation with contests? Peter Diamandis thinks so. IN takes a look at the work of his X Foundation and its multiple prizes, such as Lunar X Prize for the first privately-funded team that can land a robot on the moon or the $100,000 being offered for the best idea in making the airport check-in process faster. And were you aware that India’s design startups are growing so rapidly they may exceed the country’s computer support centers. For the first time, India is designing products from start to finish. You may also enjoy the usual graphics as well.

Creativity & Innovation

Learning More About Innovation From Tim Brown

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Fans of Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO Corporation, will be pleased to know they can learn some new things from Brown – or at least obtain more insight into his thinking about creating a more innovative organization. Two new resources featuring Brown recently became available.

Brown is interviewed in the November 2008 issue of The McKinsey Quarterly in an article titled “Lessons from innovation’s front lines: An interview with IDEO’s CEO.” What I like about this inteview is that Brown gives some fairly straightforward answers to questions about how to achieve better innovation. For example, when asked to explain what gets in the way of innovation Brown answers “The biggest barrier is needing to know the answer before you get started. This often manifests itself as a desire to have proof that your idea is worthwhile before you actually start the project. This kills a lot of innovation.” I think this happens in libraries quite a bit where innovative ideas get shot down because librarians can’t prove that their idea is going to be a good or successful idea. If you read the article you’ll get a clearer picture of this.

If you think you can learn more from Brown about creativity and innovative by seeing and hearing what he can share – not just from reading his interview – then you are in luck. Now you can watch a 27-minute presentation by Brown on creativity and the link between it and play. TED recently posted a video of Brown giving a talk at a conference on serious play. This is a fun talk with Brown giving the audience a number of interesting participative activities – surely nothing you’ve tried at your library instruction sessions. He focuses on how play is used at IDEO to encourage creativity. The big challenge is getting adults to drop their fear of being judged by peers so they can be more spontaneous and playful. He also speaks about the idea of divergence and convergence. Designers at IDEO typically diverge and engage in play in order to discover new ideas and then converge in a more serious way with their team colleagues to apply their ideas to solutions. He boils the application of play for innovation to three things: 1) exploration – go for quantity of ideas and don’t worry about what works 2)build – use your hands to make something (prototypes) and 3) role play – put yourself in the shoes of your user.

I wonder if, based on Brown’s advice, we might not do better with our students if we could somehow encourage they to be playful when searching for information – which means trying new things and experimenting. While college students have long left behind their childhood creativity (more about this in the video) they are not yet that far removed from it.

Creativity & Innovation

Another Leadership Skill – Setting The Stage For Creativity

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Leaders can emerge from anywhere in the library organization. Those who lead staff at any level recognize the importance of bringing together the right people, and orchestrating their efforts toward a common goal. Now comes an article that encourages these same leaders to manage the creativity generated in the organization. Creativity is critical to the development of new programs and services. So it is in the best interest of leaders to design and develop a work enviroment that promotes creativity. I’m going to attempt to summarize the key ideas from a Harvard Business Review article on “Creativity and the Role of the Leader“.  The article appears in the October 2008 issue if HBR. Here are several things you can do to help your colleagues and organization to foster greater creativity.

Draw on the right minds – Engage the right people, at the right times, to the right degree in creative work. Distribute creative responsibilities across the organization. Avoid the myth of the “lone creative genius”; get staff collaborating. Creativity and innovation are more likely to ingnite when people of different disciplines, backgrounds and areas of expertise share their thinking.

Bring Process to Bear – Carefully – Organizational creativity depends on vibrant, ongoing collaboration and free idea flow; adding people and projects restricts the flow. The leader’s job is to map out the stages of innovation and recognize that each one requires different types of support. Idea generation and idea implementation are best handled by different people. Leaders must guide ideas through the bureaucracy. Leaders need to filter creative ideas; find the ones that have little potential and weed them out.

Fan the Flames of Motivation – Intellectual challenge is a better motivator for creativity than salary or benefits. Leaders must find ways to provide intellectual challenges and independence; allow people to pursue their passions. Leaders let others know they appreciate their work. Decrease the fear of failure to increase creativity.

These ideas and others presented in the article emerged from a colloquium held at Harvard University. Attendees included business leaders from organizations that depend heavily on the contributions of creative minds. The participants came to the conclusion that more work needs to be completed to understand creativity in the organization.

Creativity & Innovation

Just Hire Steve Jobs

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Want to design a better library? Looking for an individual to help your library achieve new levels of creativity? Are you in need of an employee who can help your library innovate like Apple? The answer to all these questions has a single simple answer. Hire Steve Jobs. Sorry if you thought I had a better answer to those questions. But what if you can’t hire Steve Jobs. Then hire someone who works closely with him.

This sounds pretty silly because no one is going to hire Steve Jobs. For one thing he has a pretty good job right now. For another, you probably couldn’t afford him. I just bring this up because I’ve now recently twice encountered this exact recommendation in different readings, of course, in a facetious way. In the book Subject to Change: Creating Great Products and Services for an Uncertain World by designers from Adaptive Path the authors write:

There are a number of ways to encourage and maintain an experiential focus throughout your development process. One way is to hire Steve Jobs as your CEO. Apple’s success in delivering satisfying experiences stems directly from Jobs’ maniacal focus on customers’ interactions with products. As CEO, he ensures that Apple delivers only the best designs.

In an article titled “Design: A Better Path to Innovation” (subscription to Interactions needed) author Nathan Shedroff, experience designer, writes:

I got a call from an editor of one of the biggest business magazines in the U.S. What he said was “We’re planning on writing a book about how business can innovate like Apple does, and I was told to talk to you about it.” My answer stumped him. “You can’t write that book”. I had to explain that, no, the book wasn’t writeable. “It would consist of one sentence: Hire Steve Jobs.” I went on to explain their type of design, usually disastrous for most companies, works only when you have a leader with ultimate authority who also happens to have a keen sense of design and amazingly accurate understanding of what customers need and want.

The point of both sources is that many businesspeople want someone who can run their organization or company like Apple, and they are looking for the secrets that make Apple what it is – one of the most innovative and forward-design thinking companies on the planet. But Shedroff makes the point that Apple, right now, has a unique perspective that is is exceedingly difficult to achieve without Jobs. As an example he gives Microsoft. They do all the right design thinking things such as ethnographic research, rapid prototyping, user testings, etc. Yet many of their products yield a bad user experience. Shedroff goes on in his article to explain how design can lead to better innovation and meaningful user experiences.

So when you realize it’s not possible to hire Steve Jobs you may want to borrow your strategy from Sony. A recent BusinessWeek article detailed how Sony is working to catch up to Apple. The CEO of Sony couldn’t hire Jobs, but he did hire a top lieutentant of Steve Jobs. But even that move hasn’t had the expected payoff just yet. So what can libraries take away from this? Well, for one thing, if you can’t hire Steven Jobs don’t worry. You can still use design thinking to develop better processes in your library that will lead to more satisfying experiences for your users. But strong leadership, as Jobs demonstrates, is at the core of innovation and risk taking. It just may be the next best thing to hiring Steve Jobs.

Design Thinking

Marketers Consider The Value Of Design Thinking

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If you are just getting interested in design thinking – and welcome to Designing Better Libraries if you are new here as well – a recent BrandWeek article could be a good read for getting up to speed on some of the basic principles behind design thinking. Titled “Thinking by Design” this article from a November 2008 issue provides a good overview, quoting design thinking gurus such as Tim Brown and Roger Martin. But the overall goal of the article is to consider whether design thinking can be of help to marketing professionals. While firms such as Procter & Gamble and Bank of America are getting good results not everyone is so sure the design thinking is anything particularly new for marketers.

The approach of the article is to discuss design thinking in three distinct phases of the process: observation, ideation and implementation. Observation is another way of describing the empathic and ethnological part of process – trying to better know the users, their needs and their challenges. In the ideation phase team members analyze what was learned in the observation phase and begin to develop prototypes that might serve as possible solutions to observed problems. Finally, in the implementation phase the prototypes shift into actual products. But what do marketers think of all this?

For some design thinking is not a particularly new concept or practice. One ad agency pro described it as “old ideas packaged with new phrases.” Those who defend design thinking remind skeptics that it’s not a panacea, but merely a process for creating positive change. It’s always good, I think, to have colleagues question the value of new ideas such as design thinking. Doing so can help to strenthen my own understanding of it and my ability to more clearly articulate to others the theory and practice of design thinking.

User Experiences

Shift From Stuff To Meaning Is An Opportunity For Libraries

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I had the good fortune to attend a talk by Seth Godin on Oct. 28. The program was sponsored by the New Jersey Library Association, and although I had to spend 7 hours (round trip) on multiple trains getting to the program at Ramapo College in Mahway, New Jersey, I was well rewarded for my efforts. Godin is an amazing presenter and he shared insights about tribes, the subject of his most recent book (I received a copy and Godin signed it – a nice plus). I would recommend the book because it’s a good read and you’ll get a few ideas percolating. There were many librarians in the audience and I imagine they were all thinking the same thing. How do I become the leader of a tribe that will be passionate about the library.

One thing Godin told us is that you will fail if you try to create an experience for everyone. That, he said, is what the Carnegie Libraries were all about – one library for all. Instead we should focus on the different segments of the libraries community as potential tribes, for example, gamers, honor students, departmental faculty (and for the public sector  tribes can form around many interest groups or hobbyists) for whom librarians could provide leadership in acheiving better productivity or academic success. This approach also makes sense because Godin told us that tribes are insiders who “get it” (think of a tribe of Deadheads or Harley riders) and you can’t have a tribe of insiders unless there are outsiders – people who don’t belong to the tribe. So can a public or academic library have one big tribe? Who would our outsiders be since we need to be inclusive of everyone in our communities – even the people who are not regular users. But if we identify and create tribes within the overall community, sure, there could be insiders and outsiders.

But I think there is great value in exploring the tribe concept where it intersects with user experience design. Godin never specifically used the word experience to describe why people join and participate in tribes, but I believe that obtaining a unique experience is largely what tribes are about. Tribes are people connected to each other by a cause or idea – and they have a leader they follow. An idea that really resonated with me was Godin’s observations about a major societal and cultural shift that is happening, brought on to an extent by the global financial meltdown. We are placing less emphasis on the accumulation of material goods – stuff – and more importance on establishing meaningful experiences in our lives. I think this could create real opportunties for libraries.

This idea is further reinforced by two readings I came across this past week. The first comes from John Quelch a marketing professor at the Harvard Business School. He sees a new type of consumer emerging from the collapse of the mass consumption of the last decade. Now, says Quelch, more people want to declutter their lives and invest in experiences rather than things. He refers to this new consumer as the “Simplifier”. Of the four characteristics of the Simplifiers one is of particular relevance: “they want to collect experiences, not possessions..experiences do not tie you down, require no maintenance and permit variety seeking instincts to be quickly satisfied”. Then I came across an essay by Umair Haque, also affiliated with HBS, in which he writes about the coming economic crisis and why traditional recession tactics won’t work. He writes that the over-consumption era is finished, and that consumer purchases cannot be counted on to revive the economy. He sees a new competitive advantage based on the capacity for tolerance and difference, one that accrues to all and not just hyper-driven corporations. Is this another way of saying that creating meaning could be a new competitive advantage?

There is a growing school of thought in user experience design that promotes the idea of the experience as being about creating something meaningful for people, something that gives them intrisic value that can help them lead a better life. If what Godin, Quelch and Haque see on the horizon comes to fruition then I believe that libraries of all types will be well positioned to deliver the type of experience that will deliver meaning to people. Of course, to capitalize we have to understand how to design an experience that delivers meaning to the community. Business as usual is not likely to get us there. I gave a talk about user experience a few months ago, and I was describing this idea of the experience as making meaning for people. A librarian spoke up and explained how students came to visit her in her office for assistance with research. Nothing that unusual, but she related how that made the students feel good about having someone provide them with personal, caring help.From her perspective that was how she created meaning in their lives. It was great and I responded that SHE was the library experience – that the user community derived meaning from her support. She didn’t create or give “stuff”. She delivered a meaningful experience.

Could it be that librarians can be the leaders of tribes in our communities that seek us out for the meaning we can provide to them? As Godin said to us at the end of his talk, “This is your obligation. You must market by leading. You have no choice”.

Design Thinking

Instead Of Picking Model A Or Model B Create Model C

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To gain some additional perspectives on design thinking take a look at this video interview with Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman Business School at the University of Toronto. In the video Rotman answers questions about integrative thinking, which is a term Martin uses to describe design thinking. I’ve written about Martin before, especially in wanting to share ideas about his “opposable mind”, and how it is a way of using design thinking to identify new solutions when existing models may not be appropriate for a given situation. Martin talks more about this in the video, which only runs about five minutes.

One of the reasons I seek to further explore the development of the opposable mind is because the library profession presents a good number of complexities and situations for which standard models and solutions are ineffective. One of the most challenging elements of my job is trying to develop good solutions when a simple option A or B won’t work. At those times I think back to Martin and his stories about thinkers who were able to see new solutions that others didn’t see. And being a design thinker doesn’t mean being a lone creative genius who gets hit with lightning bolts of great ideas. Coming up with Model C requires involving one’s colleagues and exploring multiple dimensions of a problem situation.

In the last few months I’ve come across a number of different reports, blog posts, e-mail news items and discussion board entries that all, in one way or another, suggest the demise of libraries. Most will conclude with something along the lines of “libraries have got to change the way they do business or they won’t be around long” but without saying much about what to do. I think similar concerns about turmoil in the world of business lead Martin to develop and share his approach called integrative thinking, and to make design thinking a core educational value for MBA students at the Rotman School. Librarians who will successfully lead their organizations through these challenging times may well be the ones who use integrative thinking to develop Model C.

Additional video to watch: A few months back I shared news about an interesting article in a magazine called Seed. Written by Paolo Antonelli, this article described the idea of the elastic mind. Those with elastic minds are moving past adaptability. Turns out Antonelli spoke about the elastic mind at TED and they have made the video available on their site. She talks more about the interaction of scientists and research scientists.

User Experiences

Library User Experiences Are About More Than the Website And Building

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It’s always good to come across projects involving libraries that may provide good examples of the benefits of design thinking for better library user experiences. Michael Magoolaghan, an information architect with the Vanguard Group, writes that he first got involved in a library experience design project when as a trustee for a small public library he and other board members realized both the library facility and its website needed overhauls. He writes that one of his first major realizations about the project was that it was about more than just making the library look good:

As it turns out, I soon found myself engaged with one of the major challenges facing small public libraries today: rethinking the user experience to help bridge the digital and physical realms while enabling library administrators to better respond to patrons’ changing needs.

A good observation to be sure but I wonder if someone who is a public library trustee will have a sufficient grasp of the totality of the library user experience. A good decision by Magoolaghan is to go back and study Maya Design’s work-practice study at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (a featured case student in Academic Librarianship by Design). Further analysis leads him to state that”

The problem with proceeding along separate tracks, however, was that we risked developing two distinct, uncoordinated user experiences. As the board assessed the work submitted by the building consultant and architect on the one hand and the Drexel students on the other, we gradually realized that we needed to approach these two projects in a more coordinated way. In short, we needed to redesign not just the building and website, but the end-to-end library experience.

So he realizes that the library user experience isn’t just focused on the website or the building, but that when you start talking to the community – users and non-users alike – it really starts to broaden the understanding of what the library can really accomplish and what it needs to do to set the stage for the experience that moves the library forward. So what’s next in this user experience design project? According to Magoolaghan:

Once the board and architect settle on a preferred approach to the building renovation, we’ll begin working with a graphic designer to develop a branding strategy, integrate the physical and online wayfinding systems and (most importantly) design the materials for our fundraising program. ..If they can keep the end-to-end user experience in focus, I have no doubt that small libraries will weather the storm and remain a vital part of our communities for decades to come.

I like that he describes it as an “end-to-end user experience” because that points to the totality of the user experience. It’s not just about the website or building, he comes to understand, but that users want an an overall experience at all library touchpoints. So take a look at this article. I think you will notice, if you’ve read it previously, that the author draws on the Maya Design activity – and he makes no secret of that. Maya’s work on that project still inspires others involved in redesigning this library

Design Thinking

Design Thinking Goes Mainstream

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If a high profile article in the New York Times is a sign of mainstream acceptance of an idea, than design thinking just went mainstream. In an article titled “Design is More Than Packaging” author Janet Rae-Dupree writes:

Properly used, design thinking can weave together elements of demographics, research, environmental factors, psychology, anthropology and sociology to generate novel solutions to some of the most puzzling problems in business.

Yes, the article does appear in the business section and the tone of the article is that design thinking offers businesses a better process for decision making and achieving creative solutions. I suppose that it would be asking too much for an article that portrays design thinking in much broader terms.

Overall I think the article does a reasonably good job of communicating what design thinking is – not always an easy task. Good examples always help but I was disappointed by the one featuring Saturn and the refurbishment of their showrooms. I understand the author was trying to point out how the design process emphasized creating an environment that was far more interactive for the buyer, but it comes off sounding a bit too much like the big change was in the design of the showroom interior. The design process was underplayed. One thing that I did like was what Tim Brown, CEO and President of IDEO has to say:

“Design thinking is inherently about creating new choices, about divergence,” says Tim Brown, the chief executive and president of the design consulting firm IDEO, based in Palo Alto, Calif. “Most business processes are about making choices from a set of existing alternatives. Clearly, if all your competition is doing the same, then differentiation is tough. In order to innovate, we have to have new alternatives and new solutions to problems, and that is what design can do.”

So despite some ups and downs I think it’s great that the New York Times gave attention to design thinking. Now maybe next time they’ll want to explore how design thinking can help us make our libraries better.