Strategy. Innovation. Brand.
Better Communication Through Plumbing
Got an idea? We can help.
Want to improve communication in your organization? Reduce the number of bathrooms. Everybody needs to use the bathroom from time to time. With fewer bathrooms to choose from, people are more likely to bump into each other. When they do, they wind up communicating.
One of your goals is to get people to bump into each other (more or less literally) as often as possible. It’s particularly important to get people from different disciplines to mix and mingle. When they do, sparks of creativity start to fly. You can design (or re-design) your space to ensure that this happens. Instead of having a coffee pot in every corner of the building, have only one coffee service centrally located. Coffee is a people magnet. Be sure to have some tables nearby so people will have a place to chat while consuming their caffeine.
You can also randomize your offices. Instead of having engineers sit only with engineers and marketers sit only with marketers, mix them up a bit. Ensure that people from different disciplines get to know each other. It sparks new ideas and reduces the us-versus-them mentality.
What else can you do? Well, maybe you should encourage your employees to take up smoking. Watch the video to find out why.
Mash, Mash, Innovation
Do the mashed potato with me!
What do DJ Danger Mouse and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have in common? They’re examples of one of the main engines of innovation: the mashup. Some innovations involve the creation of something entirely new. More often, innovations combine existing concepts from different domains. The concepts are well understood. The innovation comes from mashing them up — combining concepts to create something new.
What do you get if you combine wheels with luggage? Rollable luggage. (Why did it take us so long to figure that out?) What do you get if you add a power supply? Self-propelled luggage. That sounds like a good business idea.
We even have jokes that follow the same pattern. What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire? Frostbite. (I didn’t say they were good jokes).
Mashup thinking can lead to stunning new product development, devices, tools, and processes. What do you get when you cross an X-ray with data processing? The MRI. Mashup thinking is also fairly easy to master. You just add things together. Sometimes the result doesn’t make sense but often times, it leads you to an intriguing discovery. If you want to be more innovative, think about doing the mash.
So, what do DJ Danger Mouse and IEDs have in common? Well, watch the video.
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