The message is clear: After other industries have already been disrupted by the power of the internet, the time has come that the financial industry will experience the same transformation we have seen before in other industries.

If you don’t find the time to watch the whole talk, make sure to at least check out his presentation on Prezi which gives you a good overview of the developments.

What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, but it is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but then the next day there is an idea. I find that incredibly exciting and conceptually actually remarkable.

The nature of having ideas and creativity is incredibly inspiring. There is an idea which is solitary, fragile and tentative and doesn’t have form.

What we’ve found here is that it then becomes a conversation, although remains very fragile.

When you see the most dramatic shift is when you transition from an abstract idea to a slightly more material conversation. But when you made a 3D model, however crude, you bring form to a nebulous idea, and everything changes – the entire process shifts. It galvanises and brings focus from a broad group of people. It’s a remarkable process.

Asked whether innovation is the result of solving problems

There are different approaches – sometimes things can irritate you so you become aware of a problem, which is a very pragmatic approach and the least challenging.

What is more difficult is when you are intrigued by an opportunity. That, I think, really exercises the skills of a designer. It’s not a problem you’re aware or, nobody has articulated a need. But you start asking questions, what if we do this, combine it with that, would that be useful? This creates opportunities that could replace entire categories of device, rather than tactically responding to an individual problem. That’s the real challenge, and that’s what is exciting.

Read the full interview in the London Evening Standard.

If you had tasted the very first PowerBar, you probably would have gagged.

It was a chewy, tasteless mass of goo: barley malt, nuts, brown rice, molasses, and nutrients blended into a taffy-like bar, packed in a metallic wrapper with a crude logo.

Created by Brian Maxwell in 1986 for a few thousand dollars, PowerBar received mixed initial results. Serious athletes liked it because it met an important need—quick energy during competition—but the taste and consistency needed work.

Maxwell knew his product wasn’t optimal. But by getting feedback on an early version, he was able to modify it, changing the package and marketing strategy to build a following among athletes and weekend warriors.

The idea that it is beneficial to test products with customers as early as possible is not necessarily new. The challenge is that this common sense idea is very hard to implement because it turns out that in many organisations the willingness to experiment and learn from products or services that are not yet perfected is frowned upon.

An additional challenge is that the departments running the daily operations have no incentive to focus on developing the next innovation that will replace their existing products.

An early-stage PowerBar would never get out the door: R&D would want a better formula; packaging would need a more elaborate wrapper; a design agency would have to create the right label; manufacturing and sales would have to weigh in; and the corporate lawyers would insist on a detailed risk analysis.

In order to innovative a team needs to be willing to experiment and learn from early prototypes and customer feedback. Keep that in mind the next time somebody presents a rough PowerPoint or a cardboard prototype.

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Sushi Suzuki, concept developer for Panasonic in Germany. Previously, he founded d.thinking Ponts ParisTech while teaching design innovation at École des Ponts ParisTech he was  the Executive Director of the ME310 program at Stanford University.

Over the last few years, I’ve had the pleasure of hosting many design thinking workshops and short courses in various contexts around the world. The format and content for the workshops and short courses are similar (1~3 days, team project based), but there is one large contextual difference in that participants in workshops are not graded while students in short courses are.

I am a firm believer in learning by doing, and as such, in my workshops and courses, participants and students work on various innovation challenges to practice their observation, synthesis, and ideation skills. Recently, I’ve come to the realization that the project results from the workshops tended to be more wild, creative, and challenging while project results from the courses tended to be more conservative, incremental, and at times pedestrian. While it’s difficult to judge results from such a short project, I find the results from the workshops to be more interesting and innovative even if unrefined and seemingly unrealistic. If I was trying to achieve some breakthrough innovation, the workshop results would be a much better starting point in my opinion. It’s easier to make a wild idea more realistic than to make a conservative idea more innovative.

Playing to win vs. playing not to lose

Ichiro, the Japanese baseball player, once commented that in the US, players played to win while in Japan, players played not to lose. I think the same dynamic is in effect here. Students in courses are afraid to be wrong (even if there aren’t any right or wrongs in my courses) and as such, they present more conservative ideas out of fear that the wilder ideas may seem unrealistic. Workshop participants on the other hand are freer from repercussions and as a result, they can be more imaginative and challenging.

Extending this out to the real world, there are some implications that need to be considered in trying to design innovative organizations and executing innovation initiatives. If people have the fear of failure because their wellbeing is closely linked to the results of the project or initiative, it will undoubtedly force them to be more conservative most likely leading to uninteresting results. Some companies have taken note of this and have tried to minimize the fear of failure from their employees. W. L. Gore and Associates has been known to celebrate project cancellations to send a message that because something didn’t work out, it’s not necessarily a failure.

While such initiatives are commendable, there can be difficulties in implementing something like this where the fear of failure is not only part of the corporate culture, it’s part of the national culture such as in my home country of Japan or my adopted country Germany.

An alternative approach to disconnecting fear from failure could be to take the innovation challenges beyond the corporate walls to outside institutions whose responsibilities and dependencies are inherently limited. I believe that one of the many advantages of design and innovation consultancies is that their success is partially disconnected from their clients’. While successful projects could mean more business in the future, failures won’t damage the consultant or consultancy in the same way an employee or manager could be damaged. That with more procedural freedom is a great recipe for innovative work.

Another place to take innovation initiatives is academia. While there are many projects unfit for students due to the technological complexity or confidentiality issues, as long as the students’ grades aren’t too directly linked to client satisfaction, they can be a lot more flexible and imaginative than hand-cuffed employees.

I’m not advocating the complete abandonment of accountability and responsibility, but there are times when such things could be obstructions in trying to accomplish innovative work. Like with everything else in the company, organization structure, work processes, and motivation schemes need to be designed to fit the task at hand.

About Sushi Suzuki

For a long time, there were niche communities of “lo-fi” camera enthusiasts: people who shared photos taken on old cameras that had interesting ways of filtering shots. The iPhone app Hipstamatic popularized lo-fi filters, selling over 1M copies. Because Hipstamatic lacked sharing features, many users took pictures with Hipstamatic and then shared them using other apps. Then came Instagram, which combined lo-fi filters and easy sharing. Instagram has been downloaded 15M times and has apparently crossed over to mainstream users.

Instagram built a product devoted to a job that users were previously performing improvisationally using multiple products. This is a common pattern for popular software and services. Before Twitter, people shared interesting links through email or “link round-up” blog posts. Tumblr’s short-form blogging/re-blogging was inspired by an “unintended” use of long-form blogging platforms like WordPress. Before Foursquare, power socializers sent out mass text messages with their locations (in fact, Foursquare’s predecessor Dodgeball did exactly that).

This idea has been discussed in-depth by Eric van Hippel who developed the so-called lead user method (PDF)  to identify opportunities for new products and services.

I stumbled upon this infographic, which does not contain any concrete information but instead gives an artistic, visual impression of the creative process. There are two ways to react to this graphic and I think they can teach us a lot how we see innovation.

Reaction 1: Embracing the chaos for more creativity

If your first reaction to this image is to agree with this visual representation of the creative process and that it is a complex, unstructured process that may or may not lead to innovations you probably have experienced these moments when somebody, somehow has a breakthrough moment where everybody just knew that this idea will lead to a breakthrough.

It is very hard to plan for these moments and the fundamental truth remains: You can’t force humans to think faster or creatively. You just have to manage to create a process that allows these ideas to emerge. Nevertheless a complete lack of structure without any constraints will never lead to any results either.

Reaction 2: Structuring the chaos for more creativity

If you look at that image and say “What’s that? Just some painting – this needs to get structured!” you have probably experienced the benefits of structuring and clearly defining processes to achieve the best results. Academic research has shown correctly that structuring processes has lead to better quality, predictability and ultimately efficiency and efficacy.

Removing these processes will not necessarily lead to an improvement because planning for “Heureka” moments of inspiration and insights is impossible because they have to come from within the individuals that are engaged in this process and cannot be forced upon them.

Is there a solution?

So the ultimate question is: Is there a solution to this challenge of structuring the chaos while at the same time embracing the necessary freedom to let chaos emerge? The answer is: There are solutions, but there is not one single recipe that could be applied in a recipe-like style. From my personal experience it depends just so much on the corporate culture and I am thinking of using this image in the future to get a better grasp how companies see the creativity and innovation challenge by asking them: If you look at this picture, would you rather embrace the chaos or structure the chaos to develop breakthrough innovations.

Creating a remarkable conference experience

Lift is a success story in itself that started as a small event organized by friends in 2006 and which has grown to around 1000 participants in 2011. For the 7th time this year, Lift conference is the meeting place for innovators and creative leaders from Switzerland and all over Europe. What stayed the same is the friendly, familiar atmosphere that makes connecting with people, sharing ideas and discussing plans so easy. One element to ensure this atmosphere is the onboarding session as well as the workshops during the conference.

Another example of the uniqueness of the conference: The annual Fondue-night where all participants meet for Swiss cheese fondue and drinks and as mentioned before – the perfect chance to dive deeper into conversations started earlier.

This years speakers include among others, David Rowan, editor-in-chief of Wired UK, Sean Park the founder of BankSimple, Nick Heller who will talk about how Google innovates and Hojun Song who is working at the open source satellite initiative. The full program can be found on the Lift website.

A great conference starts with the journey to get there

In order to make it even easier to get there, Zurich-based customer experience consultancy Stimmt AG and Lift organized a dedicated coach on the Zurich – Geneva train line that allows conference participants from German-speaking Switzerland or attendees arriving at Zurich Airport to get there more easy. The aptly-named train called Röstigraben Express is scheduled Zurich to Geneva on Wednesday, Feb. 22. «Traveling to and arriving at a conference often is an awkward experience» resumes Glenn Oberholzer «You travel alone, don’t know how to get to the venue, need to stand in line to check-in, have to find your friends. Let’s do this better at Lift12». And so Stimmt and Lift organize a coach on the regular train that will offer complementary breakfast, pre-check-in and most of all allow Lifters to connect even before they get to Geneva.

The perfect opportunity to get to know the Swiss innovation and technology scene

This train is not just making it more convenient to get to the conference but it is the perfect mode of transportation if you are planning to visit Lift from abroad. Just take an early morning flight to Zurich and then take a train from Zurich Airport to Zurich mainstation (approx. 10 minutes) where you can switch trains and join the Röstigraben Express on February 22nd at 9:32. There is also a 10% discount if you register with the code RöstigrabenExpress12 and you can find more information on the conference and the Röstigraben Express as well as the possibility to register on their website.

Bounty vs. Snickers and the behavior of milkshake buyers

It turns out that if you apply this framework to chocolate bars you discover that customers “hire” chocolate bars for completely different reasons . While Bounty is hired as a sweet delight that melts in your mouth, Snickers is hired by customers as a substitute for a real meal. Therefore the experience of eating a Snickers is different and consists of biting and chewing that gives you the impression you are eating something real.

Reframing the marketing positioning challenge

As it turns out Tony’s vision is much bigger and what started as a book named “Delivering Happiness” is slowly turning into a real-world movement. After disrupting the online shopping world with Zappos, one of his latest ventures aims to disrupt an industry that is huge but ripe for disruption.

Delivering Happiness on Very Light Jets

Peoples perceptions about private jets today is similar to the the perception about cars 100 years ago: expensive, not very reliant but certainly a status symbol. NetJets has already improved private jet charter economics through fractional ownership programs and membership programs that give access to its fleet of private jets. This is certainly an innovation, but at the core it is an incremental innovation that made it cheaper to get access to a private jet. Nevertheless it has not yet completely removed the barriers.

Very Light Jets (VLJs) might just be the technical innovation that is paving the way for a disruption in air travel and private jet charter. Very Light Jets are private jets that are single-pilot operated, weighs less than 10.000 lbs (~ 4500 kg) and cost less than 5 million USD. Philipp Greenspun created an excellent overview of current models and there is also a comparison of models and prices. The trade-offs that passengers have to accept with VLJs  are that the you can only bring limited luggage on board, you might have to bring your own catering and there is only a very limited bathroom/toilet.

But these trade-offs bring a major cost benefit: direct operating costs are in the range of 300 – 800 USD per hour. The jet engine also allows higher flight levels and flight speeds which creates significant time savings. This makes a private jet that seats four passengers a very compelling mode of transportation.

VLJs have the potential to disrupt air travel and could enable an increase of air taxis – companies that offer privat jet charter with prices that match traditional airlines but with the flexilibity of a taxi.

JetSuite is one such company that is operating a fleets of VLJs and the company has recently been bought by David Neeleman, the founder and former CEO of JetBlue – also known as one of the companies delivering extraordinary customer experiences.

New Technology + Authentic Service = Remarkable Customer Experiences

Back to Tony Hsieh. He has recently invested 7 million USD in JetSuite and is now on the board of directors. Jetsuite has also repainted one of their Embraer Phenoms to match the branding of the “Delivering Happiness” movement. The real innovation and revolution are the prices: with advance booking, an Embraer Phenom 100 jet from San Francisco to Los Angeles can be booked for USD 1499 – not just a seat but the entire jet with four seats. And selected offers are already availabe for just USD 499 – once again the entire jet not just a seat.

Such a price combined with authentic customer service that creates a frictionless travel experience could be the trigger for the next innovation in air travel: low-cost, no-frills private jet charter. Sounds too far away? One could have believed that about low-cost, no-frills airlines some 20 years ago as well – and we all know how this turned out.

So according to this video, in the future we will be flying in airplanes with transparent ceilings, automated luggage storage and an area that can change from a bar to golf putting area.

Futuristic concept designs distract from the immediate problems

There was a time when I watched videos like this without giving it a second thought but recently I have reflected more on these videos. I have a very strong feeling that futuristic concept videos could be counterproductive because they distract from the immediate problems that customers want to have solved. The list of them in the case of Airbus is easy to create:

1. Find a way to control cabin pressure so that you don’t have to “pop” your ears
2. Increase air quality and humidity in the cabin
3. Internet and power outlets at all seats
4. Reduce the engine noise inside the cabin
5. Increase legroom and make seats more comfortable
6. Get passengers to the destination faster and without delays

These are the real problems that should be solved and a video like this is merely a nice marketing and promotion video. Airbus is not the only company, Microsoft released a new video envisioning what the future of productivity will look like.

Nokia released a video showing a futuristic concept for smartphone that uses nanotechnology to change its shape and surface.

All of these videos present wild ideas packed into a nice presentation using computer-generated 3D animations that are nice for marketing aspects but useless to facilitate innovation processes. They talk about a better future far out and miss out solving real problems today. If everybody is aware that these videos are just a marketing stunt – fine. But I can’t help and feel that these videos are used to distract from the fact that maybe there is nothing really new you have to show off. I think this is an inherent danger when one focuses on giving a nice talk about the next wild idea, instead of delivering a solution today to a real problem.

Is Apple a counterexample?

Now you might have seen another concept video that is already a little bit older. In 1987 Apple produced a video about the so-called Knowledge Navigator and in 2011 this vision has at least partly become reality with Siri. So is this an example that videos like this might indeed not be completely useless?

It turns out that the Apple in 1987 was completely different from the Apple we know today. Apple in 1987 was unable to compete in the changing market and focused primarily on marketing instead of building extraordinary products. I am quite sure that there was no plan in 1987 to nearly bankrupt the company, bring back Steve Jobs, secure financing from Microsoft, reinvent the mobile industry, acquire a DARPA financed research project and then launch the personal assistant Siri 24 years after the initial Knowledge Navigator concept was presented. The video turned out to become reality but it did not contribute meaningfully on the journey to get there.

Marketing tool but not an innovation tool

From this reflection I have come to the conclusion that such highly futuristic videos can be useful when they are used as marketing tools but they should never be used to distract from a lack of innovation and new products. Instead of telling customers what they will get in 10, 20 or 50 years down the road the focus needs to be on real problems in the next product cycle. That might not be that visionary, but most probably more successful.