Innovation Smoothies

Blending ideas from different worlds

Nicole HennigMIT Libraries

twitter.com/nic221

1

Welcome to Innovation Smoothies! Today I’ll talk about making creative thinking techniques a daily practice with an emphasis on blending ideas from outside the world of libraries. I drink a smoothie for breakfast every day and it blends organic fruit and leafy greens. We can blend ideas daily, too!

Repeating the same problems.

2

In the library world we are facing many of the same problems everywhere. We often discuss and agree on which problems we’re facing, but we don’t often seem to come up with concrete ideas for solving them.

Practice creativity

3

Recently I read a book called “Thinkertoys”... it’s is chock full of exercises and games that go way beyond traditional brainstorming. So we decided to use a few of these techniques for some visioning exercises with our staff.

NetflixWhat if libraries were like?

YouTubeWhat if libraries were like?

ZipcarWhat if libraries were like?

4

Queue, no due dates

5

a queueno due datespurchase on demand

Text to extend reservation, Zipcar pays for the gas.

6

Text message reminders, easy to extend reservation.Membership works in different cities.Delight users by not making them pay for gas or insurance.

Good Brands Report 2009

PSFK.com

7

Utility, Experimentation, Design, Community and listening

PSFK is a trends research, innovation company.

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”—Linus Pauling

8

We need to generate and try more ideas on a regular basis. It’s OK if many of them “fail.”

Creativity on a schedule

9

What if we set up a regular schedule of creative thinking workshops for our staff? What if we agreed to make live at least 5 new services per year?

Reward success & failure

10

the most creative people... have the greatest number of failures because they do the most stuff

http://bit.ly/2LxRZM

What makes people feel OK about taking risks?

11

- assurances that less-than-ideal outcomes would not negatively affect their career (49%)

- clear direction and support from leadership to take risks (31%).

http://bit.ly/4do4gY

12

1.What were your contributions to successful innovation of the organization?

2.What were some of the new things you tried that didn’t work out? What did you learn?

http://bit.ly/4CzKr

You should have a list of things you tried that didn’t work out

13

A place to experiment

14

MIT Libraries Betas

libraries.mit.edu/betas

15

Read

Flexibly changing course

16

- Flickr began as a game.

- Paypal began as a way for PDAs to beam money to each other.

17

Subscribe

So important to read blogs from outside our own field. Some of my favorites are here. You’ve probably heard of or watched the famous TED Talks videos, but have you watched the videos from Pop Tech? A similar conference held in Camden, Maine?

18

Attend

Some of the best ideas come from non-library conferences, too. One of my favorites is GEL: Good Experience Live, held in New York City for 2 days each spring. One day is field trips where you experience “good” and the next day is filled with inspiring presentations from many fields.

GEL: Good Experience Live

19

Garret Oliver, Brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery

http://www.gelconference.com/videos/

Day 1: direct experiences - tours, seminars, workshops - all across New York City.

Day 2: "theater day," when all 400-or-so attendees convene in the theater to hear over a dozen speakers present on-stage.

20

Get these slides: http://bit.ly/nic-pres Image credits: http://bit.ly/3Zs75K | Twitter @nic221

So let’s go out and delight our users with new innovative services. I invite you to download my slides and follow me on Twitter @nic221. Thank you!