Pepsi wants to sell more pop in Europe. 

Their cans are the same colour as Coca-Cola’s – red. But… Coca-Cola is dominating market shares. So, surely a £500 million campaign to change their cans to blue must be the answer? 

They paint a Concorde supersonic jet in the new Pepsi uniform, bring in Andre Agassi, Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford to promote and televise the campaign… 

But in the food industry, blue doesn’t really cut it – it’s not considered ‘fun, dynamic and exciting’ – it’s just a bit conservative. 

I’m sure you can guess what happens (the title is a dead giveaway!) – Pepsi don’t see the returns they’d hoped for. 

Why? 

The issue was two-fold: 

• They wanted to scale but hadn’t bothered to exercise their due diligence; 
• They simply decided the solution was to focus on ‘the next generation of cola drinkers’… but failed to work out how best they could do that. 

Unfortunately for Pepsi, there’s more to product development than great ideas, like…

Exploring the feasibility of scaling products!

‘Scaling is the process of rolling out something on a large scale. Whether it’s a social movement seeking to improve society with a policy to reduce inequality, or a corporation trying to make a buck, scaling is central to what most major organizations are usually trying to achieve.’ – John List 

Frustrated by his own scaling endeavours, List (an economist at The University of Chicago) decided businesses needed a process to follow – so he wrote one. 

In his book, The Voltage Effect, List attempts to systematise and improve scaling, using failures such as McDonald’s Arch Deluxe (more on that later) to show us what we can do differently to ensure success. 

This article – ‘How to roll out big ideas and avoid the Museum of Failure’, List describes the 5 vital factors you need to consider when scaling: 

1. Avoid false positives 
2. Ensure focus groups are fully representative of the target demographic 
3. The initial ingredients to your successful trial must be scalable 
4. Watch out for ‘spill overs’ and the unintended consequences of scaling 
5. Ensure your product has positive economies of scale 

There’s some valuable nuggets of wisdom there, but if we’re going to do this properly… we need to see it in action!  

Let’s take a look around our carefully curated Museum of Failure – there’s definitely some lessons to be learnt. 

Exhibit No.1 The false positives 

Brace yourself, it’s another ‘let’s just go with our favourite idea!’

In 1996, McDonalds rolled out their new product The Arch Deluxe dubbed ‘the burger with the grown-up taste’. 

It was received well by their focus groups… but completely flops after release.  

Why? 

McDonalds got so caught up with their exciting new idea, that they forgot to focus on the target consumers themselves – what did they want? What did they need? 

Instead, they focused on what they wanted, which resulted in this costly catastrophe! 

Exhibit No.2 The full representation of target demographic  

Fast forward to 2021. The European Super League proposal is announced… And shot down within hours. 

The project fails as soon as it begins.  

Why? 

The 12 founding member clubs didn’t tap into their audience’s mood and their current distrust of billionaire club owners. Fans felt like the ESL was betraying the values and traditions of their beloved clubs. 

Fan power is as strong as ever but the ESL project failed to recognise that – it was certainly not the positive change to football they’d hoped to achieve! 

Exhibit No.3 The scalability of every product 

We’re in 2019 and the first foldable smart phone has just been released: Samsung’s Galaxy Fold. Pretty soon though, complaints about its durability delay its official launch. There are problems with the build quality and display of the screen, which is made of a plastic that easily scratches. 

Samsung state that the product must be handled with care. 

There’s no doubt this was a flop and in Samsung’s quest to launch the first foldable smart phone, they forgot one vital step – the idea was not tested technically. Uh-oh. 

Exhibit No.4 The dreaded spill overs 

It’s 2014 and Google Glass has just been released to the public. Smart devices, multitasking and hands-free use-ability are the latest trends in the tech industry… So, there’s no better time to release a new wave of immersive consumer tech, right? 

Following a limited run the year before, Google was convinced the smart glasses would be a success… But they were a little hasty. 

They forgot about the small matter of surveillance and privacy laws – consumers were not impressed. 

‘When Google ultimately retired Glass, it was in reaction to an important act of line drawing. It was an admission of defeat not by design, but by culture.’ – Wired.com 

Exhibit No.5 The economies of scale 

Let’s go all the way back to 1976 and the unveiling of the Concorde – a jet capable of flying at supersonic speeds.  

It’s an amazing feat of engineering and a pretty impressive example of modern scientists’ ingenuity.   

But the fuel was too expensive. Not enough people could afford to fly on it. The aircraft was not profitable. And following a horrific accident in which 113 people died after the jet crashed into a hotel… it was a done deal. 

By 2003 the Concorde was retired. 

The economies of scale for the supersonic jets just weren’t viable. 

Now to end the tour, here’s one final exhibit… 

Oranges wrapped in cling film… genius? 

Organic supermarket retailer Wholefoods decided to take convenience to the next level – because why unpeel an orange when you can just unwrap the cling film it’s covered in? 

It’s quick, easy, convenient, and the cling film provides an excellent protective layer to stop an orange from going bad…  

Sounds a bit like orange peel? 

To find out more about how we can help you with your innovation challenges, in Lancaster, Lancashire, the North West and beyond, get in touch.

The post Product flops and how to avoid them appeared first on Groundswell Innovation.

Lots of companies ‘talk’ about being innovative, but…

Without a leadership open to innovation, there is no innovation.

This is a yes/no gate.

“Building an innovative culture is a long-term play, not one that is focused on short-term returns.”

The person who started the company gave themselves permission to take a leap of faith. Once that new enterprise has been established, the owner will probably continue to try out new ideas. It doesn’t necessarily follow that this permission is devolved or PERCEIVED as having been devolved to management teams working for business owners.

Leaders need the right mindset for innovation. Having an innovation mindset means:

1. Recognising that space to experiment can look and feel like ‘waste’.
2. Devolve permission to fail (within a limited time / resource budget) – otherwise no-one will rock the boat.
3. Do something with the ideas that get put forward – without defaulting to a yes / no decision.
4. If YOU don’t make time to innovate, then you won’t be giving your teams time to innovate either.

Even ‘with’ leadership, management teams skills centre on ‘business as usual’

You hire people for a specific role because of their experience in your sector, or in that particular skill set. They then push forward at full speed, getting the job done.

What room does this leave for new ideas or exploration of alternatives?

“If you maintain a helicopter view – look at broader trends, go and steal ideas from other industries.”

Let’s explore the concept of being a customer-centric company. In a B2B environment this can create a great deal of customer-reactive innovation – jump, how high? Next brief… etc. “Of course we understand our customers. We talk to them all the time” Here, we’re in danger of falling in to the Henry Ford mentality – “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse” Don’t deliver the perfect fax machine, create email.

“Let people in the B2B business get exposure to the customer and the customer’s customer so they understand ‘all’ of the downstream needs and their relevance to our product design.”

The power stays with the company that has closer links to the end users of your product.

A ‘customer reactive’ supply chain enables an environment where huge companies can remain agile – because they outsource innovation to much smaller companies. Contrast this with a company anticipating the ‘outcomes’ that customers and ‘their’ customers need. You become part of a much bigger conversation and gain a weightier voice when it comes to supply chain negotiation.

If we are standing still in the current business climate, that is equivalent to going backwards at full speed because everything else is changing all around us.

We don’t need to react. We have that choice. But then surely we are developing ‘deathstyle’ businesses, not lifestyle ones. Lifespan businesses, set to operate over a finite time period with no plan to sell them on as a going concern.

The problem underlying this compulsion to ‘change nothing’ is the fact that the perceived risk of doing something looms larger in our minds than the actual risk of standing still in a flowing current.

Innovation happens ‘somewhere over there in R&D’ and only in the form of big tech projects that don’t concern the rest of us who are concerned with servicing current orders.

Maybe the time has come to re-frame the language we use around ‘innovation’.

What if we started talking instead, about keeping everything the same – same budget, same workforce, same capabilities and assets.

But reducing our cost by 10%. Or increasing operating profit by that amount.

Would innovation start to seem more appealing?

This is where we can ‘make things differently’ rather than just ‘making new things’. The HOW of innovation, not the WHAT – altering for the better, the everyday ways of doing business that we take for granted.

Smaller companies with a fixed business model find it more difficult to justify the distraction from ‘business as usual’ when it comes to developing new ideas.

It is clear that relatively young companies or those with low-level investment in capital plant, can change their business model and their company culture relatively easily, to embrace innovation and idea generation in all its forms.

“Innovation doesn’t have to be one big idea. It can be 100 small ideas that all bring positive results”

Conversely, innovation becomes difficult to embed or optimise in established companies where the culture is set and the pre-conditions for creative thinking are not in evidence.

As an established company with a strong order book, it can be difficult to justify rocking the boat by trying out new ideas. What is the incentive? Failure, wasted effort? And besides, there is enough to keep everyone busy just filling current orders.

In these circumstances, no amount of new idea generation will create an innovation culture. Indeed, such activity is likely to be short-lived and become a demotivating activity for staff if ideas are not valued or progressed.

But the SMEs who do build in innovation can start to move faster than big companies.

As a small company there is far less to get in the way of quickly evaluating and exploiting ideas. We can be far more ‘agile’ than larger companies.

So is now a good time to evaluate how your leadership style cultivates innovation in your business?

Interested? Contact Jane to see how innovation can make your business more agile – to put more money in the bank. We work with businesses in Lancashire, the North West, and across the UK.

The post Identifying the barriers to innovation appeared first on Groundswell Innovation.

The North of England has a rich history of innovation and entrepreneurship, with countless innovations that have helped shape the world we live in today. From the Industrial Revolution to the development of the computer, the North has been at the forefront of technological – and many other – advancements throughout history. Full steam ahead! 

The Industrial Revolution  

The North was home to many important inventors and entrepreneurs during the Industrial Revolution, including Scotsman James Watt, inventor of the steam engine (and namesake of the ‘watt’ unit of power) as well as Lancashire entrepreneur Richard Arkwright, who invented the spinning frame, an apparatus powered by water. Both innovations helped revolutionize the textile industry, making way for mass production and the foundations for modern manufacturing. 

John Walker, a British pharmacist from County Durham, accidentally discovered that a mixture of chemicals could be ignited by striking it against a rough surface, which led to the invention of the first friction match in 1826. 

The RSPB 

Frustration is often a great propellant for innovation. In 1889, Emily Williamson (Lancashire born and bred) had one aim – fight the growing popularity for feather fashion and the plumage trade that was driving the extinction of little birds, like her favourite Great Crested Grebe. She created the all-women movement, Society for the Protection of Birds, after it became clear the male-only British Ornithologist Union wasn’t going to take action.  

Lifeboats and lifesavers 

Development of purpose-built lifeboats (and thus the beginnings of the modern lifeboat service we know today) began in 1789, after locals helplessly watched sailors drown after their ship Adventure ran aground in the mouth of the River Tyne during a storm. 

A globally recognised exercise regime 

Joseph Pilates, a German boxer and circus entertainer created the Pilates training Method during World War 1 whilst serving as a prisoner of war in Jersey, Lancaster, and finally the Isle of Man. After observing the movements of the Island’s cats, Pilates devised a regime based around muscle-stretching exercises.  

Computing and technology 

The North was also a major player in the development of the computer. In the 1940s and 50s, Manchester University became home to one of the first stored-program computers, the Manchester Mark 1. Developed by Frederic Williams and Tom Kilburn, it was one of the earliest computers that could store and execute programs electronically – paving the way for the development of modern computing. 

Jonathan Ive, who studied at Northumbria University in Newcastle in the 1980s began his career as a product designer, working for several companies before joining Apple in 1992. Ive was responsible for the design of many of Apple’s most iconic products, including the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. His work was instrumental in helping Apple become one of the most valuable and influential technology companies in the world. 

Nuclear power 

In 1956, The Calder Hall (located in Cumbria) was the world’s first commercial nuclear power station. A joint project between the UK Atomic Energy Authority and the electricity supply industry, it propelled the use of nuclear power worldwide. 

Renewable energy 

Today the North is well-known as a centre of innovation for renewable energy. It’s home to many of the UK’s largest wind farms, and companies like Siemens are developing new techniques for offshore wind power. The Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult based in Blyth, Northumberland, is a world-leading research and development centre for offshore wind, tidal, and wave energy.  

Other clever stuff 

Graphene is a revolutionary material that was first discovered by scientists at the University of Manchester in 2004. It is an incredibly strong, lightweight and conductive material, with a wide range of potential applications, from high-performance sports equipment to medical devices. Alongside that, it has the potential to revolutionize industries such as electronics, energy, and even space travel. 

What’s next? 

It’s amazing to think that so much of the tech we use today has come from humble roots in the North… Whilst people are still quick to talk of our kindness, honesty and hard work, we’re carving a new face for the region – one that’s founded on creativity, innovation, collaboration and of course, a gold old dose of Northern grit. 

Innovation isn’t an easy undertaking, but we’re standing on the shoulders of an impressive set of inventors and entrepreneurs, who serve as good inspiration for what is possible. 

To find out more about how we can help you embed innovation in your business, in Lancashire, the North, and beyond, get in touch.

The post Innovations from the North that changed the world!  appeared first on Groundswell Innovation.

Inclusivity refers to the practice of including and valuing individuals from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Ethics refers to a set of moral principles and values that govern behaviour.

The tech world is developing at a pace we simply can’t keep up with. For all the good it can bring, there’s a whole host of, well, not so desirable impacts. And that’s possibly the biggest challenge we’re facing when it comes to inclusivity and ethics in tech innovation; not the development of the tech itself, but the issues we face as a result of it. 

The Collingridge Dilemma

“Each technological change brings progress. However, in many cases, it also causes problems of another variety.” – The Collingridge Dilemma 

First proposed in 1980 by David Collingridge, and now more relevant than ever, the Collingridge Dilemma asks us to think more carefully about the innovations we’re so quick to adopt. Just look at Uber, who monopolised the taxi industry. Yes, the new app might make taxi journeys faster, easier and cheaper for the user. But what of the unintended consequences? The smaller taxi companies who couldn’t offer the same 24/7 on-demand service? The Uber drivers themselves who got more consistent work but ended up sacrificing decent pay for company profit? Who has actually benefited from Uber in the long run?

The problem with adopting tech is that we can’t take it back. As Sergio De Dios González says;

“Once a technology has been implemented, it’s extremely difficult to reverse this decision.”

The impact of new tech is irreversible

All you need to do is look at mobile phones. We can: contact people anywhere in the world, navigate cities, sign work contracts, find the love of our lives and open bank accounts at the click of a button. We’re now more ‘connected’ than ever before.

It’s life on demand. And easily misused. 

Privacy issues, identification theft, data loss and harvesting, security risks; we’ve become more at risk from scams, harassment, bullying… In the name of ease and accessibility. A life of connectivity and limitless opportunity – for those who can afford it. The ethics of mobile phone usage is dubious, as is the ‘inclusivity’ it offers us. 

PETs, policies and programs

Privacy, autonomy, health, social justice, democracy. The Collingridge Dilemma questions whether we could have predicted these problems caused by emergent tech. And if so, what measures could we have put in place to mitigate the risks?

Well, UKRI and Innovate UK have outlined the practices they’re exploring to help create a standardised digital ethics practice, which will support and shape future business innovation. Privacy Enhancing Technologies are a big part of that;

“PETs are a set of technologies that use different computational and mathematical approaches to extract data value. In doing so PETs unleash the commercial, scientific and social potential of data, without jeopardising privacy and security.”

The University of Edinburgh opened The Centre for Technomoral Futures in 2020 with an aim to bring technical expertise together with moral expertise in the name of “sustainable and just models of innovation”.

Unicef has nine living principles “designed to help digital development practitioners integrate established best practices into technology-enabled programs”:

1. Design With The User
2. Understand The Existing Ecosystem
3. Design For Scale
4. Build For Sustainability
5. Be Data Driven
6. Use Open Standards, Open Data, Open Source, And Open Innovation
7. Reuse And Improve
8. Address Privacy & Security
9. Be Collaborative

Whilst we are seeing a promising uptick in risk mitigation practices…

We’re still a long way from ensuring tech innovations are ethical and inclusive.

There are so many emerging solutions, but finding ways to get the majority of people and businesses to implement them isn’t so easy. Especially when most don’t even see eye to eye on the threats we’re facing.

So, how do we define what poses a ‘real’ risk? It depends on the people, their purpose (Profit? Social justice?) and their principles. Because their principles (ethics) govern their behaviour and the extent to which they will consider, and then adopt, specific mitigation practices within their operations.

And as highlighted in the Future of Privacy Forum 2020 white paper, industry frontrunners hold considerable power regarding the uptake of inclusive and ethical practices:

“Much of the important digital activity today takes place on top of technology structure operated by a number of leading companies. Access to data is enabled or restricted by decisions those organisations make and the technical or contractual requirements they establish.” 

So, what’s the real solution?

Acknowledgement, discussion, action.

As the UKRI says, practising digital ethics can’t simple be a tick box exercise, “it’s not just a list of technologies (however important) but involves asking questions about: privacy, autonomy, security, dignity, justice and power”

Establishing ethical frameworks could play a key role in that, as “a way of structuring your deliberation about ethical questions.” Chris Fabian and Robert Fabricant suggest questions like:

“Is this platform/product actually providing a social good? Am I harming/including the user in the creation of this new solution? Do I even have a right to be taking claim of this space at all?”

The Collingridge Dilemma suggests that if we’re to build ethical standards into our innovation practices, we must first define what risks and threats a solution poses, before we can take action. We must first reconcile exciting new tech with our ethical and inclusive obligations. After all, can something really be considered innovative if it doesn’t offer a better, faster, cheaper, easier solution to the majority? 

Written by Maia Broadley, writer and creative contributor for Groundswell Innovation

The post Are you inclusive if you’re not ethical? appeared first on Groundswell Innovation.

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series…  

We’ve seen triviality bias at play. We’ve seen confirmation bias and the backfire effect at play too.  

And we’ve seen the impact of these biases in a group setting – it’s killing your team’s creativity – and ability to innovate.  

Luckily for you, we’ve got 3 easy ways to avoid these biases in this 3rd and final instalment of The Death of Ideas – Part 3!  

The one where you prioritise diversity of thinking 

A diverse range of opinions and thoughts is key to avoiding bias.   

So, you need to think carefully about who you hire and who you work with. We’re talking about championing positive inclusion – you have to actively seek out people whose opinions will be different.  

The goal isn’t to ‘tick’ the boxes for your Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) policies. The goal is to seek different people from different backgrounds, and invite them to share their unique perspectives.  

So, this doesn’t just apply to the notion of hiring differently – it means including people from different departments in your conversations too, instead of having the ‘usual suspects’ in the room who will spout the same thoughts and ideas time and time again… 

Maybe a creative is fascinated with astrophysics. Or a marketing executive is finally learning about their heritage. Perhaps an analyst has a penchant for Renaissance paintings. Or a comms person is obsessed with rhythm and pace. Maybe a project officer is learning 5 different languages…  

Diversify your team and you’ll diversify the way you team will think, act and approach the problems at hand.  

Essentially if you focus on diversity of thinking, you’ll amplify the creativity and innovation of your team ten fold.  

The one where you can ask and/or answer  

Innovation management should be a democratic process, where everyone is invited to chip in.  

You need to invite them, yes. But you must follow that invitation through by creating a welcoming and supportive environment.  

People need to know that:  

1. Their voices will be heard  

2. Their ideas will be considered  

3. Their questions are valid  

4. Their unique perspective is vital  

Nailing an inclusive environment is key to productivity and creativity. The best way to do that is by refining your innovation process, which brings us nicely onto…  

The one where you use due diligence   

This is all about the process.   

You need to set up a process in which innovation is inclusive, creative and evidence-based.   

If you can do that, people will be with you all of the way – that’s how innovation will flourish.  

So, when you’re devising your process, you need to focus on two things:  

Answering these questions: have you…  

• Focused on your customers? (customer is key!)  
• Asked the right questions?   
• Created an evidence bank?  
• Interpreted your data from multiple angles?  
• Tested your solution?  

• Ensured it’s credible and profitable?  
• Drawn up a go-to-market plan?  

Personalising it to best suit your team and stakeholders.   

There’s a lot to consider when strategising. Not least, making it a fun and engaging (and effective!) process – innovation feeds off inspiration and creativity.   

And that’s our approach at Groundswell – we use unique approaches with every client to make sure you, your team and your stakeholders are getting the best outcomes – mitigating biases by amplifying diverse ways of thinking!  

The post The Death of Ideas (Part 3) appeared first on Groundswell Innovation.

What do water coolers, waterproof laptops and the ‘big idea’ have in common?

Biases! Ideas born from the likes of anchoring, triviality and availability cascades.

In the 2nd part of this blog post, we’ve got 3 more for you. (If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, go and read it now!)

The one where if it’s said enough times, it becomes tru

AKA The Availability Cascade

Jerry came up with the waterproof laptop idea and as we agreed, there’s lots of ‘credible’ points to back this new innovation up. It’s important to note that he was the first one to offer his idea.

Everybody likes that idea – well done Jerry.

It’s basically indestructible – good point Allison. So that’s a tick for a practical, long-lasting product.

You can take it literally anywhere – which appeals to our globetrotting customers. Nice idea, Dave, that makes it perfectly on target for our ideal customers.

And, it’s not been done before. Very true Jasmine – so it’s potentially a very profitable and original product.

Meeting adjourned. A waterproof laptop is our next project… And yet, you’re still concerned that Jerry’s idea isn’t actually all that great in the first place. The waterproof laptop won’t really solve any problems – it’ll probably be creating more, and that’s not really the point of innovating, is it?

So, what’s gone wrong?

The ‘big idea’ gains traction by repetition, becoming plausible by your group’s collective belief.

The one where all evidence confirms your idea is absolutely ground-breaking

AKA Confirmation Bias

We start our proper research into waterproof laptops. We need to know it’s a plausible and profitable idea.

· Our market research suggests that this kind of tech, with its USP, would make millions – it’s profitable.

· There’s a clear gap in the market for it – it’s feasible.

· Lots of people like to watch TV in the bath – it’s needed.

· It reduces laptop-bath-related-accidents by 70% – it’s plausible.

But we’ve ignored all the other research which tells us: DON’T DO THIS!

Those other pieces of evidence don’t fit into the narrative we’ve been telling ourselves, so we just turn a blind eye. We’re heading straight for the opposite effect of innovation: a useless, unprofitable and unwanted piece of tech… Whoops.

In the final instalment of our dive into cognitive bias, we arrive at:

The one where you go along with it anyway

AKA The Backfire Effect

The boss loves our laptop idea – especially because we offered great ‘evidence’ to support it.

However, other people are realising that it’s not really the answer to making the business carbon zero, so we present a case against it.

Alas, the boss likes the waterproof laptop, so there’s no pivoting or re-assessing the idea. Instead, he doubles down and injects more time, money and effort into it – ‘it will work!’ (if we throw enough money at it).

You realise this is completely out of hand… but the next thing you know, prototypes are being made. And now the boss only has ears for Jerry and his novel ideas.

Why should the rest of you bother anymore? Boss and co. worship Jerry and they’re blind to the truth: we’re not actually solving any real problems.

It’s a superficial solution. A passion project dressed up in a corporate suit.

That doesn’t matter – no one is going to listen to you anyway.

Are you sure about that?

Maybe it’s just your own biases coming into play.

Now we’ve come full circle. Everyone has biases but there are ways to mitigate their effects. We need to address these problems to make way for truly innovative solutions.

And no, I’m talking about waterproof laptops!

Which begs the question: what can we actually do about it?

Read part three in our series, The Death of Ideas 3

The post The Death of Ideas (Part 2) appeared first on Groundswell Innovation.

FADE IN.

It’s late in the evening, and you’re sitting around the dinner table… the wine is still flowing and everyone is doing the obligatory ‘nibble at all the leftovers on the table until there’s only crumbs left’ (You were hoping to have that last slice of cheesecake, once everyone had left).

So, you’re wined and dined and the conversation is turning to those two avoid-at-all-costs dinner party topics: politics and religion.

All it takes is one differing opinion on even the tiniest of matters and the room erupts into lively conversation. That is, until one off-hand comment changes the tone – someone vigorously disagrees, another finds it offensive, it’s all a bit too close to home for others and some are just finding it all downright hilarious. The night ends with subdued ‘thank you’s’ and curt ‘goodbye’s’…

FADE OUT.

Sound at all familiar?

It’s not fun, which is a bit of a problem. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. The problem – as seen in the dinner party scenario – lies in our cognitive biases. The ones which shape our own belief systems, perceptions, opinions and decision making.

The second problem comes from the complex combination of different cognitive biases mixed into a group setting.

The third problem is probably alcohol related (losing your inhibitions and all that!) but that’s beside the point.

So, what’s all this got to do with inhibiting innovation? And why does it matter?

Problem #1 = Cognitive biases. You’ve probably already guessed it, but they affect our creativity and imagination, which means they affect our ability to innovate and be entrepreneurial.

Problem #2 = We all know that creativity feeds off collaboration. In group settings we can bounce ideas off each other, create new ones or veto unhelpful ones.

In groups our biases often become amplified.

Which is where the real problems start: if someone’s ideas are constantly getting knocked down during a meeting, they might stop bothering. Equally, if one person’s ideas are always praised, supported or even put on a pedestal, they’ll command the room every time.

It’s these dividers that hinder innovation. We need ‘meetings’ where everyone feels heard and valued – we need to focus on inclusion and the diversity of thoughts (and biases) which come with that.

The one where we avoid the big tasks

AKA Triviality Bias

The big issues that need solving are, well, just too big. Overwhelming. Complicated. Time-consuming.

So, as a group, we focus on smaller trivial issues e.g. How can we make our water cooler more sustainable? Rather than – how can we achieve carbon zero without compromising the quality of our product?

We praise ourselves for solving the small water cooler issue, but that won’t help our ultimate business goals.

Yes, small actions are positive – especially if they spark more ideas and innovations. But if all that time spent on the water cooler ‘problem’ is the sum of our efforts, we seriously need to rethink our approach!

The one where a single idea snow-balls

AKA Anchoring

The boss is rethinking the USPs for our tech offerings… something that’s in line with current customer trends: conscious consumerism and sustainability.

Of course, sustainability reaches right through the supply chain. We know how to tackle that, but what’s the new product?

A waterproof laptop.

Fab idea Jerry.

Everyone agrees.

Which leads a few more people to pitch ideas around the same theme: fully waterproof tech. We’re talking about mobile phones, power banks, headphones… Great.

But on your way home, it all starts to sound a bit naff, doesn’t it?

And on second thoughts, it’s a truly terrible idea.

Anchoring bias is at play here. Everybody anchors their ideas to the first one presented / the first one greeted with approval. The problem of course, is that every other suggestion is based on that first one – no one tries to come up with anything new.

Which leaves us with a waterproof laptop concept. Hmm.

There’s no bank of ideas, no hypotheses to test, no creative alternatives… Where’s the innovation in that?

The post The Death of Ideas (Part 1) appeared first on Groundswell Innovation.

For place-based innovation to generate positive impact, we need to work in a way that will benefit everyone. 

We’re all for economic prosperity as a goal, but innovation focused on a specific location must generate shared prosperity for the people already making that place their home.   

Jane Dalton (Groundswell Innovation Founder) joined a group of place-based innovation experts for a panel discussion as part of the Innovation Places Summit held by Connected Places Catapult. The panel provided insight and ideas around how we can work as communities to benefit everyone.  

Read on for our team’s key takeaways from the discussion panel: 

As we recover from the pandemic, innovation has a crucial role in aiding the UK economy’s growth and stability. Jane talked about the importance of baking in social and civic outcomes right from the start of an innovation project. She focused on what the outcomes of real innovation should look like, and how this relates to her current project with Preston Partnership and the Towns Fund Project… 

Economic growth is always going to be challenging, but through our work with two places in the North West we’re seeing people rise to the challenge.

“We need to be asking questions such as: what are the up-skilling elements, what are the new jobs that we can create?”  

– Jane  

Preston’s community wealth framework is all about putting the richness of life within reach for the people of Preston. Delivering on our ‘richness of life’ narrative both geographically and economically, is crucial.

When ideas align…

In theory, Place-based innovation is a very clear process. It’s important to start with the end in mind and to have very clear goals set out right at the beginning. 

“The main difficulty is with public / private collaboration. Even with all the right people in the room, all passionate about doing the best for the city, that doesn’t mean all the agendas collide.” 

– Jane 

Of course, we’ve heard the old adage ‘if you want to travel fast travel alone, if you want to go far, then travel together’. It is relatable in many aspects of life, but Jane highlighted this as a key consideration when thinking about innovation. 

Having a shared financial goal, like a funding bid with a strict timeline can really help people align those agendas at speed. 

“It can be helpful to take it back to the basics: ok we’ve got a deadline, we have a chunk of money we can go for and we have a shared goal… Now we’ve got to do this at speed with the right support in place.”  

– Jane 

With the right goals and metrics, the right people in the room absolutely help… But it’s crucial to have the process of community engagement designed as part of the answer, not an end in itself. It all has to connect, in order to get our desired outcomes.  

Listen – it’s important!

During the discussion, one of Jane’s main points centred around listening, and how it’s crucial to listen intently to what the local population need, rather than just making it a tick box consultation exercise. Creating shared prosperity for the people with real impact is ultimately what’s going to make a lasting difference.   

Claudette Forbes (consultant and advisor of Whitehall & Industry Group) mentioned the need to address the current deprivation due to failing high streets. She acknowledged that there’s a huge amount of responsibility for those who are leading this kind of work – particularly when there’s an impetus to address local needs and make a real change… 

Forbes emphasised how important it is to involve people who would never normally have a chance to take part (in things like innovation) so we can hear from the widest possible range of voices and opinions from locals. When a committee is formed the intentions are there, but we still need to draw in more sides of the community – what can we do that would allow other voices to be heard that wouldn’t normally be heard? Can we make it fun? Can we use those situations to simply listen?   

When we’re trying to think of solutions, more often than not the answers are already out there, within the established community. So, the innovation comes from using what’s already in the community – allowing those wide range of voices to come forward, often with very good solutions. Because there’s real social value coming from this kind of innovation. 

Building from the ground up

Melissa Mean (Director of We Can Make) noted the importance of creating a community-built infrastructure using shared power, resources and ideas. 

Greater emphasis needs to be placed on the importance of involving the community and co-production, a view that all the panellists shared: 

“Policies need to be made with people, not for people.” 

– Elvira Uyarra (Prof. of Innovation Studies at Alliance Manchester Business School)  

We also need to focus on the ‘outside-in’ perspective because it’s not about how much companies spend, it’s about where they spend it. Do they invest locally? Do they have policies which focus on inclusivity? Equality?  

How can we drive economic prosperity to an area? It all relates back to listening to the community – because the answers are already there. Which means innovation must build on the existing strengths of a place: its people and its businesses. It must build on an already established community. And then we can start to think: how can we use these strengths to action positive change? 

What do we mean by the word culture?

How can we deconstruct that and think realistically about what we want from places such as Preston? 

Here particularly, where UK Government Towns Fund money is being used for cultural regeneration, we need to understand what that broad term means to people from different standpoints. For some it’s about participation spaces. For others it’s about seeing world-class art. We want to hear how this community defines culture, we want multigenerational ideas and opinions. We can do that by focusing on the young people in these communities… 

For example, with the Youth Voice programme Groundswell is setting up in Preston, it’s about making sure young people here are coming through the ranks from UCLan / Preston College / Cardinal Newman / school and are collaborating all together. 

We want to push their voices forward and show them that their voices are valued. We want to let them start leading the conversation because if we don’t set out to be inclusive, then it’ll never happen. 

Alongside this kind of innovation, we also need to focus on an inclusive economic development strategy. Can we encourage local enterprise and ambition? If we do, we help to fuel a whole series of economic engines where prosperity is needed most.

It comes back to avoiding ‘tick-box’ consultation and community engagement: we can’t just go in, ask a few questions (often with a bias towards certain outcomes) and then leave. It’s about allowing different voices to be heard, carefully listening to them and generating that sense of ‘Hey, they are actually listening to us, they value our opinions’. We want the conversations we initiate – and then facilitate – to continue long after our project has finished… 

“When we draw back from a project, we need to make sure we have left something ongoing which has a legacy.” 

– Jane 

So, our core intentions are very important: we need to be collaborative, assertive and creative. Building trust is the basis we need to work from. That is the foundation stone, and it takes time to build.

Preston Partnership and Towns Fund info: https://www.prestonpartnership.org/key-projects/harris-quarter-towns-fund-investment-programme/

Podcast on the Innovation Places Summit: https://cp.catapult.org.uk/news/innovation-places-summit-connected-places-podcast/

Quotes: sourced via Groundswell’s transcription from the Innovation Places Summit.

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Right?  About what?  Amid a wave of online customer surveys, what are we actually finding out?

Henry Ford reportedly said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse”.  I think he was right.  Ask customers direct questions about the future and people will give you their best guess, which usually bears no relation to what they will actually do when deciding what to buy.

So where does customer research work well?

If price promotions are your default option for bolstering sales, then chances are, a bit of conversation wouldn’t hurt.  Everyone likes a bargain, but there are always other factors involved. Customer grumbles are a great place to start.  Dig a bit deeper and you start to reveal the ideas competitors have overlooked: 

“I want to feel safer… I don’t want to compromise on… I’m not bothered about that, but I really do need something easier to use here..’  All of a sudden you know exactly how to build things people didn’t even know they needed.  

There are definitely some questions that should never be put forward in the first place – should it be pink, should it be £3.50? Don’t even go there.  If you want to get a thumbs up from customers, ask them what ‘outcomes’ they are looking for.  Not what features they like.  There are ways of asking questions so you get in-depth understanding, not hearsay.   

If you can get to know a customer’s world like you would a foreign country, you’re likely to find something really interesting. Here’s an example. 

How do you sell credit cards in a country where they are advertised by law, with a ‘ball and chain’ government health warning? 

First and foremost, you do it by understanding customers.  Culturally first.  Then in terms of the attitudes and behaviours that are socially accepted in that context. 

Did you know the Dutch use the same words to talk about excess spending as they use to talk about flooding?  In their eyes, credit cards pose a constant threat of ‘inundation’.  For a country in constant peril of merging with the sea, that is a pretty fundamental threat. 

Yet they regulate other things with strong social downsides in a very different way.  Their policy is to ‘let a little water in, to stop the flood’.  Allow a certain level of activity under a watchful eye, to stop the whole thing going underground.  So why not apply this to credit cards? 

We did just that.  Strong rational reasons for credit card use get overlooked in credit-hungry countries like America and the UK.  But in the Netherlands, they suddenly became relevant.  By reminding people that credit cards have in-built customer protection, we shifted their thinking and their behaviour.  Buying on plastic became justifiable for investment items, like washing machines or good quality furniture. 

Easy, when you understand the context.

A set of simple messages and a few poster campaigns later, we had a strategy that opened up sales channels with three high-street bank chains.  Not bad, for a market that had been written off as a dead duck. 

Maybe listening to customers does have some value after all. 

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Emotionally, the majority of people I spoke to were disappointed about the outcome. In reality, Brexit seems to have made a lot of people from the Polish community solidify their decision to stay here and commit citizenships

Patrycja Zawisza

An interview with Patrycja Zawisza at Groundswell Innovation

In conversation with Maia Broadley, Patrycja Zawisza discusses her role with Groundswell Innovation for Crewe’s Towns Fund consultation; from market research and re-discovering a community, to finding common ground and sparking inspiration for her thesis.

Crewe Towns Fund – tell me about your involvement

I’m from Crewe and I’m Polish, so I was really pleased to be able to get involved in the stakeholder engagement work that Groundswell Innovation was commissioned to complete by Crewe Town Board for the Towns Fund bid. 

My remit was to reach out to the Polish and Eastern European community because we knew there was a lack of representation.

It was a very odd time to be trying to engage in conversation because of the pandemic but I was even more surprised sometimes by what people said.

During the interviews it was strange to hear many people, Polish people especially, saying “I’m not confident enough in representing the community”. We used to have a very tight knit Polish community here in Crewe, there would be loads of social events going on.

Certainly not easy to connect with people during a pandemic. Did you face any other challenges?

Apart from one interview I did with an interpreter in Crewe, everyone else I had to speak Polish with. And that was kind of a new thing for me. It took a lot of practice to help me find my words in the beginning. It made me tap into the community that I didn’t really associate myself with because I mostly use and speak English. So, when I started reaching out, talking to different people and getting the survey out, I began to realise how large the community really is and how much is going on within the Polish community in Crewe.

Rev. Edwards (member of the Crewe Town Board) talked about the focus on receiving genuine responses rather than just ticking boxes… you’re both a resident of Crewe and a researcher, what was your perspective on the authenticity of the process?

I think it was authentic – we had some quite colourful responses!

As always, there’ll be a lot of people who will see a survey and want to list all the negatives about the place they live. But that’s an important part of the process, to let people vent their frustrations.

When people feel heard, you can often start to turn the conversation around to more positive discussions.  Others talked about everyday issues that can cause huge frustration. For example, rubbish collection, potholes and traffic all have a massive impact on people’s lives. Overall, people seemed quite hopeful to see that something really positive is happening in Crewe.

Getting a range of diverse voices was important for the consultation, how do you think that impacted the Polish community?

I don’t really see much of the town’s diverse outlook in the local press or anywhere online. In a lot of the interviews, people felt important because I’d say to them, the council is reaching out to us because we’re one of the largest communities in Crewe.

It made the consultation process itself a really positive experience for people whose views are not always visibly represented.  

Did you find commonalties within the different backgrounds and ethnicities you spoke to?

Everyone knows what needs to be improved in Crewe.

A lot of the outcomes people were asking for were well aligned across different community groups. Much more than you might imagine.

When we looked at all the data across the different surveys, and the interviews, the common themes were all pretty much the same. 

They felt the town centre needed a good look at, they also wanted far more facilities where people could come together as a community. Either around sport or around shared interests. The main differences were things like a bigger emphasis on green spaces for the Polish community. If you’re living in accommodation that doesn’t have its own garden, open spaces to play with children or meet with friends become really important for your general wellbeing.

And you spoke about the light-bulb moment for your dissertation. How did the work with Groundswell Innovation influence your research?

You see a lot of different reports on migration and Brexit brought out a lot of articles of people saying they experienced racism… I realised these were the big headlines in the media, but what are people actually thinking? 

Emotionally, the majority of people I spoke to were disappointed about the outcome. In reality, Brexit seems to have made a lot of people from the Polish community solidify their decision to stay here and commit to citizenships.

I connected to the Polish community through Groundswell and realised there’s a lot of community activity going on. I wanted to hear real people’s views rather than turning to the media, so I made that the focus of my dissertation research.

Would you say the engagement piece has been a catalyst for more change, more action? (Not least helping you with your dissertation topic and boosting Crewe’s bid for the £25million backing!)

It has definitely been a catalyst: if it only takes one person to do it for the Polish community and make an impact, then it could inspire other communities to do the same. People have said to me please keep me in the loop, keep me updated on what’s happening next.

I know Crewe Chronicle also brought out a massive four page spread in the newspaper, to talk about it!

To see how a Groundswell consultation and engagement piece can help to catalyse positive change within your community, then head to our case studies page here. 

Connect with Patrycja here

categories: Market Research

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How much evidence do we need that British manufacturing needs to keep incorporating creative talent as well as scientific and technical skills to stay competitive?  It’s time to add Art to the list of must-have talents for UK plc. 

The World Economic Forum have told us exactly which jobs are going to go, once Artificial Intelligence (AI) takes hold in the workforce.  Repetitious tasks will go to robots.  Ones that call for empathy, interpersonal skills and creativity will go to humans.  Because people, let’s face it, like dealing with people. 

Artisan brands, drawing on ever more creative design, language and marketing techniques, are impacting all kinds of sectors that have until now, been dominated by big players.  That’s why brands like Heineken are being forced to reassess how they build traction with consumers in light of the never-ending creative explosion of craft beer. 

Industry 4.0 gets us up to speed.  It doesn’t give us the edge.

Digital skill sets, urgently needed in greater supply to bring down the cost of Industry 4.0, have every bit as much to do with creative problem solving and design as they do with scientific and technological knowledge.  It doesn’t matter how good we get at Industry 4.0 in this country if that is all we have to make us distinctive in a global marketplace.  The same technology is available the world over, to every manufacturing cell from Stuttgart to San Diego.  We can’t be first to market, because other countries are already there with vast economies of scale.  So we need to be better, or different. 

The second annual Festival of Marketing conference in Blackburn made a strong case for a much more active collaboration between the two fields. 

I’m biased.  I’m an arts graduate. 

In a time before tuition fees I was lucky enough to study History of Art, Italian and French so names like Leonardo Da Vinci became pretty familiar.  I didn’t ever need to question what the arts have to do with making things.  Maybe that is what made it so easy to understand the manufacturing environment at Cumbria Crystal.  Without creativity, we churn out obvious answers.  Without design thinking, we create products that reference competitor products more than they do the needs of customers. 

And yet Arts degrees are being squeezed out of many UK universities, because they don’t instantly translate in to a specific job, in the way that business studies supposedly should.  If education is going to be all about immediate economic return, let’s convert ourselves in to a robot race right now.  Conveyer belt through a work-focused degree, drudge through a career, retire.  Learning as a source of fulfilment, happiness and an end in itself will be effectively eradicated.  As Lord Bragg put it in a recent Sunday Times article: “Britain is one of the leading places for study of the arts…it’s not because of some artistic genius that sprouts out of the ground like dragon’s teeth.”

UK Manufacturing’s competitive edge won’t spring forth like dragon’s teeth either.  We need to find and nurture our inherent points of difference.  Why can’t we yet again, be a STEAM-powered nation? 

What can individual manufacturing firms do?

Make use of talent from non-standard backgrounds.  Employ people for their attitude to hard work and their skill sets, not just their experience levels in your sector.

Encourage a wide range of problem-solving techniques within your teams.  This starts with regular conversations between people from different departments, so they can cut across silo working. 

Don’t just focus on cost.  Focus on value.  The value that your products and services can add for clients and end-users.  Not all of that will be derived from technical or scientific excellence. 

Join in the debate on Thursday 7th June and beyond with IOD North West

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Under no circumstances should you change.  Radical advice.  

A brand with history is a brand with a customer base, who understand and like what you are about. The last thing you want to do is alienate them.  

But we might not just want ‘them’, we might want to attract a broader range of different customers so that our brand grows over time.  

Trying to stay true to your roots whilst still remaining relevant in a world that is constantly moving on is a real challenge.  It’s easy to stick your head in the sand and go with ‘what you look like now’ because, after all, that has always worked in the past.  It would be just as easy, though obviously far more risky, to jump on the latest trend or design fashion and re-invent your brand at a superficial level.  Just like the pub chains do when they adopt the latest ambiance.  Basically, ‘do nothing’ or ‘panic and do something’ are both well-practised strategies.  Even though you won’t find them in many text books.  

But the approach that gives a much more solid brand strategy is to stick to what you’ve always done really well.  The values, principles and stories that make up the cornerstones of your brand’s heritage shouldn’t waver.  The new bit comes from understanding how best to re-express these values in a contemporary landscape.  We find the best place to look for this is a deep understanding of customers, current and projected in to the next 5-10 years.  Because from here, we get a way of communicating what we are about, using language that is taken from them.    

Think for example, about the problems you are good at solving for customers.  Do all of these needs still exist?  Have any new ones emerged?  Is the usage occasion you built your products around still the same, or has it altered over time?  If you look in to how these elements might have shifted; and view your brand through the eyes of any new customers you would like to attract, you can start to see how to re-express what you stand for in line with the shifting sands of consumer need.  

Worth remembering:

• First understand what values, principles and stories best explain your brand. Describe it as you would a friend – what anecdotes do you pick that best demonstrate it’s personality?
• Understand what problems you can solve for existing and new customers – what kinds of products or services will people buy from your brand?
• Above all, stay true to what you stand for. Just make it relevant for today.  

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It’s a simple, if slightly odd sounding concept but if you grew up with any kind of dressing up kit at your disposal, you’ll understand the power of a piece of clothing to spark imagination.

If you are lucky enough to have grown up watching Mr Benn – we’re talking anywhere from the 1970s to the 2000s – you might remember seeing the bowler hatted businessman escape the boredom of everyday life by spending his day as a clown, a knight, a spaceman or a roman gladiator. Look it up on YouTube if you’re bored of cat videos. It’s clear where Jeff Bezos got his inspiration.

Who knows if Dr Edward de Bono, lateral thinker extraordinaire who died in June of this year, was influenced in the writing of his Six Thinking Hats technique by Mr Benn? I like to think so.

De Bono’s legacy to teachers, students and business leaders was the idea that creativity could be applied in life by anyone and everyone.

He firmly believed that lateral thinking – a manner of solving problems using creative approaches that are not immediately obvious – can be taught.

To prove it, he applied just as much rigour to structuring creative thinking as you might to a spreadsheet or a Total Quality Management process.

During his writing career, de Bono gave us books and books of tools and techniques for children and adults to try out. In so doing, he demystified the creative problem-solving process and gave us winning strategy-setting tools like the Six Thinking Hats.

De Bono’s 6 hats exercise is a very practical method of asking people to look at an issue from multiple perspectives. It’s a great way of seeing past your own viewpoint to take in crucial details you might have overlooked.

The Six Thinking Hats

The blue hat is for big picture thinking. For the visionary in you.
White is for facts and information – what is our evidence base, what do we know to be true?
Red is for feelings and emotions. With this hat on, you can share your gut reactions.
With a black hat you can only talk about the negatives of the issue or idea under review.
With a yellow hat, only the positive aspects.
And the green hat is for new ideas. No judgement allowed.
All these new bits of thinking get written up for future reference, even if they don’t get carried forward now.

Depending on what you are trying to achieve with your team, these proverbial hats can be applied in several ways to bring group discussion forward in a helpful way.

The traditional ‘black hats’ in your group can try being a ‘green hat’ for a while. The creatives in your team can try their hand at disproving their own brilliant new ideas. The point is that as a whole team or sub-team, you all wear the same hat colour at the same time. So, you all push in the same direction as each other, rather than fighting for air space with competing suggestions whilst digging into an entrenched position.

Using this kind of technique stops a team falling into traditional ‘well you would say that’ potholes of debate. It gets you out of a rut and towards solutions that the whole team are prepared to try.

At Groundswell we know that creative problem-solving isn’t something only creative types can do. We have years of evidence that the right tool kit generates strong shared strategy, in corporates and small independent companies alike.

Winning new ideas, be they business models, products or incremental process improvements, are there to be devised by all comers. All comers that is, who are prepared to put on a different hat.

So, cheers to Mr Benn and cheers to Dr de Bono.  They’ve saved us from a lifetime of thinking and acting just like the next man. 

Edward Charles Francis Publius de Bono, author, doctor and consultant, born 19 May 1933; died 9 June 2021 

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‘Depop is the community-powered fashion ecosystem that’s kinder on the planet and kinder to people.’ 

Simon Beckerman and Maria Raga are the chief executives of Depop, founded by Beckerman himself in 2011.

The company was created originally with the intention of giving the readers of Beckerman’s PIG magazine an opportunity to buy items from the young creatives featured. However, he quickly realised the app required a selling function. This idea was reinvented as a marketplace which enabled its predominantly Gen Z users to build a new progressive and diverse space for fashion. 

Depop or Ebay? Depends on what you care about most.

Whilst sustainability always has been, and will always be of great importance, its ‘popularity’ is thriving at the moment.

Depop has enabled an eco-friendly younger generation to have access to contemporary, yet cheap fashion in a more sustainable way. It also provides a safe space for people to show their authentic selves and feel good about the style choices they make. 

The company has developed into a great example of modern disruptive innovation in the fashion industry, their aim being to mirror the disruption of Spotify in the music industry and Airbnb with travel accommodation.  

Depop is for the entrepreneurial, the cost savvy and the environmentally conscious.

It’s ‘the eBay of our generation’ with ‘the right interface and language’.

With eBay – to buy an item you have to email the seller and wait for them to respond before being able to purchase the item. Instead, Depop was developed with the integration and combination of social networks, geolocation and smart notifications, allowing the purchasing process to be much more instantaneous. 

Depop is not just somewhere to buy clothes on the cheap. Depop is Instagram and eBay. 

Depop is a place to grow a business and a side hustle, somewhere for you now and what you may become. 

This app is something we’ve never seen before in the fashion industry and yet it feels completely familiar to a Gen Z follower. 

If you want to know how to speak this emerging consumer language fluently, ask us how we can connect you with a global community of conscious consumers. 

: sourced via Groundswell’s transcription from the Innovation Places Summit.

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You don’t have to be a genius to be an innovator, but it certainly helps!

Alan Turing was most definitely both, standing as one of the most influential scientific figures in modern history. He’s recognised not only as the Godfather of the computer and computer science, but also a pioneer of the technology that has so dramatically altered the shape of modern society.

His innovations are what Peter Thiel would describe as a “10x innovation”: a solution to a problem that is ten times better than the previously available solutions.

We’d like to bring Turing’s achievements to light, enabling his place in scientific history to be fully recognised and appreciated… Alongside his remarkable mastery of thought leadership – the practice of being an informed leader and go-to person in their field of expertise.

Turing’s determination to learn and understand the world was like no other.

He grew up between London and Sherbourne in Dorset. Signs of Turing’s bright intellect were apparent early in his life: at school, the classics were prioritised over mathematics, so he took to teaching himself theoretical mathematics. Then at 13-years-old, Turing determinedly rode his bicycle 60 miles from Sherbourne to Southampton, unaccompanied, to join the 1926 General Strike. Aged 15, he condensed Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity for his mother.

After graduating from Cambridge with first-class honours in Mathematics, he was made a Fellow of King’s College in 1935 at the ripe age of 22 on the strength of his dissertation in which he proved the central limit theory.

The ‘Turing Test’ and Artificial Intelligence

In 1936, he published the paper that became the foundation for computer programming, “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem”.

The Entscheidungsproblem (the decision problem) asked whether there was an algorithm that could, given a set of axioms (accepted truths), determine whether a statement is definitively true or false within those axioms.

He mathematically proved that the problem was undecidable by a human. However, he announced that there was a hypothetical machine that, given a problem to compute, would either run forever or stop and give the answer. These became known as Turing machines and were a crucial tool in the Second World War.

He also birthed the field of Artificial Intelligence with his ‘Turing test’ which examined the behaviour necessary for a machine to be considered intelligent. He believed that a computer can be said to possess artificial intelligence if it can mimic human responses under specific conditions.

Leading by example…

Alan Turing was the brilliant mind at the forefront of cracking the Enigma code which was the catalyst for winning World War II. He had joined the Government Code & Cipher Squad (GC&CS) after studying cryptology at Princeton University for 2 years. The day after war had been declared, he reported for duty at Bletchley Park to break the Enigma cipher which was used by Nazi Germany to encode their secret messages. The code changed daily, making deciphering it seemingly impossible.

Turing was the vital powerhouse in the team assembled at Bletchley Park. He led the team by example and progressed the mission significantly with his inspirational innovative ideas and ability to turn those ideas into reality. The Turing Machine (or the “Bombe”, as he named it in homage to an earlier Polish machine, “Bomba”), searched for possible correct settings of an Enigma message (i.e. rotor order, rotor settings and plugboard settings), using a crib (a guess of probable text used in the message). The Bombe would perform a sweep of the possible 159 quintillion permutations using the principle of contradiction and extraordinary mathematical insight.

The first Enigma code was deciphered in January 1940 and gradually the code was eroded until they cracked it. Turing’s combination of intelligence and innovative skill has been estimated to have helped shorten the Second World War by at least 2 years and helped save millions of lives.

An influential innovator? Or a security risk?

Alan Turing was a gay man at a time when it was illegal to be homosexual. After the war, he was convicted under Victorian laws and had a choice between hormone therapy (i.e. chemical castration) or time in prison. Homosexuals were labelled as a security risk; thus, he lost his job code breaker.

In 1954, he committed suicide by biting into an apple laced with cyanide. At the age of 41, Turing’s death was tragic and untimely – he still had so much to offer the world. A man who had given everything for his country, saved countless lives, and created technology that fundamentally changed the trajectory of society, was wretchedly rejected for his sexual orientation.

Nevertheless, his legacy will live on far past the 41 years he spent on this planet.

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done”

Alan Turing was an innovator that did not deal with incremental progression: he was a radical driving force of human evolution. His contributions to science are up there alongside the greatest in human history.

His innovations have changed the course of life on this planet as we know it.

The sad reality of Turing’s life is that he was persecuted by a society that was still nowhere near as evolved as he was. In 2009 the UK Government issued an apology for his treatment and he was subsequently granted a royal pardon in 2013. He was chosen by the Bank of England to be the face of the new £50 note which came into circulation in 2021.

Whilst his legacy is growing and becoming more appreciated, it is nowhere near where it should be.

Putting Turing on the £50 note (unfortunately the one people rarely see!) is a step in the right direction in terms of recognising his brilliance and importance. However, it would be far more apt to honour him by putting him in the school curriculum to give him the full recognition and respect that he and his work deserve.

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We all know creativity and innovative thinking is key when it comes to generating new services and product offerings… The difficulty is getting your team on board, and then bringing them with you. Which begs the question: what’s the best way to nurture innovation within a team environment?

I should preface this by saying there isn’t one ‘best way’ to go about this. Your approach will depend on the nature of your organisation and the people who work within it.

Which is why I’ve got 5 ideas for you to experiment with – as with most things in life, we don’t all like the same things – so I suggest a mix and match approach is best.  Work out your ‘why’, get to know the way your team works and then start implementing these tips.

It’s not a quick fix (process!) but you’ll end up with a unique innovation process that fits your company’s needs.

Culture is key.

“Everyone has huge creative capacities. The challenge is to develop them. A culture of creativity has to involve everybody, not just a select few.”

– Sir Ken Robinson (UK educationist) on promoting creativity.

Too right. But how do you get everyone involved?

1. Cross fertilisation

I’m talking about diverse teams here. Diverse thoughts. Diverse opinions. The goal is to create an environment where different people – from different backgrounds – can share different perspectives. 

For most, that means hiring differently. But what about the people already in your company? Have you thought about what people from other departments could bring to the table?

Your project officer might have some great product ideas and your finance director might have some awesome analytical insights to offer… 

But you won’t know until you ask them! So, why not invite them to the table?

2. Democratise the process

Innovation needs to be a democratic process if it’s to have any lasting impact. Your team needs to know that they will be supported and heard throughout the process… and that their ideas will be diligently considered.

So, that also means you need to: lead by example

If your colleagues are afraid to question your ideas because you’re ‘the boss’, what makes you think they’ll offer up their own?

Show them it’s acceptable (and encouraged) to think critically, ask thought-provoking questions and offer constructive feedback on any ideas that cross the table – including yours!

Unique perspectives, remember?

3. Mitigate bias…

… by developing an innovation process which is inclusive, creative and evidence based.

Refine your process: create evidence banks, test your solutions, interpret the data from different angles, focus on solving customer problems, and draw up a go-to-market plan.

Make sure everyone knows the steps you have to take to ensure your next idea is credible and profitable. These approaches should be an integral part of your innovation process.

4. Invest to grow

Investing in your team’s growth is a great way to nurture their workplace creativity. The aim is to create an inclusive, diverse and collaborative environment…

So, why not provide opportunities beyond what’s needed for their role? What are they interested in? Is there another area of the business they’d like to learn about? (This will also help with employee retention!)

It’s worth highlighting that investing in your employee’s development should not just be reserved for those who show ‘high potential’ (more on that another day though).

Investing in your team also means investing in them personally.

5. Innovation training

How many people in your team freeze when you say ‘give me some new ideas for XXX’? Most of them?

The reality is that most people won’t understand exactly what you’re expecting from them. 

‘New ideas’ are great, but you need to get specific: what aspects of XXX are you focused on? What problem are you trying to solve? Are you talking about a complete do-over? A simple tweak?

Break the issue down into bite-sized hurdles – lead your team through the whole journey from problem to resolution.

At Groundswell Innovation we often find that employees need to experience idea generation and innovation in a supportive environment, to get the ball rolling.

They need a guiding hand to break the process down, keep them accountable and show them how even the smallest of ideas can make for truly innovative solutions.

Need some guidance and training? Learn how to create a unique innovation process – the Groundswell way.

Get in touch with Jane! Send her an email via jane@groundswellinnovation.co.uk

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Before we dive into the stakeholder best practices according to Nesta and Groundswell Innovation… Let’s just make sure we’re on the same page about social innovation.

According to Organisation for EconomicCo-operation and Development (OECD) social innovation refers to the design, creation and implementation of solutions which aim to address the socio-economic issues amongst various individuals and communities. Alongside socio-economic problems, many innovation initiatives also positively contribute to an area’s environmental and economic development.  

When it comes to social innovation and championing community-led visions in the public sector, there’s a lot of talk about ‘authentic’ public engagement and consultation. For many, that’s simply another box to tick in the bureaucratic process. But it shouldn’t be.  

Because with the right approaches we can develop policies, collaborations and solutions which have the potential to make a real difference – for the stakeholders they impact most.  

The right tools, the right approach 

So, you’re probably wondering: what are the right approaches? Nesta’s DIY Toolkit is a handy reference document outlining best practice and effective ways to engage stakeholders. A big focus of Groundswell’s innovation consultation is all about ‘collecting input from others’.  

Quantitative or Qualitative? 

Whilst gathering quantitative data is important, it often doesn’t give us the whole picture; you also need to gather authentic qualitative data – because that’s where you’ll see most impact. With that combination, you can draw links between data through a hugely diverse range of opinions and perspectives which will help you develop solutions that will truly have a positive impact.  

Nesta recommends drawing qualitative data from a number of engagement methods, including ‘interview guides’, ‘question ladders’ and ‘story worlds’ 

“The easiest way to understand a person is to speak to them. Interviews are a way to connect with people; an opportunity to hear them describe their experiences in their own words.” – Nesta DIY Toolkit (p.58) 

The idea is to gain an understanding of the problems they face, their environment and the ways they can be supported – and as Nesta says, “interviews also act as evidence for why your work is needed or what impact your work is creating.” 

Key Nesta Tools: 

The best practice to adopt is to create an interview guide or framework for your engagement, to ensure consistency in your process and clarity on outcomes. To get the best out of your interviewees, the process should be engaging, fun and have both broad and deep prompts.  

There’s a great section in the Nesta toolkit all about how to ask the ‘right’ questions, using a question ladder. Be specific, be clear. But please remember, the purpose of authentic engagement is not to guide your interviewees towards your desired conclusion – it’s to provide a space for people to explore and bring to light their own feelings and opinions. 

Don’t dismiss the importance of documentation… 

Whilst it’s insightful to take part in these interviews and workshops and come away full of ideas… You mustn’t forget to create a solid documentation process. You need to develop a structured way to record the content you discuss, so that you have a clear point of reference for further analysis, communication and key insights. Nesta recommends using their story world tool which “enables you to bring part of a person’s world with you once you start designing a solution that is addressed to them.” 

Authentic public engagement and consultation should no longer be a tick box exercise, and at Groundswell Innovation we work hard to deliver specialised stakeholder engagement which focuses on the heart of social innovation practice – the people. 

See our work in action 

For more insight, read our case study where we helped Crewe secure £20m of funding for generation of their town centre: https://groundswellinnovation.co.uk/challenges/crewe-towns-fund 

Sources:  View Nesta’s DIY-Toolkit here – https://www.nesta.org.uk/toolkit/diy-toolkit/  

https://www.oecd.org/regional/leed/social-innovation.htm

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What is inclusive innovation?

Innovation should be open to all and, like recruitment, is seeing a much-needed shift towards diversity. This shift, happening in firms and businesses around the world, is not just about workforce inclusivity – but also about having diverse ideas in the workplace. At Groundswell, we’ve talked about the benefits that inclusivity can bring to businesses for a long time.

Inclusive innovation is about providing opportunities to talented individuals from underrepresented backgrounds and helping ensure that the rewards of growth are shared equitably. After identifying the barriers to access many people are faced with, a recent report commissioned by the UK Innovation Districts Group and Connected Places Catapult recommends how the innovation economy can be made more inclusive.

The UK IDG works to ensure that place-based innovation drives inclusive urban growth. Their co-commissioners, CPC, with the growth of innovation economies at their core, ‘have seen first-hand the deep pools of talent across the UK’s varied places’ and are steadfast advocates of building on the talent, skills, and ideas already present in places. Both these parties believe that, especially in this post-COVID climate, inclusive innovation – utilizing the varied talents and ideas of people from all backgrounds – can help ensure that the UK has one of the world’s most advanced and dynamic economies for years to come.

Nicola Yates (OBE Chief Executive Officer, CPC) expresses her certainty that “with inclusivity at the heart of innovation, we will enable the new ideas, enterprises, and prosperity that our places are capable of”.

So … why is inclusive innovation important?

Innovation underpins advancements in productivity. Innovative ‘knowledge spillovers’ from one firm to another increase productivity across an industry, creating new jobs in-house and in related parts of the economy.

Increasing the access that individuals from poor or marginalized backgrounds have to roles in the innovation economy, expanding the talent pool of future innovators, can increase innovation productivity and drive economic growth. Just as important, doing so helps create a fairer balance between underrepresented demographics and overrepresented counterparts.

A case study

Let’s take the BUILD business accelerator pilot in Leeds as an example since, like us, it’s in the north of England.

This pilot, managed by Nexus (located in the University of Leeds), supported early-stage start-ups and entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups within innovation. The outcome of the twelve-week program was that participants turned their ideas, which were grounded in purpose and profit, into innovation-driven businesses that were investable. The consensus following the program was that it was an enormous success, demonstrating that making an effort to improve diversity and inclusion (at least in the Leeds enterprise ecosystem) can work in favour of the innovators and prosperity of a city.

The research

A successful inclusive innovation approach tends to have 3 key features:

1. An intention to embed inclusion beyond market requirements.
   • Treating inclusion as a priority and an essential component of innovation
2. Local engagement and tailoring.
   • Defining and understanding location and having objectives based on its unique characteristics and needs
3. Going above and beyond to unlock additional opportunities.
   • Opening opportunities for parallel projects, investments, and interventions

What you can do

The report suggests that, if you are a private organisation, you can:

• Model inclusion in all business operations through hiring and promotion practices
• Commit financial and human resources to the development of innovative funding models, valuing and internalising social and environmental returns (alongside financial)
• Reinvest and share the commercial and financial returns from successful innovation, at both fund-level and firm level, to create further inclusive and socially beneficial opportunities

With the understanding that implementing inclusive innovation can’t happen overnight, using these recommendations can be your starting point as you help lay the foundations for a future of more diverse ideas and increased productivity.

Key takeaway

Innovation districts often neighbour areas of deprivation, providing opportunities to harness the talents of individuals from diverse backgrounds; better utilisation of the skills of these individuals and their different perspectives and ideas can act as a catalyst for progress when ‘Levelling Up’ the UK.

Here at Groundswell Innovation, we believe in getting the right ideas to market faster and fitter for purpose. Being considerate of inclusive innovation can help you come up with more great ideas – we can help you get them out there.

The Report: Opening the Innovation Economy: the case for inclusive innovation in the UK

Written by: Kyle Kirnon, Groundswell Innovation

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Sheryl Sandberg is one of the best-known business-women in the world, but this is a position she actively strives to change.

A CV second to none quite literally, this is a name which has taken the business and tech worlds by storm.

When delving beyond the headlines, however, we must acknowledge the formidable lack of female power in such positions within tech giants. Although this makes Sandberg’s achievements all the more astonishing (if possible), does this not call in to question the very foundations on which the industry is built?

One might wonder where the downsides lie for a woman who has defied the odds to reach impressive new heights, but the cracks in Facebook’s reputation over the past few years have presented a more sinister side to being a woman in the tech industry, albeit, the most successful one.

With a third of the world’s population well within easy reach, we may question the morality of Sandberg’s position of power. However, it only takes a small amount of research to gain a broader context of how this power has been used for good. A prominent figure in business, but how does she do it?

One of the greatest testaments to Sandberg’s legacy of innovation is her revolutionary leadership style in Silicon Valley. Encouraging feedback for colleagues at all levels of the business, and acknowledging the power of peers as mentors are two of the things that she accredits her success to.

Contradictory to the commonly acknowledged ‘cut-throat’ culture, she creates an environment of constructive feedback. 

And let’s face it, it works. A book with sales well within the multimillions paved the way for the Lean In community.
With over thirty-five thousand members in 160 countries, you wouldn’t be wrong for thinking Sandberg can add peer mentoring innovator to her list of titles.  

“In the future there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.”

Sheryl Sandberg

Lean In is an example of innovation in its purest form – rethinking the way individuals interact with one another, to create mutual benefit from the synergy of encouragement. 

At its core, the community rests upon the provision that we don’t have to look ‘up’ in business to gain valuable, steady guidance. The proof? 85% of members state positive change to their lives, stemming from involvement in the initiative. She does it again. 

However, Sandberg goes a step beyond innovation for the ‘now’. She has not only inspired the current generation with her pioneering approach to leadership, but she has also created a vehicle which allows this type of innovation to continue into the future. Life-long, sustainable innovation, stemming from an invaluable arsenal of tools for the leaders and creators of tomorrow. 

Sheryl Sandberg has paved the way as not just a woman, but as an individual, in her respective fields.
An innovator, inspirational leader and trailblazer. Even in the face of controversy, Sandberg teaches us all a lesson or two, through a legacy of leadership and corporate-feminism which is sure to span generations.

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