Find and weave your red threads
Innovation requires looking at the world differently and with kaleidoscopic eyes, where in every turn of the kaleidoscope, you see a new pattern created or discover relationships between seemingly disconnected things. The
book Red Thread Thinking: Weaving Together Connections for Brilliant Ideas and Profitable Innovation authored by innovation and trends expert Debra Kaye explores this concept. For starters, she pushes the strong belief that everyone can innovate, and innovation is a skill that can be learned and sharpened with practice.
Kaye’s tome spends a fair amount of time describing the difference between innovation and creativity. “You really need talent to be creative. And I believe to be an innovator you don’t need talent, you need practice,” she avers, adding that the only way you know something is truly innovative is when someone says, “Wow,” and that’s a game changer because someone has seen value in it and is willing to pay for it. Creativity can survive for its own sake but innovation needs to impact people’s lives. If something doesn’t change and if there’s no attendant modification in their behavior, there’s no innovation.
To further illustrate the point, Kaye expounds, “I elected to have a cowriter on my book because while I know a lot about innovation, I’m not a fantastic writer. My cowriter knew nothing about innovation and she said that helping me write the book was the most difficult assignment she’s ever had because of what she had to learn about the discipline and practice of innovation, all of which was quite new to her. At the end of the process, she came to me with three amazing innovative new product ideas that we hope to take to market together. Conversely, I have not turned into a great writer, because writing is really is an innate talent but innovation is something that can be learned.”
The theme of Red Thread Thinking is founded on a fable anchored on a commanding metaphor that shows that with the right relationships, you can reach dazzling insights that can eventually lead to profitably workable advances. The narrative revolves around an aged deity who lives on the moon. He goes out every evening, bringing a huge bag and a great book with him. In the bag are red threads, which are the bonds between those who will find each other in this life. The deity’s job is to connect these threads to all individuals who will connect in this life in whatever way. “An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break,” Kaye explains.
She likewise shares several red threads that you can produce smart and sensible innovations for sustained usage. These interlaced threads will help whet your inventive-thinking skills, crack hard issues, organize a presentation, chase new business potentials or manage your existing business with a fresher and more prolific approach.
Believe it or not, there’s a fountain of youth in your head — an eternal deluge of new ideas
can spring from your brain. And that fountain can make your thinking sharper, clearer, unfettered and more imaginative. Innovation ideas can be gathered inside your head, and you can incubate and sleep on them. Various studies have shown that your brain is more vigorous when you sleep and data moves from one part of the brain to another, so that new relationships can be made more liberally.
Kaye flips the paradigm on how to discuss the concept of innovation, and focuses on where innovation truly starts — with the individual. While she believes that structured brainstorming serves many purposes — as a process for team building or as an ice with the client — it basically isn’t going to solve the problem. It serves a different agenda. She even controversially proclaims, “Stop brainstorming and take a shower,” and adds, “I’ve never seen it work, because ideation is individual. I think there’s emotional pressure in a group, and if you look at all the studies, ideas come out of the bell shape curve. You’re just going to get the same kind of ideas from a group.”
Innovation is about what’s already present. Conventional wisdom holds that innovation is about the future, but in truth, “everything old is new.” You just have to learn how to form new relationships among a compilation of obtainable parts — what you already have on hand that is accessible — which can merge in new ways and develop into fresh products. There are no original ideas — only old ideas put together to shape a spanking new one.
Many innovators make the mistake of thinking that a new product must change people’s
behavior. In the first place, that’s difficult to achieve. It’s much more convenient to examine their habits and just create a new fit. Consumers are the strangest animals in the zoo. You must be familiar with their behavior and culture and know how to gather critical insights from monitoring them “on the job,” know how to live and do what comes naturally, and understand how to leverage hidden cultural meanings that explain why consumers behave in certain ways.
Insights are reconfigurations of knowledge in ways that no one’s ever thought of before, which result in new ways of looking at things. “Look what can play into people’s existing behavior,” she advises. The first luggage with wheels came about because of keen observation. Bernard Sadow was returning from a family vacation and while lugging baggage around the airport, he saw a customs agent effortlessly roll a heavy machine with the help of a skid with wheels. With a little creative engineering, bringing your suitcases around becomes more convenient.
How you frame a question is often the
biggest path to new ideas. Ask surprising questions. Jay Walker, the originator of Priceline.com, could have built another aggregator traveler site that offers the best prices and schedules. Instead he turned the tables. He asked hotels and airlines what they might accept. Consumers are now in a position to set prices, and as a result he opened a whole new paradigm in doing business.
What you see is what you get. Communicate your idea in a way that gives consumers an instant image of its uniqueness. Kaye writes, “Iconography, the perfect reduction of information to a single, unmistakable sign that can be quickly communicated, seems to be the forgotten stepchild of design strategy, language and simplification.” Learn how to create an entirely new language and simplify to the feature you want to highlight to create a story that is truly differentiated; then communicate in a manner that can be universally understood. You’ll be stunned at the success of innovation that makes for simpler experiences and interactions.
Attitude and belief in your own abilities will make you more curious and open-minded. Think that you are a genius and more willing to take professional and intellectual risks. The more you believe you can stretch yourself, the more you will think of your capacity to be smarter, and you may just be so. That’s the “force of passion” at work. When you come up with a new idea, lots of people are going to think you’re crazy. You have to listen carefully and know if the naysayers are simply being indifferent, or are identifying real problems. Without sustained passion, it can be difficult to absorb criticism with an open mind and a neutral perspective. If you can’t, you’ll kick yourself when someone else comes up with a similar idea and gets to market before you because they persevered until they found that one small breakthrough or the critical tweak that made the product work.
Being creative and innovative is not reserved for a few special people. You have the power to design and develop thoughts into things. You have the opportunity to connect red threads and build something novel. Keep moving forward, open new doors, and do new things.
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Everyone can innovate, and innovation is a skill that can be learned and sharpened with practice.