The case for innovation outside R&D labs
via futuramb …
As we have been developing the Innovation by Design programme, we have purposely taken a user-centered approach to innovation. If you look at the classic venn diagram around design innovation, human values, or user needs, are external to the organisation. Technology and business are very internally focused. P A Martin Börjesson argues that a technology focus operates from a convergent mindset and is less successful at generating innovative solutions. Apparently some research was done at Karlstad University that proves the point:
… a group of users was invited to participate in an innovation process for end user services for mobile phones. During two weeks a large number people divided in test groups were provided with new mobile phones and notebooks to write down ideas about possible new services for that phone that pop up in their daily life. An interesting result was that the test group without technical knowledge outscored the group with technical knowledge both from a qualitative and a quantitative perspective. An even more interesting result came from another group consisting of non-technical people, who half-way through the experiment received some education about technical possibilities. After they received their mid-experiment lecture, i.e. learned more about the inner workings, their innovation score dropped.
