Accidental innovation: P&G Ivory soap

P&G's hugely successful Ivory soap was created by accident. A worker went to lunch and accidentally left a  mixing machine running with a batch of soap inside. When he came back, the mix had been whipped to a froth, with soap so light it floated. By chance, the new floating Ivory proved to be both convenient and popular.

Source: The Art of Innovation book, Tom Kelley, p150

Accidental innovation: Aerobie American football

IDEO's Skyline toy division built a prototype for an American football that had built in tee-wings so you can kick it off the ground more easily. It turned out that these curved wings also straightened out wobbly throws in perfect curves. "And so the Aerobie football was born, one of Skyline's most successful toys."

Source: The Art of Innovation book, Tom Kelley, p110

Logitech's Accidental Red Steering Wheel

"When designing a new video game controller for Logitech, we sent drawings to IDEO's machine shop to have them knock out a prototype steering wheel to be made of rigid ABS plastic with a black rubber coating. But the shop was completely out of black rubber, which ... seemed like a potential disaster. So they molded the steering wheel out of red rubber, the only kind they could lay their hands on in the time. By chance, the client loved the brightly colored wheel ... inspiring the game maker to introduce a line of fire-engine red steering wheels."

Source: The Art of Innovation book, Tom Kelley, p110

Prototyping snowboard goggles in an ice cream freezer

An IDEO team needed to perfect the design for snowboard goggles in summer. So they borrowed an exercise bike, a fan for wind, and borrowed the freezer of a local family-run ice cream company.

Source: The Art of Innovation book, Tom Kelley, p103

Brainstorm Tip - Number The Ideas

Numbering each idea helps keep people motivated. "Let's try to get to a hundred ideas before we leave the room."

Source: The Art of Innovation book, Tom Kelley, p58

Johari Window Exercise

Excellent exercise Dina Pinner ran at Limmud. 2007?

• Whole exercise in same pairs
• Tell each other known unknowns. 30 secs each way. 
• Debrief: Did you interrupt? Why did you giggle? 
• Share things about you it would be helpful for them to know about to be a good partner in the exercise (40s each)
• Look at each others' shoes and tell me objective facts about them. Demo then 20s each.
• Congratulate/be nice about each others' shoes. Demo then 30s each.
• Help them in their choice of shoes. 1 min each way.

Facilitation tips:

• Open session talking a bit about yourself "I am judgemental; I am tired". Sets safe space. 
• Answer questions by referring back to self, e.g. I find this helpful.
• Push for ownership of emotions (from "You feel frustrated..." push for "I feel frustrated...").

Best Buy's Twelpforce

Best Buy employees are empowered to answer consumer queries on Twitter directly. They call this their Twelpforce, and have backed it up with a national advertising campaign.

The system seems to be powered by Lithium:
https://www.lithium.com/pdfs/casestudies/Lithium-Best-Buy-Case-Study.pdf

Shopping Journey Stages

• Browse
• Select
• Commit
• Purchase

Throwable Mic

A microphone you can throw around at events:
http://www.springwise.com/life_hacks/speaking-event-mic-thrown-audience/

IKEA Xmas Tree 'Rental'

Ikea, in the US and Austria at least, are renting(ish) real Xmas trees. Buy it for 25 dollars, and get a 10 dollar voucher when you return it.