Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Creative product development Hoorcollege marketing blok 2 week 3

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Learning goals  By the end of the colleges and reading you should:  Understand why new product development is important to organizations  Know the stages of a NPD process  Understand some of the barriers to creative thinking  Be aware of some of the tools available to help creative thinking

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Agenda  Why is NPD important to organizations  The NPD process  Creativity and NPD  Barriers to creativity  Summary

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Why is NPD important to organizations?

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media 1. The marketing environment creates pressure to innovate

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media 2. Products have a limited life (A “product lifecycle”) The “classic” product lifecycle

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media So new products maintain sales and profit

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media So NPD is the lifeblood of most organizations  It helps maintains profitability  It allows them to stay at least one step ahead of their competitors  It ensures customer needs are being met  And it is often part of their image

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Successful new product development is usually based on a process

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Creativity essential to NPD  To develop remarkable products organizations must…  Generate remarkable ideas and  Capture these ideas  This requires creativity

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media One view of creativity and the barriers to achieving it

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media What is creativity?  One definition of creativity might be that it is: the ability to think of original solutions to problems  Creativity involves creating new ideas by associating existing ideas in new ways to generate alternatives  The advantage of this definition is that creativity is not about being an “artist”  You can be a creative marketer, programmer, parent or accountant

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Barriers to creativity

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media The creative process

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media What’s the problem?  Creativity is a process that involves  Understanding the problem - Problem definition  Generating possible solutions - Divergent thinking  Selecting the best solutions - Convergent (convergerend) thinking  We are all able to do this, however, we make assumptions and have habits of thought that prevent us from doing so  These assumptions and habits can be broken into 8 issues

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media 8 barriers to creativity 1.I am not creative 2.Creativity is all about inspiration 3.I cannot generate good ideas 4.I already know the problem 5.I already know the solution (or know how to work it out) 6.We live in the real world 7.I am an expert 8.Focus on what is

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media 1. I am not creative  Negative thinking  Often reinforced at school (especially if you are not “artistic”)  Creativity is not about painting or drawing it is about thinking and associating existing ideas to create new ones  If you dream, solve problems or have ambitions, then you are creative  Lose the negative thinking  Say to yourself “I am creative”, then relax and let the ideas flow

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media 2. The “romantic notion”: Creativity is all about inspiration  Creativity can come from inspiration, but in reality this is rare  Being creative involves  Practice  Enjoyment and having a sense of fun  Using tools to help the process  Having the willingness to try and daring to fail "Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Accordingly, a 'genius' is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework.” Thomas A. Edison (attributed)

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media 3. Most of my ideas are rubbish  Again negative thinking  Creativity is a process and an important stage is generating lots of ideas  Most of these will be rubbish, but if you work at it a few of them will have the potential to be good  The moral here is don’t give up  Even geniuses have bad ideas  “God does not play dice” Albert Einstein  Edison’s wax phonograph

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media 4. I know the problem  This is a barrier to creativity because it stops you thinking about what the real problem is  You make assumptions about what the problem is  Sometimes it is important to redefine the problem  PIN automaats were introduced by banks as a result of surveys that showed that customers wanted banks to open longer hours and in weekends  The banks worked out the cost and realized this wasn’t worth it  Someone then redefined the problem from “how can we stay open longer and still make a profit” to “why do our customers want us to stay open longer”

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Example  A donkey is tied to a rope 2m long, there is food 3m away. How can the donkey get to the food without biting through or untying the rope?  A man in a black car is driving on a blackened road without street lights, when a black cat walks out in front of him. He still manages to stop the car without hitting the black cat. How is this possible?

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Answers  The rope is only tied to the donkey!  It is day light :-)

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media 5. I know the answer (or can work it out easily) Which line is longer?

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Answer  If you have seen this problem before, then you are likely to say they are both the same and they look different because of an optical illusion  In fact the answer here is B (try measuring them)  This is in fact a different problem with a different answer

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media The problem here is again assumptions  Because you think you know the answer, you do not actually think about other solutions  You jump to conclusions, which is an enemy of creativity  When trying to think creatively you should not assume that you know the answer already  If you think you do, write it down and then explore other solutions too

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media 6. We live in the real world  The Gemeente Amsterdam is planning to open a multimedia tourist attraction  As IAM students you have been asked to generate ideas for this solution  Your first task is to think about the opening hours  With the people around you try to think about as many possible opening hours as you can in 2 minutes  Aim for at least 6

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media What have you got?  How about these?  Only if there are at least 20 people in the queue  Only if everyone is wearing red  Only if half the queue is under 10 years old  The first 15 minutes of the hour on Sundays  Only on the full moon  Only if there is an R in the month  If someone in the group is from Brazil  Etc.

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media The “real world” solution is not necessarily the most creative  The point of the creative process is to generate lots of ideas and then evaluate them  Real-world thinking gets in the way of this  During divergent thinking there are no bad ideas  You judge them later during the convergent thinking

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media 7. I’m an expert  Expertise is a very important thing  However, in creativity it can get in the way  It can cause you to forget to define the problem  It can cause you to jump to conclusions and not do the divergent thinking

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media The Paris Metro map

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media The London Underground map

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Sometimes an non-expert has better ideas  The London Underground map was designed by Harry Beck an electrical draftsman, not a map- maker  He realized that geographical accuracy was not important when you are underground  Being an expert can sometimes be a problem  During idea generation try to forget your expert assumptions and listen to non-experts, they can have more original ideas.

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media 8. Focus on what is  Sometimes we focus on what is presented to us  We see what is and we miss what things could be  To be creative we have to play with what is and see what it could be  “Child-like” play is a useful tool

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media What are the next three numbers in this sequence? Answer

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Why? Mon If there were 31 days in this month then the answer is

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Thinking about what could be is essential to creative thinking  When thinking creatively it is important to think about what could be not just what is  Child-like play and not judging are important tools

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Guidelines for thinking creatively 1.Go quantity not quality at first 2.When generating ideas do not judge or evaluate them 3.Capture all ideas: write everything down or record them somehow (PCs have microphones and recording software) 4.Have an objective: aim to generate lots of ideas to solve a particular problem 5.Enjoy half answers: sometimes with a bit of time they can be the best - so capture them and then wait for a while 6.Play with ideas and have fun 7.Relax 8.Use creativity tools

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media Creative tactics 1.Try to rephrase the problem or issue 2.Look at answers that don’t help and ask why not? 3.Keep asking questions (e.g. what is the real problem, why doesn’t this work, what problems are similar to this?) 4.Look at the problem from another’s perspective (the target customer, your tutor, your father, a doctor, a person driving a car etc.)