USB twinkie

I was gazing at my co-worker's shoe during a meeting today and noticed it had a little round metal hole in the side of it. I imagined that it was a jack for plugging in electronic devices. Suddenly his shoe seemed a lot more exciting. It practically made me laugh. But since it was an inappropriate time to laugh during the meeting, I snapped back to attention. Sure enough, my eyes lit once again upon his shoe and off my mind raced again.

I realized you can make practically any ordinary object suddenly intriguing if you add a jack on it for electronics. Add USB to your shoe and just think what people would imagine it does.

USB to a microwave oven?

USB to a coffee cup? Warms your coffee for you?

USB twinkie?

Hat with USB adapters sticking out of all sides? Sounds like a good Halloween costume.

USB adapter for a USB adapter???

California Academy of Sciences Grand Re-Opening

The California Academy of Sciences is holding its grand re-opening this weekend! I fondly remember going to the original one in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park as a kid. The dinosaur skeletons, the African wing, the greasy hamburgers in the cafeteria--I remember them all like it was yesterday. Anyway, don't miss a rare opportunity to be one of the first to step foot into a brand new science museum.

More info can be found on their website: http://www.calacademy.org/

BEVIA

One of Malcolm Deleo's first posts on his new blog is about his concept of BEVIA: Believe, Experiment, Validate, Integrate, and Adapt. I am very excited he has finally put pen to paper (er, hand to keyboard?) to share this idea with the world because it's truly insightful.

BEVIA is a model of process and organizational innovation. At it's core, the BEVIA model recognizes that people do not change all at once, most of the time. To adopt a change, each person and the organization as a whole must go through a process beginning with Believing that the change is the right thing to do. From there the change spreads as it's tested (Experiment & Validate). In the final stage, the idea is Integrated and the organization Adapts to the change.

I can't emphasize enough how this change takes place at multiple levels in an organization. If you lead one department through the phases of BEVIA, it doesn't mean the whole organization has gone through BEVIA. If one department has been successful in adopting a change, it could help accelerate the process for another department, but don't assume it. And, as Malcolm points out, it's important to recognize that each person goes through the phases of BEVIA too.

I think when people talk about organizational change being hard and time consuming, it may be that BEVIA helps us model what's actually making it so slow. Consider the Believe phase, for instance. Individual people may Believe quickly, but if one person takes longer, that can make it harder to get to the Experiment phase. While they're waiting for the organization to unanimously Believe, some people who originally believed may begin to doubt as a result of the lack of progress. Then they have to be re-sold on the idea. While they're being re-sold, the new believers might begin to doubt again. Thus ideas can bounce around among members of an organization for a long time before enough people Believe for it to advance to the next phase in BEVIA. Maybe that's what makes organizational change seem so slow.

I wish I had known about BEVIA when I proposed the Open Innovation Blueprint because it adds some critical missing pieces to a plan to implement organizational change.

Announcing Malcolm Deleo's Blog

Malcolm Deleo, a close member of my professional network and a good friend, has just started writing a blog. Malcolm has tons of experience innovating and is a fountain of ideas, particularly around how to drive innovation through a corporate culture. I highly recommend checking out his blog at http://innovationmuse.blogspot.com/.

Chief Innovation Officer Executive Seminar

I just received an announcement about this seminar for Chief Innovation Officers, it sounds like a good seminar worth checking out. For more information go to:

http://archives.subscribermail.com/msg/322079d574774b7eabbbe5ce4695fe78.htm