Bias and Innovation Solutions in Context

Colleague and master innovator from the enterprise Pete Foley, is now writing in Innovation Excellence.  See his most recent contribution: Why I Moved to Las Vegas and What it can tell us about innovation.   Also relates to bias in research.

" ... Once we have found an innovative solution to a problem, there is a danger that we are satisfied, the confirmation bias kicks in, and consequently we ‘turn off’ and move into execution mode. This good enough solution may be OK in an uncompetitive environment, but what happens if someone else keeps looking, and finds a much better idea? You don’t want to be the guy fine-tuning the latest refinement to a horse drawn carriage when somebody else is developing the motorcar.

Fighting natural human biases is always challenging, but in this case, there are many things we can do. For example, we can simply park ideas, and push teams to come up with multiple concepts. Or we can create internal competitions, and have different groups battle to come up with increasingly more breakthrough ideas. Or we can simply ask innovators to for their analogy to the aforementioned motor car, assuming they are in the horse drawn carriage business. Digging back into my background of consumer goods, that might be a detergentless washing machine. Or back to our automobile example, maybe the commercial driverless car. I’m by no means sure how far away that is, but it does question how much innovation effort you might want to put against innovating the driving experience in the mid to long term? ..... "

Read the whole thing, and follow Pete's writing,  See also his relevant blog.

Innovation Based on Behavioral Science

Pete Foley Innovation

Innovation Based on Behavioral Science
I am an innovation guide who combines 25 years of experience as a serial innovator and internal consultant at P&G with deep insights from applied psychology, perceptual science, and behavioral economics to facilitate:

Systematic innovation in product, package and communication design.
Retail designs (digital and conventional) Designing for unconscious and unarticulated needs

Designing for unconscious and unarticulated needs (Multisensory, human centered, emotion driven)

Research that evaluates what people do, not what they say they will do
Creating a sustainable innovation culture   ... "

And Blog.   @foley_pete

Innovation in the Enterprise

Interview with my former colleague Pete Foley, a deeply innovative and successful innovator at P&G, in Innovation Excellence.  Follow him at @foley_pete   Read the whole interview at the link:

1. Pete, can you give a brief description of where you started your career and how you got to where you are today?

Pete: “It’s probably not what you’d call a linear career path. I started off in accountancy, had a brief fling with music, shifted to chemistry for my PhD, and then slowly migrated to behavioral and visual science while at P&G. I’m now primarily interested in how Behavioral, Cognitive and Perceptual Sciences apply to Design, Innovation and Marketing.”    ....... "