What drives our innovation and design ideas? What shapes and molds them? What underlying intentions are present within our designs? Better yet, what intentions are missing from our designs? Just because we do not intend to destroy the environment doesn’t mean that we are excluded from doing so.

TED.com recently published a video of architect and designer William McDonough giving a presentation at the TED Conference 2005. In his presentation, William McDonough seeks to find out what our buildings and products would look like if designers intentionally took into account “All children, all species, for all time.” If you haven’t seen The wisdom of designing Cradle to Cradle, I suggest you watch it.

As designers and innovators we must consider our intentions and the consequences of missing intentions.

If you would like to learn more about William McDonough’s philosophy of “cradle to cradle” design, which bridge the needs of ecology and economics, you can read his book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

Working on an innovation right now? It is time to check your logic.

1. Are you still solving the right problem? See if you got off track.
2. Is your innovation possible? Look at the big picture.
3. Will you investment pay off? Check you budget.
4. What assumptions are you operating on? It is time to test assumptions.

Need more help checking your logic? Check out 50 Questions that Will Make Your Next Idea Thrive and the Top Ten Reasons Ideas Fail.

In the innovation world we often hear about ROI or return on investment. One of the biggest challenges to the innovation process and achieving a high ROI is staying effective. The problem is that during the innovation process we come up against mental blocks, a lack of focus, and highly complex problems. It is easy to get to the point where we just don’t know where to start. If you find yourself at this point you are not being effective.

Here is a quick strategy to get around ineffectiveness: change your perspective. Pick a different perspective from the one you have been functioning in and get to work!

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You are in all likelihood familiar with the standard product life cycle graph. A product increases in popularity, levels out, and then declines. This graph is helpful for countless reasons, but don’t accept the decline stage as the end. Plan ahead with innovation to renew the product life cycle and restart the upward trend.

Here are five ways to intervene with innovation and renew the product life cycle:
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Incuby is the latest web 2.0 social site and it’s all about innovation. While it hasn’t launched yet, Incuby promises to connect innovators with consumers, peers, and investors.

The success of this site (as with all social sites) is dependant on its users and the quality of their contributions. The structure of the site looks promising from what I can infer from their catchy motion graphic preview. Time will tell if Incuby becomes an incubation hotbed for the next great innovations. Visit their website at www.incuby.com.

Complacency can mean death for a company in today’s aggressive marketplace. Companies cannot accept a design or a process “because that is the way it’s always been”. It is no mystery that technology and innovation are Canada’s ticket to prolonged prosperity, but all too often, Canadian businesses often have difficulty in transforming their culture into one that fosters innovation. Often it is because management doesn’t know where to start.

A simple suggestion: begin by asking “why-s” questions. WHY does our company manufacture products the way we do? WHY is our design the way it is? WHY do we use the materials we do? WHY do we use the processes that we do? WHY is our plant organized the way it is? WHY do our clients buy our product/service?
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The cost of innovation is not as high as most people think. Innovation doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact in most cases you can innovate on a very small budget; all you need the right mindset. No company should ever exclude itself from innovation due to cost. At a basic level every company can afford to innovate and probably can’t afford not to.

Let’s take a moment to break it down.

First, the goal of innovation is improvement: improving productivity, profitability, sustainability, etc. When an innovation reaches its goal you have a return on your investment. But what is the cost of that investment?

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We have all been there. You are trying to solve a problem; you need a really great idea, but you are stuck in a thought cycle. You know what I am talking about. A thought cycle is where you end up repeating the same thought over and over in your head. An example would be repeating the phrase, “okay, I need to come up with an idea.” Personally my thought cycles are often accompanied by an action cycle. Usually throwing a ball in the air or pacing in my office.

While the intent of a thought cycle is positive, to keep our wandering mind focused, they actually are not helpful to the thought process. The faster you can break out of the thought cycle the sooner you will come up with that great idea.

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