My PhD project: The Role of Intermediaries in Culture-Driven Innovation

Companies increasingly open up towards external sources to inspire and frame innovation. We find that technology as a driver of innovation loses importance in favor of culture, e.g. where lifestyle aspects dominate over the technological features in a product’s appearance. Lifestyles and other socio-cultural developments and trends often emerge at the fringes of society in communities and sub-cultures like avant garde circles of artists. Detecting and translating upcoming socio-cultural developments as a source for innovation is difficult because this belongs to so-called tacit knowledge - knowledge that is hard to grasp and cannot simply be written down. Therefore, intermediaries play a significant role for companies to make use of socio-cultural resources in their early innovation process (the front end of innovation), gaining competitive advantage in increasingly dynamic market environments.

Read more 

Introducing my project on "Culture-Driven Innovation"

Culture-driven innovation is not only the name of my blog, it's a project I'm investing a lot of time because I want to understand it better. That's why I'm doing research on it for my PhD. It's about how firms translate socio-cultural sources into innovation with the help of intermediaries.

So far - here's an introduction into my project in German:

Kultur gewinnt als Quelle von Innovationen zunehmend an Bedeutung. Kulturen und Gemeinschaften, die heute noch an den Rändern unserer Gesellschaft vorzufinden sind, bieten uns ein Repertoire an Bedeutungen, Symboliken und Lebensstilen, das morgen schon für eine größere Anzahl an Menschen relevant sein kann. Firmen, die sich solchen sozio-kulturellen Trends und Strömungen frühzeitig öffnen, können diese erfolgreich in Produkte umsetzen, die einem neuen Zeitgeist entsprechen und neue Märkte erschließen.

Doch dieses Wissen einzufangen und in
Produkte zu übersetzen ist schwer. Daher
geht meine Doktorarbeit der Frage nach,
wie Unternehmen erfolgreich soziokulturelle Quellen in der Produktentwicklung eingesetzt haben.
Von besonderem Interesse sind hierbei
die Schnittstellen zu den Quellen, die
Firmen mit Hilfe von Mittelsleuten, wie
z.B. Designern, herstellen. Anders als
beispielsweise Wissen über technische
Entwicklungen, lassen sich soziokulturelle
Trends nicht einfach durch schriftliche Berichte vermitteln, sondern erfordern einen intensiven Austausch zwischen Mittelsleuten und der Firma.

Diesem Austausch will meine Doktorarbeit auf den Grund gehen. Möglichst konkret
anhand abgeschlossener oder aktueller Produktentwicklungen soll nachvollzogen
werden, wie sozio-kulturelle Quellen erfolgreich Einfluss auf Innovationen genommen haben, z.B. durch eine für die Branche neuartige Formgebung oder Materialverwendung.

Hierzu möchte ich Interviews mit den Personen durchführen, die an dem Austausch zwischen dem Unternehmen und den sozio-kulturellen Quellen beteiligt waren. Mich interessiert z.B. aus welchen Anlässen und wie ein Austausch stattfand, was Inhalt von Gesprächen war und wie mit diesen Informationen umgegangen wurde.

photo: @tabor-roeder

Pimp your notebook

I've got a passion for stationery and notebooks. From age 11 till 20 I nearly wrote down every day what happened in my life. Although I'm optimizing my to do-lists and notes digitally (without Zotero I would have been lost), I still stick to pen and paper during meetings and creative writing. The haptic of a pen and paper, the agnostic style of some notebooks are motivating me (yes, call this "symbolic value" of products). I also love the possibility of physical notebooks to be customized. After my workshop in bookbinding with lovely Ulrike at www.plakinn.de, I felt ready to change the cover of my notebook.

That's how it works:
Choose your favorite design/wrapping paper and get some tape for protecting the book corners. E.g. at Modulor in Berlin Kreuzberg (U Moritzplatz) they have special material for this.

The "naked" notebook.

Then fix the book corners.

Cut the paper for both sides with bended corners (so you can still see the book corners).

Glue the paper to the notebook. It's best to use white glue. Then you have to make sure the glue is drying properly. So cover the notebook with blank paper on both sides and put heavy weights on for several hours.

Et voilà!

Wonderful water color layer for maps

This water color layer from http://maps.stamen.com/ uses OpenStreetMap data. Try it out with your district!

I found this presentation about creative youth and product "hacking" very interesting:

Absorbing knowledge from creative youth

View more PowerPoint from Ian McCarthy

Technology is getting personal

On uxmatters.com, Demetrius Madrigal and Bryan McClain write about technology trends and the human experience (http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/03/ahead-of-the-curve-technology-trends-and-the-human-experience.php). They describe how fashion outlets for technology are emerging and that the next step may be customizing technology itself for people. In addition to this they the see the social technology trend re-emerging with new devices and incresing connectivity. 

To go further, these trends show us how technology is getting personal, merging with ourselves, conquering different context and patterns of our daily life. Like fashion once became our "second skin", technology now follows the same path and that's why fashion outlets for smart phones etc. are increasing. We don't actually recognize technology being around us. For the older generation this may seem scary, picturing technology is taking control. But for the younger generation these borders don't exist anymore, there's no distinct line between virtual and "real."

A Cultural Quest - Case Study on Alessi and Cultural Resources

Davide Ravasi and Elena Dapliaz, with Violina Rindova wrote an article for Organization Science about the use of cultural resources in strategy formation and change in a case study of Italian manufacturer of household products, Alessi. Over more than three decades, Alessi incorporated cultural resources from different registers like anthropology, psychoanalysis, arts, or crafts. For example, craft techniques were reintroduced in the production process or workshops with social scientists, informed employees about psychoanalytical theories about the effect of objects form on individuals. Through cultural repertoire enrichment and identity redefinition, Alessi developed new unconventional strategies and strategic versatility that led to a pioneering role in its industry and unlocking of new markets. Rindova et al. (2011) show how cultural resources are used for the purpose of substantive use, as productive means to develop new strategies of actions. This has to be differentiated from the rhetorical use of cultural resources as in advertising through verbal signs, promoted through institutions like media and critics. 

http://www.knowledge.unibocconi.eu/notizia.php?idArt=8427

Hello Etsy Conference Berlin - Report

The #helloetsy (www.helloetsy.com) summit last September inBerlin brought together over 500 people, mainly from Small Business and Sustainability. A lot of talks and discussion focused on being authentic, sharing your passion, especially by telling stories.

So were most of the speakers in sharing their experiences and insights e.g. about starting abusiness (Chad Dickerson, “Finding your way to courage“ or "Growing big while staying small“ with Xenios Thrasyvoulou), "Writing for impact“ (Farai Chideya) or branding (Lisa Rodwell). That’s why the talks were very motivating although me and others were wondering what if you don’t sell the typical emotional Etsy product like a fashion item or vintage which is rooted in your personality or a nice story? What if you sell an abstract service or “just“ toilet paper?

Chad Dickerson pointed out that courage comes by doing. You have to find your own way, be true to yourself and learn from mistakes.

Lisa Rodwell made five points of brand building: serve a purpose, stand out from the crowd, stay focused, stick to your promise (consistency!) and spread the world. She showed nice examples how moo.com give their customers something they can tell about through their customer experience (e.g. unboxing, personal communication).

In her writing tips Farai Chideya pointed out the importance of building up a relationship between writer and readers, playing with your strengths and evaluating what you’ve written by getting feedback from your readers and other people.

Douglas Rushkoff called in „Program or be programmed“ for a literacy in programming. If you don’t understand the language of computers you’ll have to trust them, like a passenger has to trust the taxi driver. At least you should understand what a tool is for and the possible bias of using digital tools and interfaces.

The last talk I attended was with Xenios Thrasyvoulou from peopleperhour.com He took a lot of time for questions and got into conversations – just as he talked about the importance of communication in „managing“ team members. This communication and sharing the core culture ofyour business with employees and freelancers is key. A lot of his practical tips go along with the credo of agile development.

Overall Hello Etsy was a very inspiring summit with a great atmosphere.