Exploring CES to Stimulus Mine for Disruptive Ideas

Doug is traveling this week to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to stimulus mine for disruptive “idea starters”.  

What he will not be looking for is WHAT companies are offering.  Rather, he will be focused on the WHY & HOW of exhibitor thinking as he walks the 2.5 million square feet of exhibit space, across 12 official venues with over 140,000 attendees.   

The WHAT that is being offered is limiting.  It’s a product, software, service, etc.. What’s more valuable to me is to look for ideas and insights that go beyond the WHAT of the specific offering.  Doug will be looking to understand WHY they are creating the offering.   He will also seek to understand HOW they are thinking about delivering to and supporting customers.  Understanding the WHY and HOW has been a key to my ability to create meaningfully unique ideas for my companies and our clients.

To get to the WHY and HOW, Doug will do three things: 

1. Look at each offering as a “system” of interconnected parts – software, hardware, databases, etc.  With the development of all innovations there are tradeoffs that have to be made.  A system focus opens my mind to new ways of thinking. 
   
   
2. Dig for “enabling parts” that make the overall system especially effective.  For example, using Raspberry Pi processor in a product we are building adds a little to our cost but enables benefits that 10X the value of our product. 
   
   
3. Talk to the founder, creator or tech geek at the booth.  The people that actually designed the offering have a depth of understanding that is invaluable when seeking to understand WHY and HOW.
   

To maximize the value of the idea starters he gathers they will be summarized in a library of Spark Deck Slides.  Spark Decks are a Eureka! Ranch tool for helping increase the effectiveness of Create Sessions with clients.  Each slide contains images, words, audio and or video that are both DISRUPTIVE and DIVERGENT.   Basically, Spark Deck slides are thought experiments that ignite the lateral thinking of Dr. Edward de Bono.  

In our classes and when leading projects we call this overall approach “Borrowing Brilliance”  It’s a process that opens you to applying the thinking of others to solve your problems or challenges.

We will share some examples of Spark Deck slides from his CES adventure in future posts.