Innovation: The White Room in Your Head

I had a fantastic meeting yesterday. I have been together with two great guys from a client, learning about their brand's personality and engagements. My task was to challenge what they have done so far.

I never had such an open, positive, and constructive discussion with marketing guys, managers, or agency people about their own work and achievements.

Normally you face clients which invite you to challenge the brand, organization, vision or strategies, but they do not really want to learn about potentials for optimization. They just want to hear they have done everything right, couldn't be better, please proceed, you are great! ...

Reading an article from FastCompany's Linda Tischler about a white room at Stanford's d(esign).school ...

"The entire space is designed for idea capture, ... .In the most radical, Zen-like space in the place, a small room, furnished only with a big white ottoman, is literally painted in whiteboard paint. If your ideas outgrow the walls, brainstorm on down to the floor. "This white room is one of our most-used spaces," says d.school executive director George Kembel. "Your ideas are the color that fill the room."

... made me think about this analogy:

This White Room from Stanford d.school must be right in your head,
if you want to be truly innovative. You must wipe out everything written or engraved on your brain's black board. You will have to "Zen-like" empty your memory about your brand, company, product, market, target groups. You must start anew - just for a few days. To again see the wood for the trees.

You will have to start with childful curiosity, with a Beginner's Mind, you will have to question everything. Nothing is for sure, nothing is given - if you want to innovate, if you want to challenge the existing.

Break the Rules by forgetting about the Rules! There are no rules. There is only your intuition, or - even better - your counter-intuitive thinking. Challenge your intuition.

Forget about all the Yes,-butters and the Nay-sayers. The more you are able to forget them, the better will be your innovative thinking - and by that, your arguments to convince them afterwards anyway.

Customers are often much more advanced than the corporation or brand. Management has to understand and accept that and must wipe its inner black board to leap-frog the customer again and stay ahead of the individual's independence, individuality, and impatience.

Note: My clients were (more than) satisfied, too. We identified a handful of effective quick wins and will pursue the nailed down bigger challenges in the following meetings.
Another great day in the white room of our imagination.