“Innovation is for everyone. Learning is for everyone”
An interview with Anna Kirah
Interviewee: Anna Kirah, Kirah Consulting
Summary
Anna Kirah is a design anthropologist specialised in people-centered innovation. She has
collaborated with many companies such as Microsoft and Boeing and is currently working as
innovation leader at a Danish Future Navigator and at her own consulting company. She is also
a key speaker at the EDEN Annual Conference 2008. In this interview she shares with us her
thoughts about innovation training, learning and finding a meaning to everyday’s life.
Team work is a key factor for successful change within companies in order to achieve a people-
centred approach. From her experience, Anna Kirah has learned that change does not happen
until all the areas of a company assimilate the language and the culture of the people they are
innovating for and that there is an interdisciplinary dialogue across different departments.
According to this specialist, virtual environments have come to play a central role in the daily
routine within companies. LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and document share sites have
a huge impact on what we do and how we learn and hold on to new knowledge. However, she
points out that eLearning and personalised learning environments must be easily adaptable to
team thinking and team work.
From her point of view, it is important not to repress the children’s natural curiosity and
creativity. Moreover, the development of an innovative mindset should be encouraged from the
beginning: the key challenge is to bring back “Why” to everyday’s life. Posing the question
“Why” challenges people to apply it in existing products, services and organisations, and
enables discovering meaningful innovative solutions.
Anna Kirah knows that anyone can be an innovator. However, the politics and cultures of
innovation in organisations quite often prevent us from seeing and reaching the real changes.
Many leaders don’t recognise the innovation when they see it because they are not connected
to the very people they are innovating for.
Intercultural learning challenges us to face new experiences and enables us to develop a global
mindset, not only physically but also in the cyberspace. Innovation and learning comes from
new experiences, from exceeding the safety of what we know and living something new and
different. A global mindset allows us to transcend the constraints of our own culture and to see
the world for what it really is.
Keywords: Innovation, interculturality, global, dialogue, openness, mindset
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How did an anthropologist end up teaching person-centred and innovative thinking to business
managers? How did you specialise in innovation training?
That is a good question! Anthropology is a descriptive science. We are taught to describe
culture and to describe human behaviour. There is in fact a debate within the field which was
against applying anthropology to change. I was working with refugees and immigrants in
Norway as an anthropologist when I realised that describing the problems these people have
was not good enough; they needed help, they needed a prescription. At this point, I went to
study clinical psychology to learn the prescriptive science. One day, the psychology department
received a call from Boeing asking for a psychologist to write a survey and hand it out onboard
long-haul flights. I took the job and realised that it was far more important to combine
anthropology and psychology by observing the passengers, flight attendants and pilots in order
to make design considerations. This is how my role as a design anthropologist was born. From
there I was recruited by Microsoft and other projects.
A central key to successful change within companies to a people-centred approach is team
work. I learned through my own failures that change does not happen until different areas within
the same companies learn to speak the same language and culture of the people they are
innovating for and that they can speak together across disciplines. And this is how I got
involved with working with business managers, specifically within strategy and vision of
companies. Almost all the work I do comes from ‘learning by doing’ and the willingness to be
humble and realise that I am not an expert but a facilitator, and that through active listening we
can build anything for the people and with the people. This includes products, services and
organisational changes. Real change within innovation occurs when a parallel process occurs
within the company culture towards the people centric mindset.
You have observed and piloted changes in the companies you have worked for and in the 180º
Academy you were in contact with the top directors of the leading Danish companies. In your
opinion, how can new technologies support the changing process in companies? For example,
are you using virtual environments or Web 2.0 tools to backup learning experiences?
At the180º Academy we set up a blogging site and a share site that allows students to work
together when they are not at the school and for teachers to work collaboratively. In most of my
work, share sites are set up with companies for document sharing and discussions across
borders. In addition, I can say that virtual environments have come to play a central part in
work within companies…even for individuals who are small business owners. We have today
LinkedIn and Facebook, YouTube, blogs, share sites such as sharepoint, etcetera, to showcase
work, collaborate together on projects with virtually any medium we desire. These technologies
have a huge impact on what we do and how we learn and hold on to learnings.
We must remember, however, how important it is to build these environments with the people
using these products. Technology is a tool. It is not the answer by itself, it is an enhancement to
face-to-face interaction and it is there to empower us to work collaboratively across borders and
mediums. We will continually improve upon what we have today through innovation and co-
creation with the people we are building for and building with.
One of your main points is teaching people-centred thinking. In education and training the
individualisation of education has been put into the front line of discussion, especially with the
support offered by the personalised learning environments. Do you think these are two different
sides of the same phenomenon? Furthermore, in your opinion, can the individualisation of
education promote innovation allowing pupils and students to develop their personal abilities
and interests more freely?
My biggest concern with the education model we have today is that we focus on the individual,
and it is a model that was successful in the industrial revolution. We are now in the technology
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revolution and we need to work across disciplines and we must think holistically in order to
approach the fast-paced global world we live in. We must teach adaptability and flexibility in
order to be able to cope with the changes that are taking place at the speed of light (thanks to
the technology). We must also teach collaboration as a tool while learning. I do not believe that
learning alone is conducive to shared knowledge, and this is where we really are able to come
up with creative new solutions to problems that need solving. We do not do this alone in the
confines of our offices.
I believe that eLearning and personalised learning environments can be effective ways to learn
skill sets, but not unless they can easily be adaptable to team thinking and team work. My fear
of course is that we kill creativity when we limit collaboration. I think that we create blinders on
people by pushing them through very narrow approaches, so eLearning in my eyes is a
supplement to real everyday challenges we are faced with. Take this case of diversity training.
An eLearning tool is developed by human resources to cover the challenges and ‘rules’ around
diversity. Any employee can learn about these challenges and rules by eLearning, but will not
be able to incorporate this in his mindset without practice, without being able to discuss the
eLearning with the colleagues. This is what is often missing when eLearning is put in place:
eLearning is ONE tool, not THE tool!
Would it make your work easier if your vision of innovative thinking and education is taught right
at the nursery school?
It would make all of our work easier. If we stopped killing creativity in children and allowed them
to keep their natural curiosity, I think we would have a far more creative and beautiful world.
The innovative mindset is simple; it is bringing back the ‘Why’ to our everyday lives. Through
our culture, through our education, through our upbringing, through company culture, we kill
natural curiosity.
We are afraid to ask ‘Why’ and to follow this ‘Why’ through to making changes to existing
products, services and organisations, as well as coming up with innovative solutions that are
relevant and meaningful to the very people we are innovating for and with. When we teach
collaborative methods and the art of ‘Why’ in everything we do, then we allow people to bring
meaning into their everyday lives and value comes from meaning.
The European Commission is working to promote the lifelong learning policies with the
objective to provide people of all ages with open access to learning experiences and support
digital literacy, among other things. How do you see innovation in the context of lifelong
learning? Is being innovative a necessity for the lifelong learners of our society? Or should
innovation be embedded in the policies and practices?
Innovation is for everybody. In companies, the keeper of the best idea could be the janitor or the
receptionist, yet no one thinks to ask them. Through the politics of innovation within companies
and cultures, we neglect to see the multitude of ideas standing in front of us with open hands. I
have seen gifts being handed over in the form of ideas only for blind leaders or companies not
to see the value in it because they are not connected to the very people they are innovating for.
I believe that all knowledge is useful for our work life and our social life. Learning and being
able to learn is a gift we give to ourselves at all ages. I am reminded of two participants in
research I had during my years at Microsoft. I first meet them when they were in their 70s.
Every few years, this couple, Howard and Martha, embarked on a new learning. Martha learned
to fly at the age of 50, both Howard and Martha learned about computing because they wanted
to stay connected with their grandchildren (NOTE: the aspirations and motivations are what
lead people to act, to become lifelong learners in a society). Howard and Martha worked with
Microsoft for eight years and both recently passed away. They are icons of the idea behind
people-centered innovation and they are my role models on the ability of everyday people to
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learn and innovate. I can not tell you how many times people from ALL life stages have
influenced my work and the work of the companies I am involved with; it was not the engineers
or the designers who came up with the crucial ideas: it was the everyday people who surround
us. These people are the gifts to our society, our culture and our policy makers. Innovation is for
everyone. Learning is for everyone. I commend all policy making that supports the notion that
learning is something for each and everyday of our lives, it is at least my aspiration and
motivates me in my everyday life.
The EDEN Conference 2008, where you have been invited as a key speaker, addresses this
year the theme of different learning cultures and interculturality. Also, this is the European Year
of Intercultural Dialogue. What do you think are currently the key features to promote
intercultural learning and eInclusion? Which are the challenges that need to be overcome?
This is a wonderful topic to have as a theme. We do not talk enough about it because it brings
us into an area of taboo: when we are challenged by new experiences and we place too quickly
judgement upon them. The global mindset is something that more and more people are having
due to the experiences of crossing cultures, not only physically but in cyberspace. Children play
internet games and have friends they communicate with from all around the world. We need to
allow for this and to help children globally become internet wise, just as they must learn to
become street wise (this is in reference to the dangers of online activities). We must be open
and we must allow for exploration in safe environments. Too often parents are controlling the
internet space because they do not understand that the internet and the experiences online are
oxygen to the net generation. We adults did not grow up with it, we can not understand this. We
are really digital immigrants and the digital native will always have an upper hand in this world.
The challenges are to be open about diversity, be open to going out of our comfort zone, be
open to meeting with and working with (either online or face-to-face) with people who are
different than ourselves. Like-minded children may learn best together, but do they learn
anything new? Innovation and learning comes from new experiences, from reaching past the
safety of what we know and experiencing something new and different. The global mindset
allows us to transcend the constraints of our own culture and to see the world for what it really
is.
You have said that “you can change people by giving them experiences that change them”.
What has been the ground breaking learning experience in your life and what did it change in
you?
I grew up in Taiwan, Japan and spent time in China as a young woman. I am from the United
States but studied in Europe. I came to learn that the most important part of my life came from a
day care centre in Taiwan. In order to have friends, I had to learn to see the world from a
perspective other than my own, to see the world from the Chinese children’s perspective. I was
able to practice this way of seeing the world in many many countries as a child and also as an
adult. It taught me not to judge first, but to experience the world from perspectives other than
my own. This is what the global mindset is about and if I could make a magical change to this
world, I would require every single person to live in another country for at least one year. It is
not about ‘liking’ the other culture, it is about experiencing it and realizing what your own culture
is about and the culture where you lived. I consider myself a foreigner wherever I go because
no country holds my heart. This is an asset, not a burden. It has given me the gift of seeing
beauty in the most unusual places on Earth and in the hearts of every individual around the
world I have had the good fortune of meeting in my years as a researcher.
The other experience came from a teacher dear to my heart. When I was 16 years old he gave
me a book called “The Shape of Content”. In this book there are two chapters that encourage
the reader to never forget the Earth, to go out and explore the world before settling in to a job, to
remember the Earth and to remember that there is nothing we learn in life that cannot be used
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in our work and in our social lives. This teacher taught me wisdom through his words, he taught
me that we learn not by drilling on a topic, but by having a natural curiosity and being open to
see which blinders we need to remove in order to really experience the world we live in. I owe
him my life, and I try to pass on his wisdom by taking people out and being given the
opportunity to realise what they can learn through experiences. The most important thing I have
learned is that ordinary people are truly extraordinary and we all have the ability to be creative
and help our world to be a better place through creating products, services and organisational
change with meaning. When we focus on people and meaning, innovation just happens!
Questions made by Elina Jokisalo, elearningeuropa.info Editorial team
Interviewee
Anna Kirah
Kirah Consult
ak@kirahconsult.com
Citation instructions
“Innovation is for everyone. Learning is for everyone” An interview with Anna Kirah (2008).
eLearning Papers Nº 8. ISSN: 1887-1542. www.elearningpapers.eu
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