From our Innovation course 2010

1. Understanding
CHANGE

2. Where does change come from in our societies?
Change agents:
Human interventions, free-will
Zeitgeist:
Determinism, the ‘invisible hand’
Contingency:
The ‘synchronisation’ of circumstances

3. What are the consequences of change?
Anticipated or unanticipated
Evidence that the person intended these
consequences or not?
Direct or indirect
Does the change directly causes that impact or
not?
Desirable or undesirable
Are the effects positive for the stakeholders?*

5. Rosa "Lee" Louise Parks
U.S. Congress:
“Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”

Famous for her refusal on
December 1, 1955 to give up a
bus seat to a white man when
ordered to do so by the bus driver

6. • An unfair system
• Not the first woman to do it
• Not the first time she did it
• An activist for 12 years
• Husband supported her high-school
studies
th
• Dec 4 is formed the Montgomery
Improvement Association (MIA) leaded by
Martin Luther King
• “Montgomery Bus Boycott” unexpected
response (381 days)
• Sparked many other segregation protests
in the USA
• Many black churches were dynamited

7. Change agents are
product of their
time/society
They 'trigger' changes but,
ultimately, societies collectively
decide if/when changes occur

9.  1893: World’s Exposition (Chicago), fascinated by a
German chocolate-making exhibit
 Purchased and shipped the equipment to Lancaster
to produce chocolates
 Hershey built a chocolate factory in Derry, PA (dairy
farms)
 Experimented with many flavours (onion, beet...)
 Hershey specialized in the affordable “nickel” bar
 Became the first nationally marketed product of its
kind sold in grocery stores, newsstands, and vending
machines
 Built a residential town for the workers, a school for
orphan boys, a medical center, an amusement park
-today this city is named Hershey, Pennsylvania

10. Only selected information gets
revealed...
 Who were the first customers?
 Who sold him the chocolate
equipment in Chicago?
 Who bought the Lancaster Caramel
Company for 1million?
 Who invested money on his
businesses after 10 years of
bankruptcy?

11. Who discovered penicillin?
a) Ernst Boris Chain
b) Alexander Fleming
c) Howard Walter Florey
d) all of the above
e) none of them

12. “In 1929, I published that it
would be useful for the
treatment of infections with
sensitive microbes, but few
people paid any attention up
to 1936.
Chain and Florey took up
the investigation and
succeeded... beyond the
wildest dreams I could
possibly have had in those
early days”

13. Penicillium notatum Westl.
 Richard Westling (Swedish professor) discovered
it in 1911 but did not publish its antibacterial
power
 Penicillin is not the first antibacterial, but the
first antibacterial not antileucocytic (harmless)
 Fleming saw its potential but was unable to
produce a stable strain
 Chain and Florey (Oxford) successfully treated
mice and published in 1940, the world was at war
 Huge investments enabled industrial production

14. Results: about 450,000 for "Alexander Fleming"
Results: about 108,000 for "Ernst Chain"
Results: about 97,800 for "Howard Florey"
Results: about 6,420 for "Richard Westling"

15. Unexpected consequences
Rosa Lee Parks
Milton Hershey
Alexander Fleming

16. Unexpected consequences
Rosa Lee Parks
 Overwhelming positive response in many cities
Milton Hershey
 Part of the obesity epidemics in children & diabetes
Alexander Fleming
 Bacteria resistance to penicillin from 'underdosing'

17. Diffusion of
innovations

18. Diffusion
Process by which

A new idea is communicated

Or spread in a social group

And becomes an innovation

Diffusion is a type of social change

Diffusion is behind ________________

19. Diffusion
M-payment is not
yet diffused in
Mexico, so it's still a
good idea, not an
innovation!

20. Diffusion
Herorat.org: training
and using rats to
sniff landmines in
Africa is an
innovation!
(training process, adoption
scheme)

21. The designed environment has
an important role in social
change: it creates opportunities
and incentivates certain
behaviours over others

22. Diffusion
“The process by which new ideas
become real solutions”

Solutions available to social groups

Adoption or rejection decisions

Consequences

23. Diffusion is uncertain
Hard to predict how people will
respond (future)
Hard to interpret the reasons
behind their choices (past)

24. Most new ideas/products
are not diffused and
adopted rapidly
Even when they have obvious,
proven advantages

25. $500 dollars

27. Diffusion curves

Sigmoid function

S-shape curves
number of adopters
time: cumulative adoption

28. Diffusion curves

‘Tipping point’

At about 10 to 25% adoption*

‘Inflection point’

At about 75 to 90% adoption*
(Hard to distinguish start/end)

29. types of adopters
time: cumulative adoption

30. The S-shape curve
Once a few adopt, they tell others
about the innovation and the number
of adopters per unit of time takes off
(word of mouth)
Until the market potential
decreases, influence becomes
redundant and adoption slows down

31. Critical mass
Point at which enough individuals
have adopted an innovation so that
the innovation’s further rate of
adoption becomes self-sustaining
That means:
“Diffusion continues no matter what”

32. Adopter categories
Early adopters
Mass adopters
Late adopters
Laggards
(avoid clichés)

33. Enabling strategies

Target opinion leaders

Shape individual’s perceptions of the
innovation

Target early adopters first, but do not
focus only on them

Provide incentives for adoption

Promote negotiation and interpretations

Any design strategies?

35. Different external influences
100
90
80
70 Constant critical mass,
60
different end result
adopters
50
40
30
20
10
0
1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91
time Different aggregate influence
100
90
80
70
Varying critical mass, 60
adopters
50
same end result 40
30
20
10
0
1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91
time

36. “Zeitgeist”
German for “spirit of the time”
The intellectual and cultural
'climate' of an era
Some experts attribute innovation to this “social order”
that demands and values new solutions

37. Zeitgeist
Rosa Lee Parks
Milton Hershey
Alexander Fleming

38. Zeitgeist
Rosa Lee Parks
 Mass-media, democracy, social changes, politics
Milton Hershey
 Middle class, mass production, supermarkets
Alexander Fleming
 War, research, bacteriology, chemistry, medicine

39. www.google.com/trends
“What you see here is a cumulative
snapshot of interesting queries people
are asking over time that perhaps reveal
a bit of the human condition”

56. “Zeitgeist”
Refers to the “climate” of an era including:
• Shared problems and issues
• Shared beliefs and values
• Open questions and debates
• A particular state of technology
• Comparison and acceptance of ideas
(but be careful interpreting the results!)

57. “Zeitgeist” in innovation
• Multiple discoveries or inventions (telephone, ADN)
• Focus on a set of problems (household appliances in
USA late XIX century)
• “Spillover” effects: one innovation leads to many
more
• Patents, licensing and VC (venture capital) (dot-com
bubble in 1999)
• “Fertile ground” processes (Sushi-ito)
• Competitions’ topics and judges (agendas)
• Market, culture and aesthetic trends
• Funding and media attention

58. Characteristics
of innovations

59. Characteristics of innovations
Relative advantage
●
Perceived as a better solution
Compatibility
●
Perceived as consistent with values & experience
Complexity
●
Perceived as difficult to understand and use
Trialability
●
Experimented with on a limited basis
Observability
●
Results are visible to others
Adaptability
●
Value adapts to users' perceptions

60. Evidence shows that innovations
that diffuse rapidly have:
- greater perceived advantages
- greater compatibility
- greater trialability
- greater observability
- greater adaptability
- less complexity

61. Trialability

62. Observability

63. Compatibility

64. Complexity

65. Adaptability

66. - individual activity-
Write down how could you
address the characteristics
of innovations, diffusion and
unexpected consequences in
your Design Studio project...