La Bitacora V. XII

Sometimes we just don’t get it. There is about 10% of the world’s population that has internet, cell-phones, a job, a car, a tv, running water, healthcare, an ipod (for status), and has a life expectancy of over 80 years. That 10% is concerned about the environment, a commendable thing if I may say so, so it goes out of its way to reduce pollution emissions from cars, switching over to biodiesel and ethanol and other fuels based on things that were alive less than a year ago, and forgetting that before even looking at the environment, before even asking about temperatures and rainfall and ice-melting, they should consider the 90% of the world that does not have all the luxuries (for they ARE still luxuries) that are so taken for granted. So, in the frenzy for environment-friendly fuels, the poor get poorer because they can’t afford basic grains because they are expensive because the new fuels need them because the wealthy 10% (which considers itself middle-class…) wants a clean environment. Shouldn’t we first fix the problems with our own species? Would it not be better to pay less money for fossil fuels and gasoline engines and use the difference to promote wealth around the world? Is it really worth it to have others face starvation?

A short video of Sofia

I’ve seen my memory, and it’s a signpost. Most people don’t even know what memory is; they are as aware of it as they are aware of their heartbeat: it’s just there.
I was asleep, dreaming about a very old, black, wooden house with giant spiders crawling about; my dream self sat on a black metal chair in the front yard and drank lemonade. The weather was warm, and in the evening light the air seemed yellow; against the ever-present mist, the tall leafless trees of the forest that surrounded the house stood like an impressionist’s nightmare. Behind the trees there was a swamp, and sinking into it was a dark signpost; a closer look revealed that each of the tens of arrows nailed on the post had a memory written on it, some were quite long. As it sank, tiny bubbles came from out of the swamp and hit the arrows; and as each arrow was swallowed by the water and muck, I could no longer remember what it said, or the memory it stood for. I saw it moving and wanted it to stop, but it wouldn’t; my mind was weeding out the unnecessary, and didn’t care about my wishes. It kept sinking until I could no longer remember any of what was written there.

Breakthrough Thinking from Inside the Box
by Kevin P. Coyne, Patricia Gorman Clifford, and Renée Dye
December 2007 | Harvard Business Review 71

After reading the article Breakthrough Thinking from Inside the Box in the Harvard Business Review, I’ve done a whole lot of thinking about innovation, and about human behavior. I was talking to my younger brother not too long ago, discussing how constraints and their accompanying frustration can be used to channel creativity and energy that would otherwise dissipate; and to find research and examples that support our theories about it feels nice, the way it feels nice to hit a nail clean in the head.

You see, according to the authors the question can you invent a new business in the next 20 minutes is so broad that no one can come up with a good answer to it. But ask how can we take something children love and reproduce it in an extreme, expensive form for adults? and you’re talking business in a Disney, Häagen-Dazs, Spider-man-ish way. Brainstorming in the traditional way, the authors continue, is less effective than it could be because there are either too few constraints or too many; people, lacking a way of evaluating the potential of their ideas, either go too far in a tangent or go nowhere. Market research in particular, is of little use when innovating because people find it hard to tell you if they want or need a product they have never seen or imagined (citing examples of Xerox, the Walkman, and the cell-phone which were all predicted to fail according to market research).

The right question
The key is in the questions you ask. The authors cite research from others, and their own, in stating that “…it didn’t matter whether [Nobel laureates] had actually asked a question or not. What mattered was whether there was a question that could have uncovered the kind of extraordinary opportunities that CNN, Google, USA Today, eBay, and Amazon identified and exploited.”
A few of the questions one could ask are
* Which customers use or purchase our product in the most unusual way?
* Who spends at least 50% of what our product costs to adapt it to their specific needs?
* Who uses our product in ways we never expected or intended?
* What is the biggest hassle of purchasing or using our product?
* For which current customers ir our product least suited?
* Which customers does the industry prefer not to serve, and why?
* What information about customers and product use is created as a by-product of our business that could be the key to radically improving the economics of another business?
* Which customers’ needs are shifting most rapidly? What will they be in five years?

The right process
Credit cards for immigrants with credit histories in their countries; gas delivery services for filling your tank while you’re at work; fresh home-made food with variety delivered to those who don’t have time to cook at home. All of these are ideas that come from asking such questions.
A systematic approach to the right questions is easy to achieve: use a logic tree that starts with a broad question (that spurs the imagination) and successively break it into narrower ones. The best questions are usually in level 5 or 6.

Brainstorming can work
A successful brainstorming session has constraints set up from the beginning, say the authors, such as whether ideas should be big or surefire, a monetary amount the company can spend, or how soon a payback is needed.
Don’t ask irrelevant questions, such as “for what usage is our product least suited?” when in your business your customers can only use your product in one way (ie. large cranes for industrial plants).

Use the right wording
The way you ask questions is different if you want radical ideas than if you want moderate ones. You should have prepared one question for each group of ~4 participants every 30 minutes. Ask yourself the questions, and as yourself which ones make you think the most.

Have people who can contibute
Make sure you have enough good participants in a brainstorming session; invite the people concerned with the answers to your questions, even if they are not in your staff.

Everyone must be engaged
Make sure everyone is giving their 100%, even if you have to have them bet about the outcome.

Beware social norms
Groups of four work well because the norm is to contribute equally; you can’t hide without appearing incompetent. Larger groups will be dominated by a few people, but if you break them up you can have more ideas produced simultaneously. Put all the pushy people in the same group, so they won’t dominate others.

Focus
Make sure the ground rules are clear; the boundaries will channel creativity. Give each group a very focused task, and have them spend 20-30 minutes discussing one question, and then report to everyone else the best ideas.

Reiterate
Have more than one brainstorming session, and set up a way of receiving data and feedback afterwards.

Narrow
Choose the ideas you will seriously consider first; people are demotivated if they think nothing will be done about the ideas. Sort things right there and then, and let the people whose ideas are not chosen learn about your thought process, so they can produce better ones next time.

During the first few months I was in Germany I compiled a bunch of short stories I wrote a decade ago, polished them, and had them published on-demand at LuLu.com. I then ordered a proof copy to go over it, and it took a good 2 weeks to get it, mainly because of the postal system (the book was shipped about 4 days after I ordered it).
It’s not too shabby; I’ve seen better binding quality, but nothing to complain about considering the price and the fact that it is not a mass-produced book. The images on the inside are pretty good for what I need (yes, I painstakingly illustrated every short story), and the only real grope is that there is a dim white rectangle in the cover that is not supposed to be there. It looks like the alpha-channel of the image I used was not 100% transparent (which is a bit weird); but I’m looking into the issue. It doesn’t look bad, it just doesn’t look like it was supposed to.
While on the topic, the process of writing a book is slow and sometimes tedious; grammar rules, spelling, and getting things to make sense are only the tip of the iceberg. A self-publisher has to worry about typography (I used LaTex for that, it took forever to configure it properly), hyphenation, rivers of white spaces running between words in a page, cover art, publishing constraints, and so forth. A simple book like this one, so thin it was barely possible to write text in the spine, took me a good 4 months to finish (without even writing the content!).
Anyway, if you are interested in it you can get a copy at my lulu page . I am earning a tiny share of the revenue (the same for the digital as for the printed version, which, since it costs you $2.00, you can see is not much), so choose whichever version you are more willing to live with. If you really can’t afford it or really don’t think it’s worth it to pay for it, ask me and I may even send you a free digital copy… Oh yeah, it’s in Spanish only. It’s great for those learning the language…

Phoetal movies and more at the Gallery
Peliculas fetales y más en la galería

This one is a strange one. It’s the first time I dream I’m naked. In school. Such a cliche.
I am in a school, the elementary-through-high-school kind; with a large building shaped like an L. I am my old self, and yet I somehow fit in as a student. I am naked; my clothes are in an empty classroom, and I have to bring stuff from the main office to the classroom itself. The first few times it’s okay; I manage to avoid being seen by anybody (I am not ashamed of being naked, but I realize it’s not exactly proper). The third or fourth time, the bell rings and all the kids and teachers come out of their classrooms, forcing me to take alternate routes, hide, and take advantage of every shadow I can find. With my hands covering my stuff, I sprint past a small group and manage to be noticed by a teacher, who promptly takes a picture as evidence for the principal. I’m in big trouble, but I don’t seem to care that much. I just want to get to the classroom so I’m not being observed by everyone. I’m on the third floor, when three strange looking bears and a jackal come out of nowhere; their snouts are long and striped, they are intelligent and fierce, and they have an agenda. Among the kids in the school is my daughter, of about four, and to protect all the kids I get in between and trick the animals into coming after me. I am hanging off the ledge, holding onto the metal rail guard that lines the building; the jackal is perched nearby on a pillar, biting my way; and the bears are closing in. They claw my back, but I fool them and somehow they all end up falling and breaking their backs. The principal doesn’t kick me out of school as she was intending to, because now I am considered a hero (ha! what’’s up with that?), but insists that I should put some clothes on. On my way to the classroom I see my teacher, she says she left a present for me on her desk and to look for it. I get there and see she has left a nice plastic box for me that she designed herself, and I wonder how she gets her pieces made by a factory, because I’ve been wanting to get some stuff manufactured so I can sell it and make some money.

When I was about 7 or 8, I was fascinated by the snapping mechanism of my dad’s eyeglasses pouch; it seemed mysterious and strange how both edges were compelled to stick together without magnetism or electricity. I would open them and let them shut just to hear their characteristic snap. When I got to Germany I noticed a lot of people use tiny bags to keep their car keys in; they resemble coin purses with a loop inside to hold on to a keyring. So, the obvious thing happened… I made a snapping key purse thing. Check it out in Etsy or DaWanda.

Well, we finally made it! we had our first sale and our store is officially inaugurated! Our kind customer bought one of the most innovative products that we made last week; I’ve been meaning to write a little about that one, so this is the perfect opportunity.
The fashion scarf shown in the image to the right is the result of one of those curious series of events that, half by accident, half by design, end in an epiphany. Conny had bought the knit cloth to make a traditional scarf (you know, 1.2 meters long and about 20cm wide) but, to her surprise, the seller cut it in a square!
Naturally, she was set aback; but after a couple of days we started playing with it to see what else we could do. We thought of cutting it in slimmer pieces and stitching them together in a very obvious way; but we didn’t get to it right away… Conny was working on some websites and I was pacing back and forth, absentmindedly wrapping myself in the fabric. Then, as I turned around, I saw myself reflected in the mirror and actually liked the way the scarf had taken the shape of my neck and shoulders; and so was born the mesmerizing thing that we just sold. Being a person that likes options and alternatives, I made the big button in the middle interchangeable, and threw in buttons in orange, blue and white to the package. I call it a fashion scarf for a lack of proper name, though I would like to name it Clara! Clara! after the pattern of names by a certain prolific Mexican inventor.
Oh, and it can be folded just like a turtleneck; except it’s a big turtleneck.

Well, after a lot of work it seems Conny and I have set up some decent storefronts. Selling handmade stuff is not as easy as it seems, but there are a few specialized websites that ease the entry to the market a little bit. Etsy is probably the largest one right now, but it is designed mainly for people in the United States and lacks any form of currency management. DaWanda is a German enterprise better suited for the European seller (different currencies, languages, etc), but smaller and less feature-driven. The differences are very interesting, and it would be a nice exercise to compare their strategic views.
Perhaps the hardest part is coming up with a brand name and a logo; one has to think about the future and the implications of image, spelling, and context. We settled down for the Connychiwa brand because it sounds… good. Yeah, we know, it really has nothing to with Japan; but how could we resist the C shaped like a foot? d@_@b
Anyway, enough of this business-oriented rant; our initial products are for babies since that’s all we can think about right now with a little girl on the way… we’ve dropped the prices since they seemed a bit high on second thought. Check them out in whichever storefront is closest to you, and tell your friends!

We’ll keep adding products weekly, which I will promise will be, if nothing else, interesting.