A Review: Ten Faces of Innovation

It has become more and more apparent to me why IDEO is one of the leading companies in understanding and progressing the concept of design thinking.  Tom Kelly, another of the IDEO crowd has produced a great piece entitled The Ten Faces of Innovation.  There are several chapters ranging from Anthropologists to Caregivers, and are all equally important and engaging; but for now I want to focus on the seventh in the line, The Experience Architect.

At first it took me a moment to understand the term, but the excellent conversational writing style very quickly underscores just what an "Experience Architect" is, and what their presence entails for a company.  For a more full understanding I wanted to break down the sum of their purpose into a simple phrase to kick this post off.  Very simply, an Experience Architect's responsibility it to open a business to the concept that "the first step in becoming extraordinary is simply to stop be ordinary."  While that may seem obvious... it is in fact the biggest and most cacophonous problem to overcome in the process.

Kelly states that "Experience Architects fend off the ordinary wherever they find it." I must believe that in some cases (much like the idea of not removing all constraints as I mentioned in my review of Change by Design) that not all ordinary elements should be removed or swept away.  People need something that they can connect with in order for a business to thrive.  That said, it is important to know and understand where these ordinary events can be altered ever so slightly to create a more memorable experience.  That to me is the first key.

The chapter continues to look closer at the multiple elements that go into making an Experience Architect.  These range from small pieces to grander, much larger scale elements, but each shares a common point.  In order to create a successfully extraordinary experience, being able to see both the big picture, and how the smaller elements combine to form said big picture are of equal importance.  Kelly goes into great depth about hotel chains, and how their luxuries pail in comparison to the singular purpose of a hotel room, the bed itself.  Yet, he still allows himself to note that something else, while probably never considered ahead of time by customers also has a fair presence in the overall experience, and that is the alarm clock.  Though I personally believe the overall affect the clock has no with the widespread induction of the smart phone into society, I still believe the point held quite solidly.  in any case, he calls these "Trigger Points." 

There are several other key points Kelly mentions concerning with business practices and the like, but overall the idea fits in very well with other works from IDEO.  This concept of big picture work by virtue of understanding small, singular issues makes all the difference in how the problems may reach a new, and unique outcome almost tailor fit to the issue at hand.  Two competing companies could both reach out to IDEO or any design firm (like The Break Room) with what would appear to be the same problem.  Yet this work seems to show that the source of that issue could be extremely different based on any number of factors, be they large or small; internal or external.  I believe that is essential to understand and how that knowledge is facilitated by the Experience Architect by putting it towards progressive action.

"When you 're in the "zone" off being an Experience Architect, you view the world through a simple lens, searching out experience elements in the status quo that are negative, or merely neutral, and then looking for opportunities to fine-tune them."