How to Come up With New Ideas According to Hartmut Esslinger, Founder of Frog Design
“Most people don’t know how to innovate,” says Hartmut Esslinger, founder of frog design . He and his company (now 50 years in business) have helped develop Apple laptop computers, the Sony Walkman, and many websites, apps, gadgets, and high-quality medical and dental equipment . These are his principles of innovation.
Build on what exists
To innovate, you need to understand that great ideas build on existing ones. The Sony Walkman, which Esslinger helped develop, was based on larger existing products based on tape technology developed for NASA’s Gemini missions. The underlying technology was basically the same. “Innovation doesn’t mean everything is completely new,” says Esslinger. This is a leap in the evolutionary process.
As you know, the iPhone transformed smartphones without being the first smartphone. Everyone knows that this was the evolution of existing smartphones. But it was also a sequel to the Mac, says Esslinger (whose company helped develop the first Macs ). Apple’s minimalist yet approachable design philosophy has changed the way people think about smartphones. Each participant had to switch to touch screens or die. Each telephone had to try its best to reproduce the functions of a computer, and in the meantime, invent new ones. In 12 years, no device manufacturer (including Apple) has succeeded in changing the rules of the game on this scale.
Know your purpose
Innovation is also driven by purpose. The Walkman came about because Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka wanted to listen to music on business trips. He took the company’s TC-D5 cassette player with him on his travels. It was portable in the sense that it could fit in a suitcase. But Ibuka needed a player who could fit in his pocket.
With this goal in mind, Sony engineers redefined the basic concept of tape recorders. First, the Walkman could not record, but only played back previously recorded music. And to fit in a pocket, it couldn’t have a speaker, only a headphone jack. Anything that didn’t serve the primary purpose of exceptional portability was worth sacrificing.
Don’t expect everyone to be innovative
“Mostly in America [people think] that everyone can be an innovator,” says Esslinger. “No. According to statistics, one in ten – at best one in eight – can be an innovator. And how many geniuses are there? Not many.” Esslinger runs design classes with 15 students selected from a large number of applicants. Even in this select group of honors, not everyone will become a legend. “There is one or two geniuses in every class.”
At frog, he says, there are many great people who can do great jobs if they have someone’s brilliant idea to develop. While the creative worker is critical early on, the performers are important at a later stage and the creative member is only consulted “in the event of a crisis.”
There is a temptation to see a creative person or leader as the only important role, and everyone else just as support. But he points to the US women’s soccer team and “undetected heroes” in defense. If they weren’t doing their job, all the flashy crime job would be useless.
It’s hard to frame this message without sounding rash – that’s how much we (in America in particular) admire the creative genius. But Esslinger doesn’t see a hierarchy in this. “If it’s just creativity, it doesn’t work. The point is to respect people for who they are. ” Only when you respect each role can you find the best talent for it – and prevent everyone from playing a creative role and only fighting for their own ideas.
Don’t rely on what people think they want
“The research industry is bullshit,” says Esslinger. Market research process disrupted. “How do people know what is possible?” Focus groups can come up with, say,new features for a car . But there is no way they can help you invent fuel cells to power an electric vehicle, because they do not know about cutting-edge research, the global economy, or any forces that are shaping this invention. If you want to do something that will change the world, you must use your own wisdom.
In art, this is the truth behind “write for yourself” and a million other aphorisms. If you try to do something that people already know what they want, at best you will create something quirky and memorable. If you try to do something that you think is amazing, which uses your personal experience and knowledge, you may have a chance to do something important.
In contrast to the iPhone’s vision, Esslinger points to Motorola. “They had a simple phone and wanted to test it and make it more feminine. What is it already? They spent a hundred thousand dollars on research and not a dime on electronic innovation. And a measly $ 28,000 for design. ” Motorola asked women what they wanted from a phone and then created 10 different designs. “It was a piece of shit! Nobody wanted that. “
But do your research
Esslinger is not saying that innovators should not do market research, but that the current research industry is doing it wrong. First, companies hire third-party research firms and don’t share the information they already have. Esslinger complains about a survey he received from his insurance company. “The first question is:“ Do you plan to go in the near future? “Second,” Where do you want to go? ” They know it! But these guys don’t know. [Insurance company] pays for stupidity. They are disabled. The research industry is a racketeer. “
When you’re researching, ask your first sources who else you should talk to. Esslinger has spent decades developing dental chairs with KaVo Dental . When he first began his briefings with the company, it seemed to him that he had only heard that he could not change. Luckily for him, he comes from a family of dentists, and they advised him to go to a dental university and look after the students.
There, he found that 70% of the students were women, struggling with oversized equipment designed for the previous generation of male dentists. Students wore gloves to avoid illness, while modern instruments were designed to be used with bare hands. The profession was changing, and KaVo also needed to change. He told them about it, they accepted it and innovated.
This is what it means to truly “do your own research.” Once you get all the information you can from your project partners, you need to question that information. You need to see what no one else sees. And if you are one of the ten true innovators, you will understand when you see.