Thursday, March 22, 2012

Can you jumpstart your creativity?

I am a great fan of NPR and listen to in the car and download it to my iPad.  Last night I heard science writer Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, explore where innovative thoughts originate and explains how some companies are now working to create environments where they're more likely to occur.

Here's a great story about looking at a problem from a different angle can be the solution! He begins the book by talking about a frustrating challenge for Procter & Gamble, trying to invent a new line of soaps for their mops. They gave it to a team of chemists who struggled for years to come up with a stronger soap. You can make a soap stronger, but then you may peel the varnish off wood floors, you may irritate delicate skin. So after a couple years of struggle and failure, the executives at Procter & Gamble decided let's just outsource this problem. They gave it to a design firm called Continuum and they began by spending nine months watching people mop their floor.

They said we don't know more chemistry than the chemists at Procter & Gamble, an innovation powerhouse and we're not going to out-chemistry these chemists. You know, maybe we should just watch people mop?

So they watched people mop splashing around dirty water in the bathtub. And the first thing they discovered is that mopping is a terrible idea, that people spend more time cleaning the mop, than they do cleaning the actual floor.

It becomes very clear that mopping is a bad technology and they needed something better. But they didn't know how to replace it. And so then one day, they're making another field visit. And it's an elderly lady, and they surreptitiously spill some coffee on her floor. Because one of the things you find when you make sight visits, and you tell people we're coming to watch you clean your floors, that they clean their floor before you actually get there, you know, because they want the house to be spotless. But then you're not really seeing how people do it.
And so they intentionally spilled some coffee on her floor, and watched how she cleaned it up. And although this lady said that she always vacuumed and mopped, that's not what she did. Instead, she got out her paper towels and tore a paper towel and wet them with some water and then wiped it along the floor.

And right there, that is when they had their big idea, and that's where the Swiffer came from. Here's the entire interview - http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=148607182

Can we jump start our fundraising creativity by watching the donor (or someone who gave and doesn't anymore)?  Can we find out what their motivation were - how they make their decisions?  I know there is a lot of research on the subject, but like the outside design firm, I think you should go to the source.  For major gift givers, ask their motivation; what is the pleasure they get; what satisfies them that their donation has made a difference?  Be sure to engage in a two-way conversation.  You may find some creative ways to reach out and reward your donors and keep them!

No comments: