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Why You Should Let a 5-Year Old Design Your Next Product
All his life, he hated brushing his teeth.
Getting toothpaste onto a toothbrush can be messy if your fine motor skills are
still developing. And, of course, even though you know you’re supposed to
replace a toothbrush every three months, who really keeps track of that? So,
Houston Diaz decided to invent
a solution. And several prototypes later, he designed a toothbrush that has
the toothpaste dispenser integrated into the brush itself, allowing himself and
others to have a more convenient solution. And when the toothpaste runs out?
It’s a natural reminder that it’s time to buy a new brush.
Even though he’s only five years old, that product
will one day be on the shelves of your local Bed Bath and Beyond, or Target.
And, no, as precocious as this kid is, he is not an entrepreneur, and doesn’t
need to raise VC money or write a business plan.
This five-year old is able to be the
inventor without also creating a company because of a product innovation company
called Quirky. What Quirky does is make invention accessible to
anybody — and quite possibly everybody. In the Industrial Era, becoming an
“inventor” meant you also had to create an organization that could produce,
market, and sell your invention. Thus, it’s been a hard gig to crack. You not
only had to be able to come up with great winning ideas, you also had to deal
with the complexities of financing, engineering, distribution, recruiting staff,
and legal liability — to name just a few. The intensity of the organizational
demands narrowed the chances that new solutions would ever actually come to
market. And, of course, this slowed innovation and restrained market
outcomes.
Quirky has created an
innovation engine more suited for the Social
Era — in which work and jobs are no longer the same thing, and collaboration
happens outside of organizations as much as within it — in three ways:
- It disaggregates the process of innovation from the innovator’s work itself.
- It aligns interests and economics so that all parties have a shared interest.
- It engages community to improve ideas and ultimately co-create the value.
By working with an
extended community, Quirky can bring at least three new consumer products to
market each week. And by “market” we mean 188 retail partners. Ben Kaufman, the founder and CEO, says there is
no limit to what they can create. “Even cars?” I asked him, curious about how
far his vision holds. “Yeah, sure,” he replied. Ben himself is 26 and has been
on
the Tonight Show to tell the Quirky story. Thus far, Quirky has brought
nearly 500 products to market, since 2009 and the level of sophistication and
quality continues to grow.
Back to Houston Diaz’s
toothbrush. He started this project with help from his dad. When he was done, he
uploaded video and watched as votes started to roll in for his “no mess
toothbrush. He agitated for more support himself, even calling his dentist and
asked his vote. “No one was exempt from his pitch,” says Houston’s mom, Nancy Lublin. (As CEO of Dosomething.org, she’s clearly
raising someone who believes in action.) Then Quirky put it “under
consideration” — a live debate takes place for vetting ideas, which
entrepreneurs are encouraged to attend. Houston and his dad wore matching
jackets and ties, and Houston made sure his mohawk was extra spiky. He listened
as people debated his idea, and answered questions as they came up. And very
shortly (in the next 3-4 weeks), they will put the product into production.
Now you may not want to be an inventor. And maybe your kid doesn’t want to
either. But the Quirky business model embodies a set of ideas that every
business ought to be considering, in light of the Social Era. Quirky builds on a
fundamental truth of the social era: Ideas can come from anywhere, from anyone
without first being vetted to see if that person is “allowed” to have that idea.
And as we find our way into the Social Era, we’re going to grapple with what it
means to be a leader like Ben Kauffman — more like a community organizer than a
traditional head honcho. Show me a leader, goes the saying, and I’ll show you a
bunch of followers. The challenges of our era don’t require more followers; they
require the kind of leadership that encourages the community to build what’s
needed so that anyone and quite possibly everyone can exercise initiative.Today, a few smart people see this as “the future.” Even smarter ones see it as “the present.” Which one are you?
And, more importantly, what are you doing about it?
***
This post originally appeared at HBR, here: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/why_you_should_let_a_5-year_ol.html. As is my traditional request, please post comments there so I can manage 1 conversation, which helps the personal sanity by a factor of 10.
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