The Innovation Diaries

We’ve been using our opposable thumbs and overgrown brains for the purpose of innovating since we came down from the trees and lost our bad posture. And our innovating thumbs have served us well – from first gripping a dye-soaked cave-painting reed, to cuing up Icky Thump on my Nano’s click wheel.

But until recently, I wondered if we’ve retained the right to keep our thumbs.

For as much as innovation, insights, and design are topical buzzwords in business today, there’s been a lot of energy spent on misguided or just plain silly innovations. I breathed easy and let out a Fonzie “heeeeyyyy” after a recent visit to New York’s Cooper Hewitt Museum’s Design for the Other 90% exhibit. Its name and theme are gleaned from a quote from Dr. Paul Polak of International Development Enterprises:

“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.”

Featured in the exhibit are examples of life changing innovations that are inspiring in their simplicity, and their empathy to the most urgent of human needs and insights. For instance:

• The Q-Drum: Who said we shouldn’t reinvent the wheel? This South African designed combo water jug and the wheel eliminates the need for millions of women and children to haul water dangerously on their heads every day.

• The Pot-in-Pot produce cooler: In rural Nigeria, lack of transportation and electricity means getting crops to market in a suitable state is a huge challenge. These nested clay pots with wet sand sandwiched between use evaporative cooling to keep produce inside fresh for 21 days instead of 2 or 3.

• Portable Light Textiles: the strange image you see above is an innovation created by integrating modern off-the-shelf technologies like solar panels and cell phone batteries into traditionally worn clothing, Mexican laborers can bring home a backpack full of solar energy. Strong LED’s can then light nighttime workspaces or study desks – increasing family income and education

The examples continue – from charcoal briquettes made from the waste stream of sugarcane processing, to a manual press that makes construction bricks from mud. This exhibit was inspiring in its simple return to what innovation is all about:

1. Finding an insight or need,
2. Addressing that insight with an idea, and
3. Bringing real world impact to bear with the execution of that idea

And in a world where I can order an ionic wrench warmer from my airplane seat, it’s good to see a 10 year old boy comfortably dragging 100 lbs of water through the desert to his family with a smile on his face.

Thumbs up to that.