Muckin’ Around, Weird Creative Collisions
&
Other Awkward Patterns of Innovation
Ben Weinlick
Go to www.thinkjarcollective.com for tools and innovation field guide
@thinkjar_
@weinbenlick

What drew you to a workshop on
patterns of innovation?
Haven’t we heard enough about it?
• Do you want innovation
cause you like creating stuff?
• Because it sounds cool to be
an innovator?
• Because your stakeholders
need it so their lives are
better?
• Or just to be entertained?
• ?
Do the chat box thing

What the heck are we gonna cover?
• Welp- first off no silver bullets
• Complexity and the need for
innovation
• Why our brains kinda like the
status quo
• If serious about innovation then
it’s long game work- culture and
tools
• Some patterns of disciplined
innovation and some stories of
how I’ve steward it… walk the talk

Big questions that guide
How do we problem solve better?
Collectively, how do we get to root causes in complex
challenges and
design more relevant solutions?
Fixed
it

Action Lab
We steward a portfolio of labs around complex issues
Housing innovation Anti-racism innovation lab
Humanizing case management systems
change innovation
Disability & inclusion think tank

It’s both!
Processes that help us
make progress on problems
that matter
Robust solutions
that matter
When I throw around the word innovation I mean
this

Social Innovation?
When tough challenges…
Explore deeply what might be the root causes
Co-Create solutions alongside people affected by a wicked challenge
Find what might work through testing little
experiments
Grow the stuff that seems to work better

What the heck is Social Innova1on Really?
“A social innovation can be a product,
process, or technology, but it can also be a
principle, an idea, a piece of legislation, a
social movement, an intervention, or
some combination of them.”
Stanford Social Innovation Review
10
Helps at individual level Helps at Systemic Level

- Rapid change
- Shrinking resources
- Increasing uncertainty
- Crisis, react, crisis, react
- Overwhelm, anxiety
- Throw in a little COVID-19…
5 years of change in 6 months
What we face in
increasingly
complex times

Increased complexity,
overwhelm
&
uncertainty
Uncertainty can get us
hooked on
simplistic answers
Humans generally get “bad weird”
when
faced with uncertainty
To make it worse our
brains are wired for liking the
status quo
The familiar: We tend to pay more attention
to what we’re used to

Simple Complicated Complex
Can group
3 main types of problems
for innovation
Adapted from Brenda Zimmerman - FrancesWestley, Getting to Maybe

Between our
brains’ weird
biases and fast
moving
complexity…
we can’t solve
tough
challenges
alone anymore
15

We deeply need
innova1on.
It’s not a
“nice to have”
It’s a must have
16

Key things we’re up against when
striving for meaningful innovation

Systems that demand knowing exactly where
an endeavour will end up
Innovation
emergence orientated
Performance Outcomes
and know
outcomes/results
before we begin
Radical Middle

Fetish for
novelty
Rookie innovation

“Don’t you know or have some
kind of innovation tool that you
can teach us that will solve
everything?…”
“The Thing!”
Give us a damn formula!

“We’ll support innovation if it
results in 2% efficiencies per
year”
Status quo
disguised as hip
innovation talk

Not
recognizing
that all
innovations
have a shelf
life
Panarchy

Focus and Count the Passes

What are the Moon
Walking bears we
might not be noticing
because of being
focused on certain
aspects of a problem?
We don’t want
to consider
our blind spots

So, what the heck can
we do about this?

Tools of InnovationCulture of Innovation
Must be some deep meaning as to why cosmic Grumpy Cat is at the centre of thisVenn Diagram
Are you actually serious about relevant innovation?

Looking
outside our silos
for signals and trends
to remix into your domain
Strengthening
Organizational
values
and capacity for innovation through
Culture and Tools
Team
solution finding
habits
Systems Think the Heck out of Innovation
Culture
People’s
views,
patterns of
problem
solving

Exploring 6 Patterns of
Innovation Culture
The right culture
The right tools
Need Both!

Support looking in unexpected places for
practices and ideas that are outside one’s usual
silos
1. Innovative Cultures
Innovation
Pattern
Because weird
creative
collisions!

Take it from Philo Farnsworth

Weird creative collisions for good
Not objects:
If everybody would
just…
Design interactions of
positive change we
want to see in the
world

Design is usually misunderstood
• When you try to solve a
problem you are
designing solutions
• Design as problem
solving
33

The common and often short sighted way of leading change
People First!
Check multiple
perspectives
What could
trigger change?
What is deeply
needed?
Prototype and
Test intervention
Small bets before
big bets
Scale out, scale
up, scale deep
Convene Senior Leaders and
policy makers
Unleash on people and hope the plan/strategy works
Experts give opinions and we make new program
interventions
Policy change/champions along for the ride the whole way
Human Centered Design Approach

Systemic Design

36

No Yes!
Long standing big systemic challenge
undignified, De-humanizing social service planning experience

Systems
Need
Standardization
Users
Need
Customization
Innovation
How might we create a flexible, more client centred social service
case management and reporting process that works for people
served and reporting to funders?
Horns of the dilemma

Invited in 2010 to Pixar for the “Intersec1on” event
39
www.thinkjarcollective.com

Which took me to a weird creative
collision moment...
Not objects
Design
interactions

-Really rough prototype testing
-Keeps assumptions in check
-Fail cheaply

www.mycompassplanning.com

Support diversity of perspectives in
teams tackling complex challenges
2. Innovative Cultures
Jonas Salk, developer of the
vaccine that eradicated polio,
made it a practice to
assemble men and women
from different domains in
think tanks.
Invite people from other
domains and ask them
how they might solve
your problem.
www.thinkjarcollective.com
Innovation
Pattern

Core Team!
Diverse cross section of Edmonton
Diverse skills and perspectives
Amazing Leaders

We had to go to where the community
we needed to work with was

New forms of public engagement for sense making

50

51

52

53

54
www.youneedthisbox.ca
2300 now out in Canada
Examples from two diverse Shift Lab community teams
Treaty board game

55
Built on a foundation of diverse stakeholder perspectives
For Complex Challenges We Need

Recognize that rarely do relevant innovations
come from the top
They steward bottom up co-design
3. Innovative Cultures
Innovation
Pattern

City of Edmonton Parking Accessibility Lab

People/Service
User/
Lived
Experienced
Managers of a
Services
Service
Delivery
People/
Front Line
Policy Makers
Funders
Family
Members of
people served
Needed to learn
from all the perspectives
to find the innovation
Why co-design? Because 360 systems
view makes for better
solutions

Co-Design General Principles
• Designer/solution finder needs to
gain direct insights and get a
sense of needs from hanging out
with users/people
• Good ideas/solutions could
come from any stakeholder in
a system
• At times involve context experiencers
in interactive design
workshops to gain a sense of
needs and to generate ideas

Co-Design
What does it look like when done poorly?
Design By Committee
Pontiac Aztec
Top 50 worst car of all time.
Led by innovation guru
Tom Peters
ClusterFak -YEG SNAP gallery show
where art was made by artist and audience co-
design
The Aztec featured prominently… for a reason

Value playfulness and not taking ourselves too seriously
But not forced cheesy play
4. Innovative Cultures
Innovation
Pattern

Authentic expressions
Be yourself
Playfulness
Poking fun at yourself
Playing with ideas
Openness
Empathy
Receptivity
to
new
possibilities
Better collaboration
Better
problem solving
Play Trust
Better
Problem
Solving

Seeking Creative Collaborations | Building and Sharing Knowledge | Embracing Complexity 1SKILLS ANNUAL REPORT JUNE 2016Supporting Engaged Citizenship | Safeguarding Healthy Relationships6 SKILLS ANNUAL REPORT JUNE 2016
The Top 10 Indicators
That Skills Is An Employer of Choice
I like that Skills actually supports the citizenship of the people we
support and doesn’t just say that they do - Adrian B.
It is not uncommon for an applicant to tell us that “they’ve heard that
Skills is a great company to work for” - Lizzamarie M. and Tracey W.
I have been with Skills since 2010 and the
people are the reason that I stay - Chris B.
When I tell people I work for Skills they say they’ve heard that it’s
supposed to be a great place to work and ask if we are hiring! - Juanita G.
Karen Huta
Senior Manager of Human Resources
10
6
4
28
9
5
3
17

Create environments & experiences that foster creative
collisions and collaborative problem solving
5. Innovative Cultures
Innovation
Pattern

65

66

SDX is an Edmonton-
based Community of
Practice that convenes
individuals interested in
learning about Systemic
Design as a methodology
for addressing complex,
real world issues.
Together, we explore
systems thinking, design
thinking, and change lab
approaches.
With a bias towards
learning by doing, SDX
aims to be a watering hole
where multiple sectors can
come together, learn
together, and act together.
SDX is convened by the
Government of Alberta
CoLab and the Skills
Society Action Lab.
SDXSDXSystemicDesigneXchange
350
-Civil servants
-Non-profit leaders
-Designers
-University profs
-Explorers

68

Keep asking, what do the people we serve really
need? Have we hung out with people in context to
learn?
6. Innovative Cultures

Systems
Need
Standardization
Users
Need
Customization
Innovation
Horns of the dilemma
Bonus: Innovative Cultures
Harness win wins and surf tensions of dilemmas

Quick Recap
Patterns of innovation

Support looking in unexpected places for
practices and ideas that are outside one’s usual
silos
1. Innovative Cultures
Innovation
Pattern

Support diverse experience and backgrounds in teams
2. Innovative Cultures
www.thinkjarcollective.com
Innovation
Pattern

Steward bottom up sense making, problem solving
and co-design
3. Innovative Cultures
Innovation
Pattern

Value playfulness and not taking ourselves too seriously
But don’t force cheesy play
Set the stage for it to naturally emerge
4. Innovative Cultures
Innovation
Pattern

Create environments that foster creative collisions and
collaborative problem solving
5. Innovative Cultures
Innovation
Pattern
Psst…
Doesn’t
have to be a
fancy lab

Keep asking, what do the people we serve really
need? Have we hung out with people in context to
learn?
Have we dug deeper?
6. Innovative Cultures
Innovation
Pattern

Still serious about
Innovation?
• What is resonating or
connecting for you?
• What’s something practical or
provocative you’re taking away?
• Some practical stuff at
www.thinkjarcollective.com for
leading teams in systems
thinking and problem solving.
Do the chat box thing

Increased complexity,
overwhelm
&
uncertainty
Uncertainty can get us
hooked on
simplistic answers
Humans generally get “bad weird”
when
faced with uncertainty
Remember our brains are
wired for the status quo
The familiar: We tend to only pay attention
to what we’re used to

www.thinkjarcollective.com
@thinkjar_
Ben Weinlick
bweinlick@gmail.com

End

What is innovation in an
organization really?
- Curiosity
- See opportunities even in adversity
- People have ability to try new things
- Learning and evaluating what’s working and
can scale and letting go what isn’t working
- Small bets before big bets!
- Always improving both what you deliver
and processes of improving what you deliver-
- A culture where “Yes And” is more common
than “yeah but”