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March 09, 2010

Operational Innovations - Up With People!

This week in our Strategy, Entrepreneurship & Ethics class we're learning about operational innovation. It's a genuinely interesting subject for me because it's where design thinking meets the core of how a business is run, or 'where the rubber meets the road' - not just in a 'make it pretty so that people will buy it' kind of way. It's interesting to consider how technology, especially the internet, has permanently affected the landscape. Rickshaw Bags is a great example of how businesses are leaving the traditional operational models in the dust. By building innovations into their brand like custom made to order products, they can retain more lasting value in their product cycle; for instance by not having left over inventory to compete in the market with their new product line each season.

It seems like every time you turn around, more and more businesses are cropping up–especially online–that allow consumers an infinite number of choices to customize their purchase. In a similar vein to Rickshaw, the print publishing industry is getting a boost with products like Burb and Lulu, which allow users to design and print their own hard or softcover books, and even sell them in their online shops. Etsy, a website dedicated to craft artists starting their own small businesses, is similarly opening up new niche markets for everything from sustainably made dog beds to custom made to oerder alpaka hats. In general, there are examples of this in seemingly every space, and more cropping up every day.

The operational innovation that I admire the most these days is the ability for anyone anywhere to create anything and put it out there to find an audience. Artists, content producers, poets, writers, musicians, comedians, designers, and many other types of idea-and-thing makers are all being empowered to start sharing their work and finding their tribes of supporters and customers. New business models are cropping up which are taking the place of the old means of gatekeeping, which shut out innovation and diversity in favor of limiting choice and increasing profits for the few businesses who could survive in a given space–usually by squeezing the life out of the people doing the work! Nowadays it's all about talent, and if you've got it, it seems likely that you will find success more quickly and without as much a chance of it being exploited.

This new model seems to be catching to almost every sphere of life in the western world, with the internet, reality t.v., and film industries creating more niche content and even a whole new flavor of fame, called 'famey-ness', used to describe an internet celebrity. There is now even an internet famous class at Parson's School of Design. http://internetfamo.us/class/

In other words, Up With People! I love the time we're living in. Operational innovations galore, may it make us all richer and more fulfilled!

Posted by dsr at March 9, 2010 12:45 PM