Stories, moments, people and ideas of interest from within the worlds of innovation and design, spotted and written about by Helen Walters, writer and researcher at Doblin, a member of Monitor Group. Attitude, errors and opinions all the writer's own.
Ask me anything
April 17, 2012
"In a bottom line driven atmosphere, it is important to remind those at desks that hundreds of unique human factors are involved in increasing compliance. It is a complex problem that can’t be resolved by adding more signs that simply restate the goal in bigger type."
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Rachel Lehrer is just finishing up her MFA in Transdisciplinary Design at the New School. Her Core77 piece, Designing Handwashing: Diverse Nudges In A Hospital, looks at her seven-month-long project tracking handwashing compliance in, well, hospitals. It’s a fascinating insight into the many contradictory pressures faced by those looking to implement design principles in both their broadest sense and in contexts unused to the influence or potential of design. Lehrer nails the complexity of the issue, and while she understandably veers towards the idea that she and those imbued with design skills are just the ladies with the lamps needed to help, she also understands that design is most certainly not a silver bullet that will solve the many issues embedded in such a complex environment, but rather one critical way to help create the conditions for success.
The solution is not a single process or product or able to be purchased with one lump sum but lies in reconfiguring people, spaces, objects and expectations all together, over the course of many years. The treatment is not a magic pill but a series of small gifts. Each one can incrementally improve the likelihood of compliance, but only if encouraged by a service institution that understands the long term effectiveness of slight, diverse, persistent nudges.
2011 reportedly had the lowest movie-going audiences since 1995. In I’ll Tell You Why Movie Revenue is Dropping, Roger Ebert breaks it down in words of one syllable. Turns out, the reasons are pretty simple: tickets are too expensive; there are feasible alternatives to watching a film at decent size and quality elsewhere; and the experience is all too-often marred by cell-phone users or those who see the theater as an extension of their living room, meaning they can chat busily throughout a film. Then there’s the rip-off at the concession stands. As Ebert writes:
It’s an open secret that the actual cost of soft drinks and popcorn is very low. To justify their inflated prices, theaters serve portions that are grotesquely oversized, and no longer offer what used to be a “small popcorn.” Today’s bucket of popcorn would feed a thoroughbred.
I’m used to the cinemas in New York City, most of which provide perfect examples of Ebert’s concerns. I remember the experience being rather more civilized in Los Angeles, but movie executives who can get back to understanding why people actually stump up cash to come and watch movies on the big screen — what experience they’re actually looking for — would surely tap into a real advantage and maybe even reverse or stem those terrible business figures.
I was intrigued to see this story, from Retail Wire: The Doctor is (Virtually) In at Rite Aid, a story outlining a new initiative from the pharmacy that allows patients to buy screen-to-screen consultations with doctors and nurses. The in-store service of what they’re calling the NowClinic is being prototyped and tested in the Detroit region, while there’s also an online version.
It all sounded like a pretty good idea to me, and as I’ve written before, innovation and healthcare could really use with hanging out some more. But I also wanted to run the idea past someone with a better sense of whether this might actually catch on or not. So I contacted Dr Jay Parkinson, founder of web-based practice, Hello Health, who’s now running a healthcare design firm, The Future Well. And here’s what he had to say:
In our first year at Hello Health where we met people in person for the first visit and then gave them the option to see us via email, video, or another in person visit, we had about 900 email visits and 2 video visits. Video with strangers is only used in porn. If they were a good and wanted form of communication, don’t you think other industries would have adopted them long ago? It’s true, you can Facetime with Apple customer service, but that’s just weird. I don’t want to see what those people look like. This stuff is only found in healthcare because there’s a small amount of people innovating within healthcare and they’ve all jumped on the bandwagon.
Not exactly a glowing endorsement, huh? I think I might be less harsh than this, and certainly applaud an effort to make healthcare more accessible and more modern. But he definitely raises valid points. Then he suggested I go off and re-read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, excerpts of which you can read here and which I now suggest you go off and re-read, too.
"One common definition of innovation is invention that generates value. But we never ask value for whom?"
— Thoughtful piece from my old boss, Bruce Nussbaum, on America’s Innovation Shortfall and How We Can Solve It. He makes some excellent points about the problems with innovation, not least that while everyone loves to bandy it about as the amazing thing that will solve everything, if you look at the data (and around you) you’ll see it’s not quite as simple as all that. Nussbaum cites the 2008 National Science Foundation Business R&D and Innovation Survey, which includes the startling stat that 9% of public and private companies engaged in either product or service innovation between 2006 and 2008. 9%! Even if you believe that there’s more to innovation than either product or service, that’s a pretty pathetic figure. If we’re not even trying, well, what kind of outcome do we expect?
"Research people invent a lot of things, but they don’t always invent things that can scale and be adopted widely. If you put them together with people who live the problems, they have a much better chance of inventing things that scale and are used widely."
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So speaks Robert Morris, VP for services research at IBM, which just announced a new Services Innovation Lab. Its goal is bringing ”differentiated services to market more quickly and improving the quality and up-take on its new services innovations.”
There’s always tension between R and D. The former needs space to think, breathe, imagine, dream, while the absolute goal of the latter is to make an impact on the market—now. In this initiative, everyone is lumped in together. As IBM’s Steve Hamm writes in the company announcement, “The consultants visit the labs for “whiteboarding” and joint design exercises, where they brainstorm with researchers about how to solve specific services challenges. At the same time, researchers work directly with clients and consultants at the clients’ offices.”
A delicate balance is necessary here. If research becomes too focused on the near-term, that might unwittingly have serious business implications down the line. But it’ll be interesting to see what the lab gets up to, and also interesting to see its initial focus: cloud computing, analytics, service delivery automation and enterprise mobile communications.
In Blockbuster, Please, Please Change Your Habits, Austin Carr has a great analysis of why the video superstore continues to misread trends and head blithely in the wrong direction, even in the face of longterm competition from Netflix and its own massive debt troubles. Blockbuster’s latest wheeze: rent-by-mail, a service allowing consumers to go into the store, choose a DVD to rent (average $5.99) which will then be mailed to them. After seven days, the customer has to mail back the disc. And while there’s “no late fee”, there is a fee of $19.99 if you’re more than three days late returning the movie. You know, a late fee.
What’s possibly more offensive, however, is the tone struck by Blockbuster’s own blog. Carr writes:
“Some of you out there are massive commitment-phobes. Seems like you don’t want to have a monthly subscription,” Blockbuster wrote on its blog. “Why does commitment scare you so much? What are you afraid of?” The answer to that question is obvious: Consumers are afraid of Blockbuster.
Not least because their willfully chummy tone tries to strike a note of shoulder-punching bonhomie but totally misses the relationship between user and provider. I’m all for wit and attempts from brands to craft meaningful relationships, and service providers certainly don’t need to act cravenly towards their customers. But not every brand has to be my cool best friend daring me to strive for more. In this instance (and granted it’s entirely possible I’m over-thinking this) but asking me what I’m afraid of strikes me as aggressive and distasteful and entirely the wrong tone.
![2011 reportedly had the lowest movie-going audiences since 1995. In I’ll Tell You Why Movie Revenue is Dropping, Roger Ebert breaks it down in words of one syllable. Turns out, the reasons are pretty simple: tickets are too expensive; there are feasible alternatives to watching a film at decent size and quality elsewhere; and the experience is all too-often marred by cell-phone users or those who see the theater as an extension of their living room, meaning they can chat busily throughout a film. Then there’s the rip-off at the concession stands. As Ebert writes:
It’s an open secret that the actual cost of soft drinks and popcorn is very low. To justify their inflated prices, theaters serve portions that are grotesquely oversized, and no longer offer what used to be a “small popcorn.” Today’s bucket of popcorn would feed a thoroughbred.
I’m used to the cinemas in New York City, most of which provide perfect examples of Ebert’s concerns. I remember the experience being rather more civilized in Los Angeles, but movie executives who can get back to understanding why people actually stump up cash to come and watch movies on the big screen — what experience they’re actually looking for — would surely tap into a real advantage and maybe even reverse or stem those terrible business figures.
[Story via Tom Weaver. Photo of popcorn by PunkJr.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx111pHTri1qikpxao1_1280.jpg)
![I was intrigued to see this story, from Retail Wire: The Doctor is (Virtually) In at Rite Aid, a story outlining a new initiative from the pharmacy that allows patients to buy screen-to-screen consultations with doctors and nurses. The in-store service of what they’re calling the NowClinic is being prototyped and tested in the Detroit region, while there’s also an online version.
It all sounded like a pretty good idea to me, and as I’ve written before, innovation and healthcare could really use with hanging out some more. But I also wanted to run the idea past someone with a better sense of whether this might actually catch on or not. So I contacted Dr Jay Parkinson, founder of web-based practice, Hello Health, who’s now running a healthcare design firm, The Future Well. And here’s what he had to say:
In our first year at Hello Health where we met people in person for the first visit and then gave them the option to see us via email, video, or another in person visit, we had about 900 email visits and 2 video visits. Video with strangers is only used in porn. If they were a good and wanted form of communication, don’t you think other industries would have adopted them long ago? It’s true, you can Facetime with Apple customer service, but that’s just weird. I don’t want to see what those people look like. This stuff is only found in healthcare because there’s a small amount of people innovating within healthcare and they’ve all jumped on the bandwagon.
Not exactly a glowing endorsement, huh? I think I might be less harsh than this, and certainly applaud an effort to make healthcare more accessible and more modern. But he definitely raises valid points. Then he suggested I go off and re-read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, excerpts of which you can read here and which I now suggest you go off and re-read, too.
[Story via John Leach.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lslxp92XU21qikpxao1_500.jpg)
