Communicating The New: Methods to Shape and Accelerate Innovation

272 Pages·2013·54.27 MB·English

by  Kim Erwin

Communicating the New

Communicating the New
METHODS TO SHAPE AND ACCELERATE INNOVATION
Kim Erwin
Cover designer: Anne Michele Abbott
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright © 2014 by Kim Erwin. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Erwin, Kim, 1965-
Communicating the new : how to make the complex, unfamiliar or still-fuzzy understandable to
others / Kim Erwin.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-118-39417-5 (pbk.); 978-1-118-41761-4 (ebk); 978-1-118-42198-7 (ebk)
1. Communication in marketing. 2. New products. 3. Business communication. 4. Communication
in organizations. 5. Communication in management. I. Title.
HF5415.123.E79 2014
658.4’5--dc23
2013002845
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: The Mission and the Mess 1
Challenges of communicating The New 3
What’s in our way? Three communication myths 4
Reconceiving the role of communication 7
Five ways communication methods accelerate innovation 11
1 Finding the Conceptual Center 16
Models and frameworks: Thinking with our eyes 19
How to make models work 28
Build-to-think prototypes: Thinking with our hands 42
Lists and open-ended writing: Thinking with words 50
The Takeaway: Five big ideas when seeking the conceptual center 62
2 Framing the Work 64
Metaphors 69
Mantras and catchphrases 84
Contrast 92
Stories 98
Artifacts and images 108
How (and why) to use multiple frames to greater effect 112
The Takeaway: Five big ideas when framing the work 114
3 Targeting Your Constituents 118
The communication plan 126
Mental model and orthodoxy analysis 129
Quad A diagnostic 135
The “Organization as Culture” framework 137
Segmenting and targeting constituents 141
The Takeaway: Four big ideas when targeting constituents 144
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4 Introduce New Thinking 146
Exploratory experiences 155
Immersion experiences 160
Interaction experiences 165
Application experiences 172
Extension experiences 176
The Takeaway: Five big ideas when introducing new thinking 180
5 Expand the Conversation 184
Communication systems: Give them something rich and relevant 188
Performative presentations: Give them something to talk about 198
Demonstration artifacts: Give them something to show and share 208
The Takeaway: Five big ideas when expanding the conversation 228
Conclusion 230
Five big shifts in thinking (and doing) 231
Advancing the methods base 234
Under the hood: Theories, writers and references 236
Index 253
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WHY THIS BOOK? WHY NOW?
What if you are working on a problem no one knows they have?
—Editor of this book to the author of this book
If you are holding this book in your hands, you may already be persuaded that
communication is critically important to success when pursuing new products,
services, businesses, or systems. Powerful ideas—the lifeblood of any modern
economy—will be embraced, ignored, attacked, or rejected according to how well
they are understood or represented.
You may also be holding this book because you believe something fundamental has
changed, something that is making communication of The New more difficult, and
standard communication techniques less effective. I have experienced this too, and
I believe that a number of factors have come together to create a new context for
communication:
We are working on problems of increasing complexity. This complexity is hard to manage,
structure, and explain—and yet it is essential to establishing the relevance of The
New. We cannot ignore the complexity nor reduce it to an elevator pitch without
trivializing our work.
The creation of The New involves more people. The creative types—the scientists,
designers, agency people, etc. have always had a hand in The New. Now, in an
economy where speed of execution matters, we also need the “developers” —the
engineers, marketers, and IT specialists. Most critically, The New must be understood
and embraced by the “doers” —the sales staff, managers, and stakeholders of all
kinds across the organization. This is no longer a problem of producing the best
idea; it’s a challenge of engaging, leveraging, and aligning the human systems inside
organizations.
We presume communication is occurring when in fact it is not. In most organizations, we
believe that delivering information—in presentations, in reports—is communicating
to others. At a time when co-creation is becoming the norm, our communication
techniques appear stuck in a transmission model. Our conventional arsenal of delivery-
based methods is no longer up to the task.
Communicating the New steps into this new reality with a simple approach and
toolkit for all creators of The New. It collects and describes methods for employing
communication, in an integral way, throughout the creation of new products, services,
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messages, or experiences. It introduces concepts and methods to help manage
complexity, accelerate synthesis, bring clarity, and exchange important knowledge
with the people who need to act on it. It is written for everyone who is involved in
creating The New—from the account planner in advertising, to the manager of an
internal innovation center, to the entrepreneur with a big idea. The aim of the book is
functional: to provide a practical framework and tools that individuals and teams can
use to help tame and frame the inherent complexity of creating The New. And maybe,
just maybe, it will make the hard work of creating The New just a little bit easier.
In this book, you will meet individuals at the forefront of creating The New. Some
are early pioneers; others are new arrivals. Some practice as consultants; others work
directly within organizations. All share a new attitude toward communication.
They use communication to clarify rather than persuade, deploying it not only at
the end, but throughout the process—to produce meaning and clarity, to advance
ideas into concept, and to engage other people in advancing those ideas into the
organizations and markets. This book draws from their experiences and organizes
their contributions into a collection of methods for use by anyone who needs to
communicate The New.
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