Digital Life Garage: Tips to Keep Innovation Front and Center

[LorenzoGonzales]

Digital Life Garage: Tips to Keep Innovation Front and Center (When Projects Take Years to Develop)

“By way of a warning, the world is littered with strategies and project plans that have a large gap in the middle, which is sometimes called the ‘miracle box’—as in, ‘in this space/time, a miracle will happen that will move us from where we are to where we need to be’. In the Digital Age, this is more true than ever” — Lorenzo Gonzales

In the article “How to design a great technology innovation center” you were given design pillars to help build your innovation center. Those design pillars included partnerships/relationships, focus, competence and capabilities development, and a system for growth. Here, you will be given 6 innovation tips to keep priorities in focus as your Digital Life Garage innovation center becomes a reality. Let’s get into the 6 tips to keep your focus for Digital Life Garage innovation:

• Look at “the ring” missing between what is feasible today and in the foreseeable future.

In its most basic definition, “the ring” is a dynamic hub of players unique to a certain problem. However, that definition alone falls flat because the ring, and its players, are ineffective without the necessary dimensions of time and unique perspectives.

More specifically, “the ring” is a concept defined as the connecting of multiple dimensions of digital innovation (the players)—business, technology, and novel ecosystems—in order to accelerate realization of future plans today (time), but also enabling easy disconnection and reconnection of those players when necessary to quickly establish the most effective team for a specific situation. The purpose of the ring is to enable development of a running, workable model, not just a demonstration. The ring is centered on, and driven by, the experience of the users in the system for growth. It accelerates identification of novel and diverse practical realizations, perhaps more immediately than previously thought (perspective).

 Using the model of the ring, a variety of users and contributors can, and should, be incorporated into your innovation center design. They should represent the different aspects of the system for growth, and the ecosystem players. You can gain readiness to understand and realize outcomes quickly, as the variety of contributors within the ring should have been established early on.

 The ring also offers a time perspective. A faraway future prevents innovation from being realized, as many times there are concerns about complexity, operational changes, impacts on people, culture, and habit. Today is a comfortable space, but it can be too “normal”. Forging a ring forces you outside those comfort zones without stretching too far, offering the opportunity to learn from real practice without disruption, while building a clear route forward and producing tangible steps towards the future.

To provide an example of what I mean, an HPE partner startup company had invested a significant amount of time developing a prototype during an innovation center execution. The company’s CEO later thanked us for moving faster than expected and for discovering multiple unexpected applications for his company’s solutions. HPE found ways to connect and incorporate solutions directly because we connected the future to the present for immediate use.

• The ring should be forged, used, and tested quickly in order to learn and build.

An example of the ring occurred during a prototype build for one of our innovation center design projects. A few weeks after the initial kickoff activities, HPE met with several executives from different players in the ecosystem. After watching a prototype for 20 minutes, one of the top executives told us, ‘OK, you told me you were showing us an innovative solution to enhance one specific experience. You were wrong! This solution is applicable to much more than the specific experience you demonstrated!’ Then the executive started listing the additional opportunities we hadn’t thought of.

 Within in their digital dimension that executive could provide immediate application of our prototype, where we were still only seeing applications for the near future. In this example, we linked the future with the present, quickly forging the ring with a prototype that we could use and test, and then sharing practical learnings with others who were a part of the ecosystem. Every ecosystem player (in this example, the executive) now had a chance to practically contribute, making immediately evident how to further enhance the innovation.

In the digital world, you can make changes on the fly. In a week, you can make numerous changes to adapt a prototype. If implementation is too slow, you can lose momentum and fall back into the two attraction poles (today and future). If changes do not have a clear path to the future, they could add harm. It is an unstable balance. For that reason, the next tip is crucial.

• Combine EVERY aspect of innovation immediately—business, technology, and facets of the two. The whole ecosystem required to build a core product or service, as well as its foundational idea, should be in place from the beginning. Difficulties may exist, as the participants in the innovation center design may speak different languages, think differently, act on varied priorities, and execute dissimilar agendas.

Productive discussions require several categories of contributors. In the design phase, we want to avoid creating an idea that cannot be realized. The idea needs to run immediately, because technology starts with practical outcomes and business possesses the resources to move implementation forward. That is what a Digital Life Garage conversation is a conversation among peers who each own parts of a story to create a ring. Conversations must flow in such a way that each party is able and encouraged to contribute.

To realize genuine digital innovation today, business and technology cannot be handled separately. Rather than thinking that the other side can digest input, you need to connect the best of the two. It is all about co-innovation.

• Ensure each party receives returns that matter to them.

A customer wanted to enhance the experience of people arriving in a major airport. Using the Digital Life Garage methodology, we quickly identified a number of players from an established ecosystem that should be directly or indirectly involved, then we looked at everyone’s returns. We built a network defining how value was built and transferred among all parties, including, of course, airport and visitors. There was no hierarchy in this, but simply different ways and times to measure benefits. There was no hub, no customer-supplier relationship. We balanced value to airport and visitors with value for each other individual party. The result largely exceeded expectations, turning on a completely different strategy with more clear benefits. Technology was not just an added value, but the real digital engine making this novel approach possible.

Innovation is normally challenging and uncertain, with different metrics for each party—so you need to have your role and your potential return identified. Parties can apply different metrics to returns—it may be economic return for an enterprise, faster business for a start-up, or broader learning opportunities for students. When you co-innovate, everyone should feel comfortable with the result. This can provide a great boost, since it injects confidence and passion through practical realization.

• Since nothing is free, offer contributions that are valuable.

For example, think, ‘what can I contribute’? The Center Manager in your specific innovation center can help to stimulate answers. However, when you are the owner of a technology, solution, or capability, you don’t need to wait to be asked. You can, and should, initiate the conversation about what you can contribute. Digital Life Garage methodology is designed to facilitate players who take initiative and want to contribute their angle. Digital Life Garage is designed for those keen to contribute. 

While working with a University, our first ask was about practical support that professors or students could provide. They did more: the students immediately understood what the new “ring” was that we were forging; they got the story, the value, and the yet unexplored possibilities. They turned this narrative into a compelling user experience that resonated with their local culture and transformed it into a video. They added their freshness to an innovation canvas, adding their unique contribution to further expand the innovative approach.

Contributions that can be made depend on the parties and the roles taken. No party is ever exempted from contributing. The reason is quite simple. If you do not contribute, others may miss the mark in offering an innovation that matters to you. That would not be “co-innovation”.

• Learn from the real world.

If you apply established practices to innovation, you box-in the innovation process and risk killing the drive to innovate. Yes, some degree of guessing occurs. As soon as a prototype is made, however, put it to practice. This allows customers to contribute real data to identify real context. Rather than thinking about what the best potential or approach is, work on real context, ideas, and validating reality.

For example, an application was designed to simplify access to personal data – passport, health, credit card and more – in a context of international events. It ended with a blockchain-based prototype that handled privacy settings and authorized access to information for different types of users – a taxi driver, a hotel clerk, a policeman, an ER doctor. The initial nice idea evolved “on steroids”, since by design the whole model was intended to incorporate new players, each of them with their own purpose, on the basis of real situations and experiences. For instance, in a week spent at a major technology event, dozens of proposed changes were quickly incorporated in the design, as each new idea stimulated more. Even information needed for unplanned events, like the recent COVID-19 pandemic, were quickly handled and incorporated.

We are moving into a new era where business and technology meet and blur. We must develop common languages, explore possibilities together, capture the value from data, and turn that data into insights and actions. We cannot afford to “guess”. Instead, we should learn from real experiences, and evolve products, services, and solutions. We should act on real representations of the world—data and actions in context—to make the best decisions and learn at each step. That is why all contributions are relevant. A user can contribute their impression, and a customer can contribute real data in a real context.

Miracle Box, An Old, New Concept

In innovation center design, a combination of technologies can be used to realize new ideas, like edge computing, memory-driven systems, artificial intelligence, and blockchain.

The combination can be unique, which is why HPE uses a miracle box implementation framework – “the ring”. This novel miracle box enables quick combining of technologies that can produce new outcomes.

No longer is innovation focused on technology producing an outcome for a business. Instead, the focus is on forming new ways of shaping the world with business and technology—making outcomes the natural consequence.

Digital technologies today meet and blur. As a result, soft boundaries exist between the parties involved. Looking through today’s lens, the miracle box is an old concept. However, transformation is a miracle or magic space where parties can connect with one another to create new experiences.

In summary, innovation center design involves being agile. Yes, speed is king! However, getting to a minimum viable return as quickly as possible is not the only priority. In the digital world, you can produce a great amount of value immediately. Users can add a lot of complexity, and innovation center design can be over-engineered if not done properly. Find the right balance between returns and contributions in a way that is led by speed and effectiveness.

That is what HPE does with our own Digital Life Garage.

In today's world, parties bring real contextual data into the design mix. Better and faster are both possible, because it is much easier to combine contributions. The level of complexity driving innovation today is changing.

Modern innovation center design goes beyond past models, where only big players drove innovation or was overly fragmented among dozens of startups. Without everyone's contribution, innovation won’t work. Today, technology is not just about solving a problem. We inject technology in context to alter the way we see a business problem, need, or aspiration, to enhance contributions and obtain returns for each party.

That is the real change the Digital Life Garage offers through innovation center design.

HPE brings unique strengths to innovation center design using its Digital Life Garage. HPE has a long, consistent reputation of cooperation, and its own Digital Life Garage business model strongly relies on cooperative partnerships. That is why an innovation center model, through our Digital Life Garage, ensures active and focused ecosystem component deployment. In addition, through HPE’s Digital Life Garage, we provide credibility while addressing specific needs of your local development—providing value to all parties involved. Let HPE partner with you, using our Digital Life Garage.

Lorenzo Gonzales
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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