Blackfish Gets It

Congratulations to Conshohocken’s own Blackfish Restaurant for being named #1 of the “50 Best Places to Eat Right Now” by Philadelphia Magazine.

Have you ever wondered what happened to that gift bottle you brought to the Think Brownstone Holiday Party? There’s a good chance one of us grabbed it and walked a few doors down Fayette Street with a client, spouse or friend to Blackfish, one of Conshy’s best BYOBs.

In fact, we love Blackfish so much, we have them cater special events in the ThinkSpace. If you’re hungry and anywhere near Conshy, make a reservation, grab a bottle and get ready for a great meal.

Congrats Chef Chip and all the staff at Blackfish, you deserve it.

[Psssst Phillymag - don't think we didn't catch your not-so-subtle jabs at Conshohocken in the writeup. Our office may be in the 'burbs, but we love Philly. We're there all the time for fun and work. Some Brownstoners even live there. It's a shame you can't find a way to congratulate a place in the 'burbs without taking a shot at it.]

2010 and Onward: No Squirrels Here

This is one of my favorite tweets from 2010:

The squirrels of hesitation

It’s a favorite because it helps me believe that Carl and I might not be crazy. I’ll tell you, it felt crazy to leave our jobs in the fall of 2007 to start Think Brownstone. It felt crazy to take on our first couple of employees and the responsibility of making payroll each month. And if you had predicted in 2007 that Think Brownstone would be what it is today in 2011 we would have called you crazy.

In 2007 we expected that our company would do user experience design – that we’d help our clients design intuitive interfaces for websites and web applications. In 2010 we did lots of that. But we also helped a client create an entirely new consultative sales approach, including new infographics, marketing collateral and sales aids. We helped another client teach its top executives about the ins and outs of Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels in order to inform the creation of an important new social media policy. And we helped another client navigate a season of significant organizational change, providing support to a newly-formed department in creating strategic roadmaps, articulating vision, and executing on new and different roles and responsibilities.

Lots of new Thinkers in 2010

In 2007 we expected that our company would eventually grow to be approximately five people – a lean, mean UX design machine. But in 2010 our team surpassed twenty with the addition of eleven new employees. Our new team members have backgrounds and skills as diverse as the projects we’re working on. To highlight a few: Mike Colibraro (aka “8-bit”) is a whiz on the Wacom tablet and has a remarkable ability to visualize concepts in the form of a quick sketch, detailed illustration or beautiful infographic. Mike Pitone (aka “HD Mike”) brings deep e-commerce and branding experience – valuable assets for our clients as they seek to establish or strengthen their brand identities. Brad Sukala (aka “Brakula”) brings e-Learning and project management chops to the table as he helps us keep our design work user-task-oriented and our projects on track. Matt Pitone (aka “brother Matt”) came to us after a stint designing physical interfaces inside mine-resistant military combat vehicles – knowledge he draws on as Think Brownstone works with clients to design more real-world physical experiences. And Emily Bryan (If I shared her nickname she’d kill me) brings leadership experience from the non-profit world to bear as she helps Danielle grow our Strategy practice.

2010 was a great year for Think Brownstone, and so a great big THANKS is in order to all of you who helped make that happen – you know who you are, and you’re awesome. We think we’ve got something really good going on here, and so we are raising our expectations and re-envisioning what the future might hold for Think Brownstone. As our company grows, Carl and I are committed to growing in such a manner that ensures the work we produce remains of the highest quality. We know this involves a combination of calculated risk (not hesitating, lest we go the way of the squirrel) and responsible restraint. We know this involves taking the time to personally build into our team members and also establish the processes and systems that will help them do their best work.

Thank you for trusting us as we do our best to build an extraordinary company.

TEDxPhilly Recap

A contingent of Think Brownstone descended upon the stunning Kimmel Center in downtown Philadelphia yesterday to attend the TEDxPhilly event. TEDx events are independently operated versions of the TED event held in California every year.

Brian's Sketchnotes from TEDxPhilly

The official theme of the event was “Right Here, Right Now” but my unofficial theme was one of the universal truths we all know, yet few of us practice: “If you let people own the solution to a problem, they can do amazing things.”

I’m not going to go into a deep recap of every speaker – there were 16 of them and each had a unique story to tell. Some were better than others and some were downright inspiring. The event was recorded and streamed and I’m sure if you follow @TEDxPhilly on Twitter or Facebook or keep an eye on TEDx in general, you’ll be able to see recordings of some of the better talks.

At the end of the event, someone said to me, “This was great, but what are we supposed to do with all of this?” I thought hard about it and that’s what made me get out of bed at 4AM and start typing. It’s a good question. TED events aren’t like a typical conference where we hope we can learn something new to make us better at our job or someone gives us marching orders to fix a problem. For me TED exists to highlight the extraordinary work of the people around us – hopefully to get us off our asses to do something extraordinary ourselves.

For instance, Chris Lehman from the Science Leadership Academy started his talk with something we already knew: High School Stinks. Why? Because today’s education system focuses more on making sure we “don’t suck so much at the stuff we’re bad at” than embracing the stuff that makes us passionate. To demonstrate his solution, all of the video and photography at the show was run by SLA students – they wanted to be there and make a difference.

There were many talks with that same theme in different contexts.

Nic Esposito showed us how Urban Farmers are more successful when they not only plant the food, but they sell it.

Stanford Thompson didn’t just tell us how kids need longer-term goals to deal with the pressures of life, he brought out thirteen kids from Tune Up Philly who hadn’t held an instrument before September to show how they are already achieving those goals.

Simon Hauger's High School kids built a Bad-ass Hybrid

Simon Hauger asked his students, “What’s missing for you with hybrid cars?” His kids decided they weren’t fast enough or cool enough, so they built a hybrid Ferrari that beat MIT in national competitions.

Zoe Strauss started her I95 Photography project ten years ago knowing she needed to do it even before she had fully figured out what it was.

Michael Solomonov explained how a terribly tragic moment in his life led him take a risk and open his own restaurant. (you should see what his baklava does to Bmac)

I’m skipping some of the other inspired speakers to keep this brief. I will say that throughout the day, Steve Krug‘s voice echoed through my head: “This isn’t rocket surgery.” We all know that owning the solution makes us better at solving a problem. The bigger problem is that very few of us do anything about it.

At least once in your life I’m sure you have experienced a teacher/boss/client/parent/person of authority who looks at a work-in-progress and says:

“Mmm hmmm, that’s great. But I want it green, add a picture of a fish with a hat smoking a cigar and make it more like Facebook.”

You can tell these moments – they are delivered in a tone that screams, “Because I said so.” These are the things that take the wind out of your sails. Your authority figure may even know what he/she’s talking about – but it’s being directive in a collaborative process. The wisest among us get them to participate in the process rather than direct the solution, but that’s a hard job to do.

This is why we get excited at Think Brownstone when one of our clients walks up to the whiteboard, grabs a marker and starts sketching on top of our work. They’re not telling us to make it green, they’re showing us their process. At that point, the Brownstoners make eye contact, someone grabs their phone and tweets something like: “Another client just grabbed the marker #thinkbrownstone” To us, it’s not ego. It’s a beacon to anyone who wasn’t in the room that a client is starting to own the solution with us. That’s what we do.

Finally, I want to give a shout out to Roz Duffy, the TEDxPhilly organizer, and her team of talented volunteers. They worked on this project for nearly a year. Putting something together like this is an incredibly complex undertaking and not for the faint-of-heart. While Think Brownstone was thrilled to be a sponsor the event, we know that writing a check was the easy part.

BlogWorld Social Health Recap Part Deux

Keynote: e-Patient Dave

I’ve seen Dave speak in the past so I was thrilled that he didn’t just pull out a standard keynote. CLARIFICATION: Having seen Dave speak once in the past, I was thrilled to see he’s not the kind of speaker who pulls out a standard keynote. If you want to understand the profile of the fully engaged patient of the future, find out where Dave is speaking next… and if he asks for his data, give him his damn data!

Session: Health Care Industry Issues

Industry Stats; Industry Panel

Marc Monseau of Johnson & Johnson moderated this panel with Greg Matthews, Bob Stern from MedPage Today, e-Patient Dave and Frank Eliason. The discussion extended into the audience where physicians, patient advocates, lawyers and regulators from the industry added to the conversation. Some of the main takeaways were:

Session: Social Networks and the Medical Blogosphere – Compatible or Competitive?

Kim McAlister (emergiblog) moderated a discussion with bloggers Kevin Pho (KevinMD), Bryan Vartabedian (33Charts) and Kerri Morrone Sparling (sixuntilme) about the decisions they make when blogging vs. engaging in social media platforms.

The two big notes in my notebook:

Blog to create value; Use social networks to develop relationships.

Whether it’s conscious or not, these successful bloggers have a keen sense of content strategy. The key to engaging their audience across multiple social platforms is knowing what they are publishing, who it is for and what the best outlet is for that message. Read Kerri’s thoughts here and Dr. Pho’s take on it here.

Session: Whiteboard & #SOCHEALTH

Marc Monseau of Johnson & Johnson and David Armano from Edelman Digital bravely facilitated an open-format whiteboard session that energized everyone in the room.

The audience represented many of the social health stakeholder groups: “Big Pharma”, patient advocate / e-patient bloggers, blogging health care professionals, consultants, and interactive agencies. Not represented, but ultimately required at the table are the insurance industry and the FDA.

What transpired was a frank conversation about the current state of the social heath space. Marc passed the microphone and facilitated one of the most productive and collaborative conversations I‘ve witnessed at a national conference. Armano’s visual notes can be found here, and if you follow the Twitter hashtag #sochealth you’ll likely find a slew of summaries. My thoughts:

1. Social health communities set up by patient and physician bloggers are thriving. Decades of mistrust across many of the players and the lack of trusted, comprehensive, community-curated information sources are becoming an issue for the leaders in these communities.
2. Industry can have a positive impact by simply providing reliable information. The communities are independently effective at assessing, curating, and sharing information they find to be credible and valuable.
3. It’s important to note that “information” means data that helps patients and clinicians understand medical conditions and the risks and benefits of treatments. We are not talking about marketing messages, pretty pictures or fancy gadgets.
4. While it wasn’t highlighted throughout the day, I think it’s important to note that research demonstrates that industry-provided information is regarded as biased more often than it is considered to be balanced. This is a barrier we will need to continue to address over time, but the first step is to clear out the messaging that created those perceptions of bias in the first place.

Wrapping Up

The final keynote was Rohit Bhargava interviewing Doug Ulman about how http://www.livestrong.org/ has embraced social media. Doug is a two-time cancer survivor, the CEO of Livestrong, and an inspiring speaker with a calm demeanor. Livestrong practices deliberate strategies when engaging their audience through social media. Go here for Rohit’s summary of the session and a video of the discussion.

After that, a bunch of us got together for some good food, a few drinks and a lot of laughs with new friends. Nice way to end the day.

The High Road: Conversion vs. Coercion

To follow-up on Russ’ Teavana post from last week, I thought I would take some time to further expand on good sales experiences from a designer’s perspective. As experience designers we would create a few buyer profiles based on analysis of elements like existing customer traffic, consumer objectives and client business objectives. In the case of Teavana, I will guess there are three types of buyers to consider:

• The Browser – someone wandering into the store just to see what it’s all about
• The Learner – someone intending to get an education about tea or tea products
• The Experienced Buyer – someone who knows tea or has purchased from Teavana before. Ideally, your experienced buyer becomes a loyal customer.

This is an example of cascading user types and how your experience design and sales model can focus on converting one user type to another. Ideally, you want to convert browsers into learners and learners into experienced buyers. In the long run, a large portion of your revenue would come from your experienced buyers. Train your staff to focus on these conversions – even if the success rate is low – and you’ll experience long-term success.

Volumes of guides have been written on the topic, but most sales instruction takes the perspective of the sales person rather than the customer. After a dozen years on the technology side of the Sales Training industry, I have seen a lot of sales models. There are a lot of self-proclaimed sales experts out there whose models treat the buyer as nothing more than a mark who simply has to be convinced. How they are convinced is the “secret sauce” of each sales process.

Here’s a secret, though: regardless of your sales model, your best sales people put themselves in the head of the customer, understand their needs, and then fulfill those needs. Furthermore, if they don’t have a solution, they recommend someone who does. It’s that simple.

So, how do we drive those conversions? Well Teavana, it’s not by alienating your customers or aggressively upselling them on things they don’t want. Let’s look at a few of my own experiences as a retail customer that demonstrate conversion.

Customer Intimacy

I had the pleasure of buying a custom suit a few years ago for my wedding. I entered the store as a learner, but quickly became an experienced buyer. Even though they have customers who spend much more than me, they still remember my name when I walk into the store to buy a pair of socks. Any man who has ever been fitted for a completely custom suit has likely had an excellent sales experience. From selecting the fabric and style to your final fitting – the entire experience is about you. For the price you pay, you deserve it… and the next time you want to buy someone a pair of cufflinks or a tie, you’ll probably go back.

Bryn Mawr Running Company: GETS IT!

Expertise

You don’t need to be purchasing high ticket-item products to have an excellent sales experience. Very recently I wandered into Bryn Mawr Running Company to purchase a new pair of running shoes. I had a strained tendon from the discount running shoes I was wearing and I was wondering what the store had to offer. I was a browser, but the sales associate approached me and casually asked if he could help. After explaining my dilemma, he asked me to take 10 steps away from him. When I turned to walk back, he was practically lying on the floor watching exactly how my foot landed. He pulled three different pairs of shoes that would address my needs. We made the final selection based on fit and comfort. We never discussed price and there was never a hard sell. By chance I selected the cheapest pair. They were still double what I paid at the discount store, but it was a small price to pay for a relatively painless morning jog.

A Reason to Return

Excellent service is something we come to expect when paying a premium for a product. Most new customers who walk into Teavana expect more than a $3 box of stale tea bags, they just don’t know what to buy. Teavana has taken advantage of this need for consultation. I suspect this contributes well to short-term sales, but really destroys the rate at which your customers return. They may be able to convert a browser to a learner, but they fail when converting the learners to experienced buyers. As we’ve seen in the comments and in the articles posted – customers don’t appreciate being aggressively upsold every visit.

My tailor now has my measurements on file. As long as I haven’t subsisted exclusively on cheeseburgers and onion rings since my last visit, I could call in a brand new suit. Bryn Mawr Running Company keeps track of my sizes and brands for me. I am a dedicated customer to both stores even though the prices are higher…something I wouldn’t be if they had tried to sell me things I don’t want.

The profiles above are a simplistic view of Teavana’s business model. I offer them up to prove a point: developing a customer-focused sales experience takes time and analysis. Even so, while sales is often about conversion, it should never be about coercion. The most talented and successful sales people I have ever worked with all have one thing in common: they know when to walk away. Their time is way too precious to be spent convincing someone to buy something they clearly don’t want or need – especially if that means that’s the last time you’ll see them.

Movie Review: Objectified

Whether sampling the eggnog with Uncle Steve or surveying the cheese spread with your Aunt Sue, we’ve all been faced with the inevitable attempt at small-talk defibrillation… “So, what do you do exactly?”

No doubt we’ve all come to develop a small cache of examples, tailored to various audiences, in an attempt to illustrate at least a piece of the User Experience domain. Those attempts might earn a glossy stare…a raised eyebrow…or perhaps a not-entirely-convinced, but conversation ending, head-nod. At this point Uncle Steve has processed at least one recognizable term and has promptly fit you into his predetermined scheme of design, interface, usability, consulting, etc. Uncle Steve later explains to his wife, Aunt Wilma, that you “make the websites” or “work in computers.”

Every once in a while, we come across someone who “gets it” or is at least remotely familiar with the field. Recently, while viewing 3D images of my soon-to-be-born daughter, the ultrasound technician confidently nodded in agreement with one of my standard deck responses. He later dropped some science on me and enthusiastically recommended a documentary titled Objectified; this time I was sporting the raised eyebrow, and I promptly sought it out.

Official Film Logo

Objectified is a documentary film by Gary Hustwit (known also for the excellent Helvetica). It’s a feature-length flick that walks the viewer through the world of industrial design of manufactured products from the perspective of the people who design them, and for the affection of the people who use them. The film includes contributions from Apple, IDEO, BMW Group and other renowned designers from across the globe, and incorporates design domains ranging from common household furniture, tools, and utilities to computers, cars and even brand experiences.

Whether it’s an industrial designer highlighting the role of human emotion in successful design, a car designer preaching the avatar-like relationship one has with his/her vehicle, or a computer hardware designer illustrating the importance of thoughtful, well-planned, sustainable design – the messages ring true to any modern day designer. The design processes are invariably complex, regardless of the domain. Be it industrial, product, interaction, or experience design, our multi-faceted processes run parallel.

The movie also provides an interesting illustration of the domain diversity for any given problem. We all design within the constraints and affordances of human cognition/emotion/ergonomics, business requirements, technical requirements, sustainability, maintainability, cultural acceptance, etc. For this, a successful UxD team must itself be diverse in its knowledge and capabilities to fully embrace the holistic nature of the problem or opportunity. The mixture of backgrounds and talents within any UX firm creates something like a unique fingerprint that can be seen in all of their work (keep an eye out for a future blog post where we outline some elements of Think Brownstone’s UxD fingerprint!). Experience Design is still a young practice, and many practitioners attempt to illustrate the field as a subset of discrete domains.  However, in reality, the breadth of the practice is driven heavily by the problems and complexities of the individual project.

Step right up! Pick a model, any model! (via Google Image Search)

If the design industry impacts so many facets of our lives, why is it still so hard to explain our profession? You probably remember the last time you interfaced with a design, physical or digital, that was simply atrocious – that frighteningly complex security alarm panel, the wiring diagram for your new programmable thermostat, or that chair in the conference room you’re convinced was sculpted to fit a chimpanzee. Whereas the inadequacies of poor designs are often magnified, well thought-out designs often go unnoticed – because a good design is one that seamlessly compliments the natural behavior or the user. In the film, Naoto Fukasawa stresses that good design should be removed from the realm of consciousness. You don’t really think about the pen as you write with it. He finishes with a concept that rings true and strong: “design dissolving in behavior.”

So first off, if you’re interested in this blog I’d highly recommend spending 75 minutes with “Objectified”. Then next time, instead of explaining to Aunt Sue how your career goal is to create things nobody will notice, tell her to watch it too. I’m willing to bet it’ll change the way she not only views your job, but also her world.

Happy Bastille Day!

At Think Brownstone, we’ve started a tradition of celebrating Bastille Day in honor of Phil’s fantastically French heritage. Instead of storming the local prison-fortress, we’ve taken to assembling a world-class collection of “dangerous cheeses” and enjoying them wherever Phil happens to be that day. So today we celebrated with a group of clients (friends) who were treated to Phil’s guided tour through the cheeses of France – complete with fresh bread, grapes, cherries, almonds, saucisson sec (French salami), and cornichons (French pickles). Of course we also supplied the soundtrack, including the French National Anthem, “Foux Du Fa Fa” by Flight Of The Conchords, a host of French Canadian ditties from Russ’s collection and of course, “Bastille Day” by Rush.  Will we be celebrating with you next year? Vive La France!

Phil As Master Of Ceremonies

The Suggested Path Through The Fromage & Accompaniments

Mike C's Plate Of Glory

Motivation-By-Numbers

In case you missed it, our last post declared Stephen Anderson’s “Serious Play: Designing Seductive Business Apps” our favorite talk from the Philly stop of the UIE Web App Masters Tour (not that there weren’t plenty of other highpoints!).

I made a note during that talk to revisit Malone & Co.’s Theory Of Motivation, because although that model was first proposed in the context of instructional design (specifically, in the early days of computer-based instruction – we’re talking like mid-1980′s here), the concepts that Stephen was employing seemed to be the same universal ones captured and organized by Malone & Lepper all those years ago.

Illustration By Mike Colibraro

I found some great practical discussion on motivation and a Spartan but incredibly useful chart (content is king, after all) in the course notes for one of Edward Vockell’s Educational Psychology courses at Purdue Calumet. Check out the chart here, and pay close attention to the Related Guidelines column…because IT’S ALL RIGHT THERE! One little chart, and it’s the instruction book on how to design for motivation – no matter the technology or the channel. These are the keys to the kingdom, friends!

P.S. If this stuff brings out your inner geek the way it brings out mine, be sure to click through some of the links below the chart as well.

Memorial Day w/ The HTC Incredible

About three weeks ago, I spent an excessive amount of time in a Verizon Wireless store and finally made the decision to order the new HTC Incredible. I’ve been in the market for a smart phone (my first!) for some time now. I played with a couple of friends’ iPhones when they first came out and really loved the touch interface and the variety of apps. Then another slew of friends picked up Motorola Droids and, once again, I found myself green with envy. Yet I waited, wrestling with the knowledge that the next best thing is always 3 or 4 months away from being released.

The HTC ended up winning out over other smart phones for a few reasons:

1. I was already a Verizon customer so it was a simple upgrade
2. It was being touted as a multiple app running beast (very appealing to the multi-tasker in me), and
3. I thought there might be more interesting apps coming out of Google’s Market than the more strictly moderated iTunes Store

After running around all holiday weekend with it by my side, I think I made the right choice.

Observations:

Easy setup: Even though I was upgrading from an older model phone (Motorola W385), I was able to transfer my contacts without any issues using Verizon’s Backup Assistant app. The Incredible downloaded them all, sorted through the rather disorganized mess of numbers/addresses/emails and did a great job of linking everything together into an usable directory (finally!).

QR Barcode

Fun apps: I immediately downloaded a number of apps that I had heard about, like Barcode Scanner, Pandora Radio, FourSquare, Google Sky Map, and a new battery widget that let me easily manage the WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and screen brightness. I’m really taken with the Barcode Scanner, as it ties right into Google Shopping so you can quickly check out price ranges on anything you can scan. It also supports QR Codes, which you may or may not have seen before. They can be used to quickly share a URL or short message and are great for accessing something quickly on a mobile device without having to type anything.

Holy 8MP Camera, Batman: I’m exceedingly impressed with the camera. It’s not the high megapixel count that does it for me, but the performance of the autofocus. My last phone came with a VGA camera which was useless unless I wanted to know what something would look like if I was underwater with a clear plastic bag over my head. The Incredible on the other hand takes great pictures and the Photo app is very intuitive. I also like the app FxCamera which provides a number of filters to apply to photos to make them look like Polaroids (nostalgic), overexposed (hipsterific), or Warhol-esque (groovy).

These camera pics turned out far better than I expected...

Battery usage: The battery life seems to be alright. I’m very aware that anything I decide to do will use it up but I’ve been good about enabling/disabling services as needed. I can definitely go through the whole day on less than one charge. (As I’m typing this, the phone has been up and running with moderate usage for 8 hours and I still have 70% of the battery left). Because my previous phone could go for 3 or 4 days without a charge, I initially felt cheated – but the Incredible has far more in common with a laptop than a phone. That point of view helped massage my expectations into something more reasonable.

I feel the need – the need for speed: Thus far I’ve experienced nothing but great performance while navigating features and running apps. The phone is very responsive and the haptic feedback (the buzz whenever you click or type) is very nice. Last night I started running all sorts of apps to see if I could make the phone sweat and, even while using Google Earth, Layars, generating directions in Navigator, playing music, and recording a video; the phone never stuttered. I don’t know if that should be expected but I was impressed.

Call quality and messaging: To be honest, the calling is only so-so. My last phone was unable to do anything but make calls and double as a doorstop, but it did both of those things exceedingly well. The Incredible falls down a bit here. I do like the way it handles SMS messages, however. It displays them like a chat log, increasing the feeling of natural conversation rather than uni-directional texts.

~~~~

Anyway, my iPhone lovin’ friends at Think Brownstone were interested in my gut-level thoughts on usability with this very alien device after the first 72 hours and I thought maybe you would be, too. Has the battle for the smart phone throne just gotten even more intense? For me, it’s over. For now, anyway.

Simple Things That Are Awesome

Sometimes you stumble on things that are simple and awesome. This Gmail feature is far from perfect, but I stumbled over it the other day. I was sending an email and referred to the attachments in the email, but forgot to attach anything. When I hit “send” I saw this:

Gmail

I played with the feature a bit and there are some holes in it… for instance, if I write, “In the attached files…” and don’t attach anything, I don’t get the same warning.

Perhaps it is looking for generic phrases that indicate attachments or perhaps they’re looking at my linguistic tendencies around attachments. Regardless, I’m sure the feature will improve over time. The main point is the intent is there. We know Gmail is looking at the content of your emails to place ads (hooray). While they’re there, they may as well do some good (non-sarcastic hooray).

Google Labs has a slew of lab features you can add to Gmail, including two of my favorites, “Don’t forget Bob” and “Got the right Bob?”. Pretty much any feature that involves Bob has to be good – everybody likes Bob.

We have been spending some time with our clients talking about the Google Labs model. Google didn’t invent the idea of fostering small R&D projects from within. One of the best examples of how lab projects can benefit a company is the story of 3M and Post-It Notes. Few people realize Gmail itself was a lab project as well. Fostering innovation from within and freeing it from the typical bureacracy of your organization can result in simple, awesome things.

Then, once you’ve built it, you can name it Bob.