Kyle Wild was invited to give a guest lecture at UC Berkeley on innovation. In his lecture, he discusses two common approaches to innovation - Design Thinking and Lean Startup. However, he is skeptical that any process can perfectly teach innovation. Wild argues that organizations should let their innovation processes emerge from their unique team identities rather than trying to force-fit an outside process. Ultimately, he concludes there is no set syllabus for innovation and advises erring on the side of too much chaos rather than too much structure.

1. Lean Startup, Design Thinking, and
The Mindset of the Syllabus
Kyle Wild Founder, CEO of Keen IO
I was (ill-advisedly) invited to guest lecture at UC Berkeley, a school I’m fairly certain I could never gain admission to.
This talk was the best I could do on short notice.
My thanks (and apologies) to Alan van Pelt
@dorkitude kyle@keen.io
Friday, September 27, 13

2. Who’s this guy?
Grew up on the internet
(AKA a nerd in a rural Bible Belt town)
Sold websites & ads as a kid
Moved to SF right after college (2007)
(AKA home of the internet)
Quit Google almost immediately & was employee #1
(or engineer #1) at 3 startups
Started my own company, Keen IO, in January 2012
I won’t bore you with the details of what we actually do, but tell all your friends we’re awesome anyway.
Friday, September 27, 13

3. Why is this guy talking at us?
The premise is that I have something to
teach you about innovation.
The sub-premise is that innovation can
be taught.
I’m pretty sure “sub-premise” isn’t a word.
Friday, September 27, 13

4. I struggled to put this
talk together.
1) I’m a terrible procrastinator. 11:41am in SF
2) I’m not sure I agree with the premise.
Friday, September 27, 13

5. You’re college students.
There is a syllabus for success in college.
There are procedures to follow, boxes to check, and
at the end, you can get an “A” if you do what’s asked
of you.
If you think linearly enough.
Friday, September 27, 13

6. There is no syllabus for
innovation.
You can only get an “A” in innovation if you think non-linearly enough.
Friday, September 27, 13

7. That being said, there are
many attempts at making a
syllabus for innovation.
1) Design Thinking
2) Lean Startup
Two of my favorites are:
Friday, September 27, 13

8. Design Thinking
The most complex slides I could find to embody the ideas behind:
I don’t know what these mean, but clearly the creators of
these slides were smarter than me.
**Yes I know, it’s “smarter than I”.
Friday, September 27, 13

9. Design Thinking is Awesome!
Here’s a better slide.
Anything that starts with “empathize” is awesome.
Friday, September 27, 13

10. Design Thinking is Awesome!
Here’s another one, with more flows!
I took this pic from a website whose H2 copy was, I shit you not,“Design Thinking has
become an integral part of SAP's development philosophy.” Unironically!
Friday, September 27, 13

11. Lean Startup is Awesome!
Eric Ries followed my company on AngelList yesterday, which was the happiest fanboy moment of my life.
The only problem here is that empathy isn’t measurable.
If it were up to me, I would probably replace “measure” with “observe qualitatively and
quantitatively”. And since this is my talk, it is up to me!
Friday, September 27, 13

12. Lean Startup is Awesome!
Remind me to have our designer take a look at these slides before
I share them with anyone outside of this room.
Observe qualitatively
and quantitatively
Friday, September 27, 13

13. Every step comprises a set of group tasks.
The only thing more complex & unique than a
person is a group of people.
There is no perfect process for every group of
people. I would argue there isn’t even a good one.
Where they both break down
Friday, September 27, 13

14. Conclusion: Be skeptical of process.
3) Don’t map your organization to someone else’s process.
4) Instead, let your process emerge from your team’s identity, so the
mapping is more perfect between process and group DNA.
1) Even the processes you invented yourselves are suspect.
2) Processes you got out of some book or some lecture are the most suspicious of all.
No matter how handsome or funny the speaker was.
(There is no syllabus for innovation.)
Err on the side of too much chaos, not on the side of
too much structure.
Friday, September 27, 13

15. Questions?
Friday, September 27, 13