A talk I prepared for this year's class on the IPA Excellence Diploma, on innovation, information, strategic design, and making tools that help you work through that process. It's mapping out a journey from when I did the course myself, through the interim thinking and ideas behind Smithery, up to the end of last year.

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A blacksmith makes
their own tools
Innovation, Strategic Design,
and life after the IPA Excellence Diploma
John V Willshire
Thursday 23rd January 2020

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Part 1
2007-2011

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Head of Innovation, 2007
“The creation and cultivation of ideas through the
study of technological, social and cultural trends”

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Not Head of Futures

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The IPA
Excellence
Diploma
2007/8

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“I believe…”

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Assembling a point of view
September 2009

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IPA Excellence Diploma Thesis, 2008

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The Communis Manifesto
1. Create inner belief
2. Spread the word
3. Build relationships
4. Create community spaces
5. Allow messages to travel

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Work gets more interesting

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Work gets more interesting

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So why leave?

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Where am I going with this..?
November 2010August 2009April 2008
https://www.slideshare.net/gamages/going-out-the-new-staying-in/20-spot
https://www.slideshare.net/gamages/advertising-fireworks-social-bonfires
https://www.slideshare.net/gamages/the-social-lego-principles
https://www.slideshare.net/gamages/the-planners-book-of-things-to-make
July 2009

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What do people come here for?

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Where does everybody go..?

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Part 2
2011-2014

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“Making is Thinking”
The Craftsman
Richard Sennett

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Campaign, July 7th, 2011
"Called Smithery, the business will
look to work with clients on brand
and service innovation, community
initiatives, crowdsourcing projects
and marketing and media strategy.”

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December 2011

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From ‘The Craftsman’, 3rd March 2012

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4th April 2012

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12th September 2012 29th September 2012

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What can it mean?

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Making is
Marketing

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“The principal task of the
marketing function is not so
much to be skilful in making
the customer do what suits
the interests of the business,
as to be skilled in conceiving
and then making the
business do what suits the
interests of the customer”.
John McKitterick, GE, 1957

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“No honest
craftsman or
maker knows in
the process of
working whether
he is making or
creating”
Joseph Brodsky

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“Sending out probes”

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What are
things
made of? https://www.instructables.com/id/A-sandstone-block-built-from-lego-blending-real-o/

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connective objects
that
transfer knowledge
through
time and space
What is media?
From “Are Brands Fracking The Social Web”, 2013

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The
Hollow
Factory

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make brand
really interesting
make product
very efficiently
OPPOSING
INNOVATION
FORCES

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What do we
know about
people?

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“Data is the
new oil"

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“Everyone’s looking
for a crutch to lean
on, and it’s easier to
lean on quant data.”
Louise Flett, InklingCC

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“It was on Pollfish,
which is fairly reliable
given what I was willing
to spend on it at the time”
Sam Conniff,
recently…

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Assume data to
be worthless
unless you can
prove otherwise

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The rise in ‘ethnography’…

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“The better you know the
current state of things and
why they’re like that, the
better you will be
positioned to innovate.”
Erika Hall

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What do people
want?

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Doyle’s three stages
Foraging, Farming, Mining

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Existing
Needs
Latent
Needs
Incipient
Needs

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Existing = Foraging
Latent = Farming
Incipient = Mining

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It can mean lots of things…

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Language as a tool

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“the limits of our
language are the
limits of our world”
January 2013
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Broadening
the toolkit

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“Smithery 3.0”

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Part 3
2015-2019

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“The blacksmith
makes his
own tools”
Intuition Pumps
Daniel C. Dennett

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let's start with this…

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Jean Tinguely
1925-1991

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If you stare long enough,
you see how it works
http://www.vernissage.tv

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What are the
underlying
mechanics
of this?

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What happens to things
when things happen to them?

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Metamechanics
Movement
Maps
Loops
Layers

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Movement

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Card Mechanics

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The creative quartet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9dIQOrVhM5E - Prof. John Wood, TED, on Synergies
Prof. John Wood
1
2
3 45 6

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Konica Minolta
A toolkit for the digital workplace
2015

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What makes these things the same?
Maps

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Innovation & Future Thinking
Summer Course

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BIG
SMALL
COLD HOT

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Maps help us
see things we
haven’t yet
seen

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Dmitri
Mendeleev

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LEGO
Customer Service persona mapping
2016

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LEGO
Customer Service Persona Mapping
2016

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Loops

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“The highest
technique is
to have no
technique”
Bruce Lee

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JEET KUNE DO
The way of the intercepting fist

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“…it is just a name used,
a boat to get one across,
and once across it is to be discarded
and not to be carried on one's back”
Bruce Lee

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Multiple interpretation loops

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Layers

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but this year…

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1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999

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SLOW
FAST
FAST
SLOW

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THE
GEARBOX

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THE
GEARBOX

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SLOWFAST
PEOPLE

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SLOWFAST PEOPLE
FRIENDS
FAMILY
KIDS TEAM
FUNDRAISERS
PARTIES
PARENT HELPERS
COMMUNITY PROGRAMMES
LOCAL TEAMS
HERITAGE
OFFICIAL LEAGUES
GRASSROOTS
MATCH OFFICIALS
GOVERNING BODIES
TOURNAMENT
INTERNATIONAL TEAMS
EUROPEAN COMPETITION
SUPPORTERS CLUBS
TELEVISION COVERAGE

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SLOWFAST
SPACE

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SLOWFAST SPACE
GRAFFITI
CHALKING
FLYPOSTING
STREET ART
STICKERS
ADVERTISING
PUBLIC NOTICE BOARDS
SHOP SIGNS
STREET SIGNS
COUNCIL NOTICES
TRAFFIC DIVERSIONS
FOUNTAINS
MOSAICS
PUBLIC AMENITIES
MURALS
SCULPTURES
STREET FURNITURE

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SLOWFAST
PEOPLE
SLOWFAST
SPACE

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“The quick processes provide
originality and challenge,
while the slow provide
continuity and restraint”
Stewart Brand

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What
happens
here?

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DesignPrototype
CultureStrategy
A library is
everything
that is
between
the covers,
but not on
the pages

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Design
Prototyping Culture
Strategy

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善狐

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p
s

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Sketch

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Scaffold
Sketch

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Structure
Scaffold
Sketch

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p
s

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Laseau’s Funnel

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p
s

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Team

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Qual
Team

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Quant
Qual
Team

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Development…
Research…
p
s

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p
s

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p
s
Emotion Mapping - Ella Saltmarshe & John V Willshire

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Unstructured
The
Sandpit
The
Towers
of Industry
The
Souk
The
Cantina
The
High
Council
The
Data Mines
The
Sprawl
Structured
Inward
Looking
The
Guildhall
Outward
Looking
The
People’s
Palace

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The
Cantina
Core Team Partners Public
SketchScaffoldStructure
The
Guildhall
The
Sandpit
The
Towers
of Industry
The
Souk
The
High
Council
The
Colosseum
The
Sprawl
The
People’s
Palace

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The
Colosseum
Core Team Partners Public
SketchScaffoldStructure
The
Guildhall
The
Sandpit
The
Towers
of Industry
The
Souk
The
Cantina
The
High
Council
The
Sprawl
The
People’s
Palace

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The
Colosseum
The
Cantina
Core Team Partners Public
SketchScaffoldStructure
The
Guildhall
The
Sandpit
The
Towers
of Industry
The
Souk
The
High
Council
The
Sprawl
The
People’s
Palace
1
2
1
3
4
5
1 3
2
4
5
1
3
2
4
51
3
2
4
5
0
1
3
2
4
5
0
5
3
4
2
1

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The
Colosseum
The
Cantina
Core Team Partners Public
SketchScaffoldStructure
The
Guildhall
The
Sandpit
The
Towers
of Industry
The
Souk
The
High
Council
The
Sprawl
The
People’s
Palace
1
3
2
4
5
0
(re)construction

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The
Colosseum
The
Cantina
Core Team Partners Public
SketchScaffoldStructure
The
Guildhall
The
Sandpit
The
Towers
of Industry
The
Souk
The
High
Council
The
Sprawl
The
People’s
Palace
Catalyst events
Data
driven?
Partner
opinion?
Personally
driven?

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“Mapping is a social practice of
sensemaking that shifts from
individual cognition to shared
understanding”
Roser Pujadas, LSE

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Let’s play…

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Pick a project that
didn’t go as well
as you’d hoped…
Identify five key pivotal moments
Write out each stage on a card

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p
s
In teams of 4-5,
map out your projects,
one at a time

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p
s
Name a
particularly
interesting
cluster or two

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Now, pick a cluster
Try and create something that may address
the issues there…

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p
s
A framework for a
learning organisation

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How things
work round here

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Issues
Identifying the
problem spaces

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Issues
Interventions
By design or
deployment

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0-30 days 30-60 days 60-90 days
Collection of
Instances
Review of
issues
Design of
Interventions

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p
s

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善狐
?

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善狐

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Domains
Resources
Interactions

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Learn to adapt to
any surroundings

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In conclusion…

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“When we try to pick
out anything by itself,
we find it hitched to
everything else
in the universe”
John Muir

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Strategic Design
bridges disciplines and departments,
roles and responsibilities.
It is concerned with the
factors around a thing,
not just the thing itself.

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Everything is connected
But can be separated with the right tools

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Tools can be lingual

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Tools can be spatial
3. Embodiment
1. High Consequences
2. Rich Environment

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Tools can be procedural

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Tools can be fractal
p
s

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Tools can be
provocative

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Tools can
be playful

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Tools can
be practical

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Tools can
be actual

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DesignPrototype
CultureStrategy
Tools can
be learned,
found,
connected,
separated…

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Make
Copy
Iterate
Borrow
Fuse
Learn
Reinvent your own tools

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If you can separate anything,
you can see everything

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Thank you,
and good luck
John V Willshire
john@smithery.com
@willsh