The Brainzooming Group

Here’s a new guest post by Woody Bendle as he looks around Kansas City for applications of a creative thinking exercise called SCAMPER. Similar to the Trait Transformation creative thinking exercise, SCAMPER helps you take a fresh look at your brand and all the things associated with it. Here’s Woody’s exploration of SCAMPER around Kansas City!  

As I was preparing for an upcoming presentation on Customer Experience Innovation, I began to outline some of my favorite innovation / creativity thinking tools. One of my favorite innovation / brainstorming (or Brainzooming) tools is SCAMPER.

SCAMPER stands for:

• Substitute - What can we substitute or what can be substituted?
• Combine – What might be combined in a unique and relevant way?
• Adapt – What could be adapted to accomplish something different?
• Modify / Maximize / Minimize  – What could be modified, maximized or minimized to create something new?
• Put to another use – What do we have (or are we aware of) that we could put to a surprisingly different use?
• Eliminate – Is there something that could be removed or eliminated entirely?
• Reverse – Is there a way to do something opposite of what others are doing – or is there something that could be brought back?

SCAMPER is a really effective creative thinking exercise for helping you systematically think through creative and innovative solutions.  And, once you are familiar with it, you’ll actually begin thinking about the different products and services you encounter as possible outcomes from SCAMPER.

SCAMPER around KC

Here are a few examples of how local Kansas City businesses have implemented strategies that could come right from this creative thinking exercise.

Substitute

The Sunflower Group developed a business around the notion of substitution.  Their associates are employed as a substitute for a grocery store’s or a package goods company’s employees to conduct in store sampling / taste testing and promotions.

Combine

Applebee’s combined with Weight Watchers to create “endorsed” meals on their menu – complete with points.

Adapt

GARMIN – Adapted several of the technologies in their Forerunner 110 (timer, pace, distance and heart rate monitor).

Modify / Maximize / Minimize

Boulevard Brewing – Has employed a zero landfill policy, minimizing their impact on the environment.

Put to another use

Hallmark – Took the micro-recording capability from their audio greeting cards and created a line of audio narrated children’s books. (You might want to have a couple tissues when you watch this video)

Eliminate

CERNER – Eliminated the conventional medical record keeping method (paper and folders) and replaced it with their software solution.

Reverse

AMC Theatres – Employed Reverse through their Dine-In Theatres by having theater employees bring food and beverages to their guests instead of having their guests go to the concession stand to pick up their own food.

How is SCAMPER being applied in your neck of the woods?

I could literally go on and on with many more examples of how local Kansas City companies have employed SCAMPER as part of their creative thinking in one way or another to innovate; but I’d rather hear from you!

Please share some examples from your neck of the woods that suggest how this creative thinking tool is being used with great success. - Woody Bendle

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic creative thinking and ideas! For an organizational creativity boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these benefits for you.

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When I ran into mutliple-time Brainzooming guest blogger Alyssa Murfey at TEDxKC, she mentioned her recent passion project. Her excitement as she described it was infectious. As a result, I asked her to share why it’s important to have a passion project with Brainzooming readers, as she’s done today. When not working on her passion project, Alyssa is a social media analyst and email marketing manager for emfluence, a Digital Marketing Agency. A native Kansas Citian, Alyssa is a regular on the local food, event, and, and music scene. Here’s Alyssa!

The Importance of a Passion Project

Just as the transition from college to the real world teaches you, applying the skills I learn from my job to creating a passion project on my own continues to be an eye-opening learning experience. My passion project, a blog called House of Femme, is a work in progress. A co-worker/friend and I developed the blog together and pushed it live about six months ago. We aim for House of Femme to be a healthy living online magazine about being a modern gal that works and plays hard. It’s our way of sharing and exchanging knowledge.

In some ways our “house’ is like a fixer-upper: we’re constantly turning a corner to find something else that we want to improve. There are ups and downs, but my pride in sharing ownership in the project never changes. The lessons I continue to learn from this experience make me want to shout from the rooftops:  if you have a passion project opportunity, pursue it!

And if I were to shout from the rooftops about how you would benefit from tackling your passion project, it would sound a little like this…

Learn the Potential of Your Strengths

In my job, I may wear a hat or two as I work on various marketing campaigns, but never do I touch all aspects of the horse and carriage involved. When you (and a partner, if you’re lucky like me) have to manage everything, you can get lost in the abundance of the details. There are so many tiny pieces that play into making the puzzle whole. I have to take on many roles to make sure things are a success: photographer, copywriter, event planner, etc. As a result, I have to extend beyond my usual comfort level and knowing my strengths and discover what my strengths could be.

Find Your Own Resources

When working for a company, one is often blessed with an abundant supply of resources. Sometimes, as in my case, you don’t realize how many resources you have until you are forced to find the connections and talent on your own. There’s no, “Well, the blah blah blah department handles that.” You handle it!

Recognize The Skills of Others

When forced to find your own resources, you begin to tap into what’s available around you. Doing so, you start to realize the strengths of your friends, your colleagues, and your family. I’m constantly amazed by the people around me. Some of these people I see every day and yet, had no idea what talents they possessed. For instance, when we discussed during a blog meeting we were lacking hair and beauty posts, my little sister’s perfectly coifed fishtail popped into my mind. She styled her hair for a couple posts, and now she’s our youngest “House Guest Contributor”! I was honored to showcase her talents on the blog and as a middle schooler, apparently, it’s pretty cool to be featured on a blog. Win-win.

Have Passion

“If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.” – Benjamin Franklin

Passion makes the world go around, and if you love what you’re doing, the hours just fly by . . . happily. This final reason doesn’t require much explanation. A life full of passion is gold. So, pursue your passion project, stretch your boundaries, and find out why it’s worth it. - Alyssa Murfey

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Having just completed an innovation session last week where The Brainzooming Group was leading a client in addressing its customer service experience innovation, this Brainzooming guest blog post from Woody Bendle was top of mind for me. Woody shares a robust approach to pursue if you are trying to address any opportunity to differentiate your organization relative to the customer experience you deliver:

Is customer service, or providing a great customer service experience at the core of your organization’s mission and strategy?

If so, I first want to congratulate you and encourage you to continue on this journey because it really can make all the difference in the world between success and failure!

Second, you also need to recognize that you are not alone.

Everybody Is Talking Excellent Customer Service

I did a quick Google search this morning on “excellent customer service mission.”  The search produced 46.2 million results!  Here are a few that came back:

• We’ve aligned the entire organization around one mission: to provide the best customer service possible.  – Zappos
• The mission of _____ is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit.  – Southwest Airline
• Exceed our customers’ expectations by being the leading provider of safe, responsive, value-added services in the student transportation industry.  -  Laidlaw International
• At the heart of delivering any and all of our solutions is incredible customer service, which we feel sets us apart from our competition.  -  TerpSys.com
• Our mission is to provide our customers with superior products and outstanding customer service  -  Yardi Systems
• We place the customer experience at the core of all we do. Our customers are the reason for our existence…. Our goal is quality, service, cleanliness and value (QSC&V) for each and every customer, each and every time.  -  McDonald’s
• Create experiences so great the customer says, “Wow.” -  Oracle
• Our goal is to provide the best customer service in our industry.  -  HeinOnline.com
• Our customer service sets the standard. – Delta Dental of Illinois

Not only are you not alone, I’d say you are at risk of being the norm!  And, therein is the problem.

With so many organizations focusing on customer service, you have to assume if you are providing really good customer service, resulting in a pretty good overall customer experience, you are likely close to providing what is expected by today’s consumer.  But, this probably only keeps you in the game; and it may not be setting you apart.

In order to set your organization apart from your competitors – in terms of customer service and experience – you have to innovate.  You need to develop and provide a customer service experience that is:

• Truly unique (through the eyes of your customers), and
• Highly valued.

Figuring out whether or not you are doing something truly unique is easy enough.  When you walk into an Apple Store you know you are experiencing something different. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of being visited by The Geek Squad, you know you’ve experienced something different. It probably made a positive impression on you.

Recognizing something different after you’ve experienced it is pretty easy, but how do you come up with that idea in the first place?  Also, how do you determine whether or not it is something that will be highly valued by your current and potential customers?  And perhaps even more important, how do you determine if there is even a significant opportunity to differentiate your organization through customer service (or experience) innovation?

To answer these questions, you essentially need to do two things:

• Thoroughly understand all of the things your customers want and expect from their engagements with your organization.
• Determine the extent to which you have an opportunity to differentiate your organization from its competition in a way that is truly valued by the marketplace.

Thoroughly Understand Your Customer’s Needs, Wants, and Expectations

Yes, I heard you say “well….duh!” But this is always the foundation for creating a successful innovation.  So many new products and companies failing, you’ll be surprised to learn it is actually a lot simpler than people make it out to be.  You just have to do it!

To thoroughly understand your customers’ needs, wants and expectations, you need to ask and exhaustively answer the following questions:

• Why is it that they are engaging with our organization at all – that is, what is it our organization is helping them do or accomplish?
• What do they want to accomplish as a result of engaging with us?
• Is their engagement with us a means to accomplishing something else?
• How do they feel (or want to feel) while they are engaging with our company, our associates, or brand?
• Why are they choosing our organization over another?
• What contributed to their choosing us versus someone else?
• What could possibly get in the way of them engaging with us?
• How do they determine whether or not they had a successful experience that met or exceeded their expectations?

If you want to innovate, it is important to obtain as many answers to each of these questions as possible.  As you obtain one answer, go ahead and ask:

• Why else?
• What else?
• How else?

Another oft referenced technique I absolutely love is “5 Whys.” By probing deeper and deeper with each and every question, and continuing to ask why, you will uncover many interesting and surprising insights.

As I mentioned earlier though, thoroughly understanding your customers’ needs is only the beginning.

Determine Your Opportunity to Innovate

Armed with a lot of really interesting answers to the above questions, you need to determine how important each of these things is to your customers, and how well they feel you and your competitors help them with what they want to accomplish.  A proven tool you can use to gauge the opportunity for innovation is called the “opportunity algorithm.”  After you’ve performed your opportunity analysis, you will be able to pinpoint you organization’s most significant areas for service and experience innovation.

At this point you know how differentiated your organization is from your competition, and whether or not you actually have an opportunity to deliver a knockout service and experience innovation.

There are several additional (and critical) steps you will need to take if you want to develop and get your service and experience innovation to market. These include:

• Developing several possible innovation solutions
• Determining the extent to which each possible solution meets and ideally exceeds customer expectations
• Calculating if you can profitably implement the innovation, and
• Assessing how unique and defensible your customer service innovation really is

In a forthcoming Brainzooming article, I will detail these next steps for customer service and experience innovation. Until then, you have the first steps to get started.

Since I’m an individual who loves and genuinely appreciates new and distinctive customer service experiences, I’m rooting for you to get started leaping out of this sea of sameness!  - Woody Bendle

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic creative ideas! For an organizational creativity boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these benefits for you.

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Today’s post from return guest blogger Alyssa Murfey, Marketing Account Manager & Social Media Strategist  at emfluence, is a great reminder about the importance of starting any communication efforts thinking about your audience and not just what they will think about your message, but even how they will receive and interact with your message: 

When it comes to the adaptation of technology, many seem quick to dismiss older generations. They say, “They are set in their ways. They’ll never change.” But what if older generations got a taste, even a small one, of how technology eases life…and they liked it?

Retired persons have a lot more time on their hands to explore and adapt to new technology, even if it takes a little longer than younger generations. Mobile phones are no exception. According to a Pew Research Center May 2012 survey, 83% of US adults have a cell phone of some kind, and 42% of them own a smartphone. The smartphone is in many hands, and it’s not just the young ones:

• 15% of people aged 55 and older are using a smart phone (Nielsen)
• The fastest growing demographic for texters is 45-64 (Com.score)

While Baby Boomers move toward retirement, we will see this trend continue as this demographic has more time to explore technology that makes life easier or more enjoyable. Also, since they will be the last adapters to the next wave of technology, marketers should focus on capturing the attention of Baby Boomers in SMS campaigns now with the expectation of future campaign success. Take Baby Boomers into account when crafting your mobile campaigns. Here are some tips that apply to making any mobile campaign accessible, but are extremely important for the older demographic:

• Step by step instructions with graphics to help them through the process
• If you are comfortable with it, a provide a support number to call to talk to a real person
• Large icons, type and pictures for creative on mobile apps
• Make keywords simple in text campaigns, avoiding spaces and hard to spell words (i.e. Instead of asking people to text your brand’s full campaign slogan, make it simple:  Text “Burger” to 72727)
• Secure variations on your text phrase to account for errors (i.e., If your keyword is “Summer Fun”, also secure keywords for “Sumer Fun” and “SummerFun”)
• Segment your Baby Boomer contacts and target specific promotions to them (Early Bird Specials, Buy One Get One)

Baby boomers who have sampled bits of technology here and there while in the work force will now be retiring. They will have more time on their hands to explore gadgets and will be more apt to participate in mobile campaigns and interact with mobile applications. Marketers should be thinking about what apps they can build to make the Baby Boomer life easier and what mobile campaigns will catch this demographics’ eye.  -Alyssa Murfey 

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It’s always great to have a guest blog from Woody Bendle. I ran into Woody last Friday night at the Kansas City Airport, and I’m not sure if that’s what prompted it, but this fantastic post on the importance of asking stupid questions showed up in my email last weekend! Take it away, Woody . . . 

I love questions!  Really!  But not too long ago, I was attending a seminar and I heard someone near me say to the person next to them, “That was a stupid question.”  I frankly don’t even remember what the question was, but do remember how uncomfortable I felt after hearing that.  I jotted a note down in my notebook and decided to write a piece about the value of questions (even the value of asking stupid questions).

Mind if I ask you a question?

So, I’m going to put you on the spot for a few seconds. When was the last time you heard what you thought was a stupid question?

Why did you actually think it was a stupid question?  I’ll let you think about this one for a bit . . .

Ok, did you think it was a stupid question because of:

• Who asked the question? “Wow, only he would (or could) ask a question like that.”

• How it was asked? “Whoa… that was snarky. What a stupid question.”

• Where the question was asked? “Uh-oh. Why would anyone ask that in front of these people?”

• You not thinking of it first? “Dang – I must look like a total idiot for not asking that.”

• You not having an answer for it? “Oh yeah… well… I… I’d like to hear your answer…”

• There being no possible answer to the question? “What kind of question is that? Come on… let’s get real!”

• The answer being sooooooooo amazingly obvious that any moron should already know the answer? “UGH!  Are you serious? Because, that’s just the way it works you knucklehead…”

Was your opinion of “stupidity” aimed at the person asking the question or at yourself rather than the actual question?  More times than not, it’s not about the question at all nor the person who actually asked it.

Let’s fess up; at one point in time, we’ve all probably thought, or even perhaps said something similar to many of the exclamations above.  If you haven’t, you wouldn’t be human.  But, if we actually said any of these things aloud to someone, or in a group setting, we know that the result is that people just stop asking questions – immediately.  Perhaps that is what you were shooting for, but this is incredibly unproductive in the long run!  Bad things happen when people stop asking questions!

So, what’s the big deal? Why do we need questions?

Questions are critical for breakthrough progress!

It is important to remember that without questions, and without the desire to answer questions (curiosity), we’d all pretty much still be flopping around in a primordial soup.  Questions are an essential component of progress – all progress.  Given the current state of the global economy and the lack of topline growth among many of the world’s leading companies, I’d say we actually need a lot more people asking many more questions.

Albert Einstein is regarded as one of the most brilliant, and fascinating minds of all time, and he OBSESSED over questions!  More importantly, getting to the “right” question.  Albert Einstein is often quoted as muttering to himself, “If I only had the right question” repeatedly during periods when he was stumped by something he was working on.

If Albert Einstein isn’t to your liking, maybe you’ll be persuaded by this fabulous statement made by another pretty smart dude – Peter Drucker.  “The more serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers.  The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong question.”

This statement from Peter Drucker is exceptionally profound!  Organizations and individuals waste tons of money and time every year in the pursuit of ideas resulting from the wrong questions.  When over 70% of all new products launched each year end in failure, you can be certain people aren’t asking the right questions.

Is asking questions THAT hard?

Asking the right questions is harder than you might think:  It takes time, we haven’t been trained to do it, and without training and conditioning, our brains would rather not do it at all.

1. Asking questions takes time

It is important to acknowledge that getting to the right question is hard work that requires practice.  One reason for this claim is that, most of us have been trained (in one way or another) to efficiently provide answers and solutions to the questions we’re provided.  Asking questions takes time, and time is money; so as a consequence, we’re often discouraged from asking questions… “Just do what you’re supposed to do and get me the answer!”  Sound familiar?

2. There is a lack of training for asking questions

Second, very few of us receive any training in asking questions.  This actually strikes me as perhaps one of the greatest failings of the American education system.  Kids are  pretty much natural born natural explorers and detectives, who ask a lot of questions. And, kids continue to ask a lot of questions until they get into about the second or third grade.  Unfortunately at that point in their lives, they’re being trained (or programmed) to answer questions that other people already know the answers to so they can perform well on standardized tests – in order to get into a good college and answer more questions with known solutions.  But let’s admit it, nothing truly great ever came from providing answers to questions with known solutions.

3. Asking questions can actually wear you out

Lastly, asking a lot of questions (thinking) which eventually lead to asking the “right” question is very taxing on our brains.  While our body is at rest, the brain consumes somewhere on the order of 20% of the body’s oxygen and calories.  When you really put the brain to work, by subjecting it to ambiguity and confusion, your brain begins to consume more calories.  And, unless you regularly work on conditioning your brain by thinking harder and asking perplexing questions, its natural tendency is to try to conserve energy – and work with what it already knows.  You might think of the act of thinking hard and developing the “right” question as like going out and running a10K: if you haven’t trained for it, your legs will be continually telling you that they want to stop and that they’d rather be sitting on the couch with a cold beverage and a bowl of chips, watching some television.  In order to complete and enjoy a 10K, you have to train for it.  And, to become adept at developing the “right” questions, to you need to work at it – often.

What’s the point of all these questions?

The point of all of this is that we need a lot more questions – all of them.  To get to the right question(s), we need:

• Stupid questions
• Bad questions
• Silly questions
• Dumb questions
• Good questions

Frankly, we need the freedom and the patience to ask all of these questions.

And eventually, by pushing around all of these different questions, we can land on the right questions that can become catalysts for beginning valuable work to develop meaningful, game-changing solutions. - Woody Bendle

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic creative ideas! For an organizational creativity boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these benefits for you.

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For many B2B marketers, a brand building marketing strategy can mean pulling budget from product-focused marketing initiatives that directly drive response or purchase with the target audience. All too often branding is treated as a mutually exclusive marketing strategy set distinctly apart from the response-based strategies used in product- or solution-focused marketing efforts.

In fact, responsibility for brand strategy and product marketing often resides in different departments. For those organizations, the answer to bridging this gap is typically instituting formalized brand usage guidelines. And while it’s one element of successful branding, a unified look driven by corporate identity standards is sometimes mistaken for implementing an integrated brand strategy.

It is easy to understand why branding and direct response strategies have historically been isolated.  The messaging, media and metrics used to guide each are polar opposites by definition.

The Great Abyss

Strong, relevant brands have identified the emotional drivers associated with their value and have successfully integrated those emotional pulls into the messaging, tone, and imagery aimed at the target audience. On the other end of the spectrum, successful direct response relies on the pragmatic purchase decision levers with offer strategies that drive a particular action such as a limited time value-added benefit or price break.

Beyond the corporate identity, brand strategies are often synonymous with large branding campaigns communicated most frequently through trade publications in B2B markets, but also through television and radio. Comparatively, direct response has predominantly been implemented through one-to-one media such direct mail and, more recently, interactive media.

Finally, branding success is measured over time against softer brand awareness and recognition metrics, while direct response is measured immediately through definitive response rates and sometimes actual transaction levels.

Given the difference in approach, media and metrics, it is easy to understand why most B2B marketers do not have the budget or resource to fully support both brand and product advertising strategies. As a result, neither typically gets accomplished very well as part of addressing the target audience in a marketing strategy. 

Closing the Gap

But what if you could fuse the benefits of direct response and brand advertising? If successful, you would ensure the core values of your brand were consistently communicated to the target audience and at the same time drive directly measurable results. Using a hybrid approach that integrates the right mix of brand message and response options/offers, along with a performance-based media strategy, can maximize a marketing budget and drive branding and product marketing results.

By definition, good marketing builds the brand and sales by effectively identifying and measurably motivating a decision maker or influencer to take a desired action while continually reinforcing a desired belief. The road map to integrating the benefits of these two marketing strategies can be illustrated through two key B2B marketing tools. The common denominators in B2B media strategy tend to be direct marketing and trade pub advertising; nearly all B2B marketers use both media more heavily than TV, radio or even interactive. Using a direct branding philosophy, the approach to developing and executing each medium would look a little different.

A Marketing Strategy with with Message and Metrics

It’s a messaging challenge. The direct strategies used to motivate a decision maker or influencer to take action now can be counter-productive to the overall brand if not executed properly. The brand message tends to get lost or more likely traded off for messaging that supports only the product features and benefits as well as the call to action. Take the time to weave in your brand.

The insights that drive successful direct marketing are usually very data driven, such as business or demographic descriptors, to drive list source evaluation and acquisition. The insights allow you to target the right audience for the highest anticipated response. That shouldn’t change. However, integrating in the insights that drive strong brand definition shouldn’t be overlooked.  Branding insights are dialog driven to ensure relevant messaging. There is a heavy focus on understanding the motivators as defined by the customer needs and expectations which is often overlooked in developing direct campaigns or mailers.

If it hasn’t already been done within your organization, identify the two or three key brand message points that need to come across at every point of communication with your target audience and infuse those message points through copy, imagery and/or tone of the piece.

Now you’ve successfully integrated your brand, not just your logo, into your direct response strategies. And with every direct interaction, you build brand relevance and equity.

Infusing Direct Marketing Strategy into Branding Initiatives

Isn’t every message, regardless of the medium used to deliver it “one-to-one”?  Ultimately, the goal is to connect with the reader if we’re communicating through trade publication advertising. But what does “connecting” mean? In traditional branding terms, it means we’ve instilled the desired belief about our brand.

That isn’t enough for B2B marketers working on shoestring budgets which is why pure branding campaigns are rarely leveraged.  If the ad could instill that brand belief and entice them to take some type of action – link to a Web site to learn more about the company or product, request more information or even purchase – then you’d have a strong direct branding ad.

Integrating solid direct response strategy into mass media is accomplished in two ways:

• Including a call to action that drives the reader to a centralized point of contact like a Web site, landing page or an 800 number. The ultimate value lies in response/leads you can measure and the opportunity for one-to-one contact over time.  In addition, it enables a real measure of interaction with your brand.
• Weighting the media strategy toward performance-based media buys instead of simply relying only on the traditional reach and frequency plan.  This is a balancing act, but increasing media spend with publications that actually generate stronger response to your offer is like increasing spend with a particular list source that’s generating the highest response to your direct campaign.  You wouldn’t keep mailing to a list that doesn’t respond. Balancing the brand exposure benefits of traditional reach and frequency media strategy with productivity based on interest/response generated is a critical element of a solid direct branding strategy.

Now you’ve successfully integrated the value of driving leads and direct measurement of relevant interaction with your brand into your branding initiatives. – Barb Murphy

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these benefits for you.

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Kansas City was blessed with two significant architectural design innovation breakthrough project in the last third of the 20th century, with both coming from the same architectural tree—the firm of Kivett and Myers.

One design innovation was Kauffman Stadium (nee Royals Stadium) and its fraternal twin at the Truman Sports Complex, Arrowhead Stadium, set the standard for modern sports design. The Kansas City firms attached to Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead Stadium made Kansas City ground zero for architectural design innovation in sports stadiums, ballparks, and arenas. Hardly a major sports stadium or arena gets built globally without a Kansas City architecture firm being involved or being the benchmark against which other firms are judged.

Source: Kansas City Aviation Department

The other architectural design innovation breakthrough was Kansas City International Airport (KCI). After it opened (also in the early ‘70s), it became the model for airports from Dallas to Germany to France to South America. Kansas City International Airport was designed on a “drive to your gate” concept that allowed departing local passengers to have as little as a 75 foot walk from the vehicle depositing them on the terminal curb to the entrance to the airport jet way.

As a result, if you live in Kansas City, you love Kansas City International Airport. If, on the other hand, you have connected through Kansas City, you probably hate it. With the advent of enhanced security, what was once an architectural design innovation is now a struggle if you have to change planes—much less, airlines–or to find any amenities if you have to layover.

When Innovation Outlives Itself

In the case of the sports stadiums, when they began to show their age and fell behind the amenities offered at newer sports stadiums, the voters and the Kansas City sports teams decided to invest more than $500 million and update. But they stayed true to the original design innovation breakthrough concept.

Kansas City International Airport, however, faces a more difficult decision. Many Kansas City locals still love it, but it has too many buildings (and too many gates), an increasingly outmoded security system for passengers and baggage, significant environmental issues, and a challenge to offer the conveniences out-of-town flyers expect.

What KCI does have is the visionaries who built it in the first place being willing to call for another architectural design innovation, saying, “Do something different.”

At a roundtable discussion on KCI, Past, Present and Future, Bob Berkebile lead designer for KCI, and Hanan Kivett, nephew of Clarence Kivett and a former architect with Kivett and Myers during the construction of KCI, both said it was time for the city to move on.

Berkebile challenged the architects of the city to come up with something even better, even more innovative, “It’s a new opportunity to celebrate Kansas City.”

Looking Ahead for Another Innovation Breakthrough

That is likely the mark of a true innovator, someone who does not live in the past, but recognizes when it is necessary to search for the next defining innovation. – Barrett Sydnor

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The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your customer service in a smart way without seeming as if you’re micro-managing the customer experience.

Barrett Sydnor

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