Asking insightful questions is clearly one of the traits of successful innovators. When explaining how they got into a new area, or hit on a ‘aha” large or small, almost all of the storytellers at the Business Innovation Factory Collaborative Innovation Summit talked about the questions they asked.
“When we arrive at the question, the answer is already near,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here are some questions from conference speakers that led to fascinating answers and new business models.
- “How can people reduce their carbon footprint – and actually like doing so?”Robin Chase, founder and CEO of GoLoco, a service that helps people arrange to share rides between friends, neighbors, and colleagues.
- “Can a company reinvent itself unless it goes through a near death experience?” Irving Wladawsky-Berger, vice president, Technical Strategy and Innovation, IBM
- “We were successful in changing how businesses engage with Stanford for cross-discipline research projects by asking good questions. We would create just one page with good questions and put them out to everyone in the university for Request for Proposals. Often it would take us a month to come up with questions. But by putting out the right questions, we got great proposals.” Ellen Levy, founding managing director, Silicon Valley Connect
- “What is the path of least resistance for the consumer? …Should this be a product or is it just a feature of an existing product?… Why isn’t there content for high definition TV?…Why is everyone so focused on the Internet when it comes to digital content and not on all the other places where digital content can be leveraged?” Mark Cuban, serial entrepreneur, owner of Dallas Mavericks, founder of HDNet,”Dancing with the Stars” contender
- “Why doesn’t a police chief’s son call 911 when he’s been a victim of crime? What does that say about policing?” Dean Esserman, Chief of Police, Providence, RI
- “Why couldn’t you design apartment buildings in New York that drastically reduce energy costs — for the same cost as typical buildings?”
Architect Chris Benedict, who recently completed a 38-unit new construction project that uses 85% less energy than standard designs
- “Why can’t people get companies they pay to take their calls and treat them like human beings?” Paul English, founder, the gethuman project.