Published in the Independence Daily Reporter July 2018

There seem to be several definitions and methodologies for “empathetic design.” We, at Fab Lab ICC, use a model developed by the dSchool (Design School) at Stanford University. The dSchool was founded by a former engineer named David Kelley. David grew up in small Barberton, Ohio and while working as Boeing engineering decided he didn’t really like the kind of work he was doing. He became friends with Steve Jobs and left Boeing to start a design company called Ideo. It was Ideo that developed the first computer mouse. As Ideo flourished, David ended up with an opportunity to teach at Stanford and eventually came the opportunity to create the dSchool. At the dSchool, design teams are made up of graduate students from all kinds of backgrounds and disciplines. The diversity leads to great innovation since everyone on the teams thinks differently.

Over the years, they’ve come up with a 5-step design process to find new and innovative ways to solve problems. New and innovative ways to solve problems is what we strive to instill in everyone involved with Fab Lab ICC.

Empathize

The first step is to observe people going about various aspects in life and the problems they face. It could be someone struggling with a device that doesn’t work right, a young mother at an airport struggling with all the stuff needed to travel with young children or people in a third-world country struggling to find fresh water.

Ideo once designed a new ice cream dipper. They observed people using existing dippers and tried to empathize with the challenges they observed. One thing they noticed was the nearly everyone licked the dipper when serving was finished. Even though our mothers would be horrified, that was the observation so one of the design criteria is to make sure there were no sharp edges or pinch points on any new device.

Define

After considerable observation, the team works to define what problem they will solve. Sometimes the problem is discreet and straightforward to define, other times it’s more complicated. Defining the problems people face when dipping ice cream is straightforward. Defining the problems people face when going to a medical appointments can be a little more complex.

Ideate

Some people would call this brainstorming, but after defining the problem to be solved, the problem solver or team goes about coming up with “new and innovative” ways to solve the problem. The ability to come up with new solutions is like a muscle. The ability is weak and challenging at first, but the more we practice, the better we get. As we see people come to the Fab Lab in camps, classes and member visits, we watch their problem solving abilities grow with each project.

Prototype

After one or a few possible solutions are created in “Ideation” the prototype helps demonstrate the solution in a low cost way. After all, at the point after Ideation, we don’t really know which of the solutions, if any, work. For tangible products, the prototype starts out “low-fidelity,” rough but produced quickly and at a low cost. For intangible solutions, like services or concepts the prototypes can be artifacts that help share the ideas.

Test

Once the prototype(s) are completed, not perfected, it’s time to show them to the people having the problem and test them as much as possible. During the testing stage we listen carefully to the observations and reactions of those with the problem to gain insight into improvements and changes that can be made.

Step and Repeat

After the test phase, the process is repeated; sometimes back to the Empathize stage or one of the others. This can go on from one to several times until there is a minimum viable product (MVP.) The MVP is robust enough that early adopters, those with the problem that are willing to try, even if not perfect. In the case of a commercial solution, this means the early adopters are willing to pay for the MVP.

None of us are very good at predicting what new products or solutions are going to be used and accepted in the marketplace. We get good feedback from what people say and the opinions they give, but the true test is when people “buy” the MVP, either through the exchange of money or the implementation of a new process.

 

Jim Correll is the director of Fab Lab ICC at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on the campus of Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349, by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu or Twitter @jimcorrellks.

 

Published in the Independence Daily Reporter July 2018

Most businesses want to grow.  That’s natural and generally a good thing although growing too fast can be detrimental as there is considerable up-front money required to grow fast before the resulting sales increases begin.  We’ll talk about managed growth, meaning growth at a healthy pace that allows the business to adjust without too much chaos.

What does it take to grow a business?  As with so many things in life, it depends.  Requirements to grow for a business start-up are much different than those for an established company that wishes to grow to new levels.  To be in the business of coaching businesses, it would be nice if there was one playbook that would work for all.  Not only is there not a playbook that will work for all, there’s not a playbook at all.

Business Coaching Not As Technical as One Might Think

For the last ten years, I’ve tried different methods and strategies to find the best way to be helpful as a business coach to a wide range of start-ups and small businesses.  What I’ve found is that being helpful to entrepreneurs and small business owners is not as technical as one might think.  To be a coach, one doesn’t need to know all the technical ins and outs of a particular business or industry.  One doesn’t even need to have all the answers.  The secret seems to be finding a way to provide the right combination of information and business tools to each entrepreneur or business owner based on their individual situations.

A Collection of Business Growth Tools

We have assembled such a collection of tools and we’re grouping them under the umbrella of what we call the “Growth Accelerator Program”.  Some of the tools are virtual, some are personal and some are physical.  This is a buffet of resources available if and as needed by our clients.  The tools include access to Fab Lab ICC and, pending completion of our new building this fall, access to the Entrepreneurs Bullpen, an open-collaboration incubator adjacent to the Fab Lab where start-up entrepreneurs can collaborate with each other while working on their own businesses.  Business incubators are fairly common and Fab Labs are becoming more common, but incubators connected to Fab Labs are still very new with but a handful in the country.

No Geographic Limits

Some of the offerings are fee based, but many are free.  There are need-based scholarships available for nearly everything.  Membership to Fab Lab ICC and the Growth Accelerator Program has no geographic limits.

We consider the Growth Accelerator Program to be in a “beta” test with several members signed up now.  Some are inventing new things working through the process to come to market. Others range from business to business service providers to Internet and brick and mortar retailers. We welcome more.  We believe the combination of these tools offers a path to growth for any size business from start-ups to existing; from pre-sales up to $5M in sales.

 

Jim Correll is the director of Fab Lab ICC at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on the campus of Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349, by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu or Twitter @jimcorrellks.

 

Published in the Independence Daily Reporter June 2019

When we buy local, we support small business owners, many of whom are great community supporters, always giving back in helping with local causes. The sales tax collected from local purchases comes back to the community and, theoretically at least, reduces the amounts of other kinds of taxes needed to operate our government entities; schools, cities, and counties. Too there’s the axiom we’ve heard for years that every dollar spent locally will circulate five or six times in the community. All in all, buying locally is good for the economy and sets our communities up for healthy growth. These are all viable, compelling and rational reasons to buy local.

People Don’t Buy Based on Reason

The challenge is that most people don’t make purchase decisions based on viable, compelling and rational reasons. People make purchasing decisions based on emotions that even experts don’t totally understand. Preaching–i.e. appealing to people’s reasoning–to buy local is not enough. In fact, it’s a turn-off for some people. I estimate that only 10% to 15% of the population will buy local just for the sake of buying local.

Some People Buy Only Based on Price

Many, but certainly not all, think the price is the only thing that matters. In her 2004 country hit “Red Neck Woman,” Gretchen Wilson sings “…Victoria’s Secret, well their stuff’s real nice. Oh, but I can buy the same damn thing on a Walmart shelf half price…” Most of the “Red Neck Women” in the world are not going to buy local from the mom and pop shops.

While buying at the local Walmart is not considered “buying locally” by some, at least the sales taxes generated stay local. So, if you’re going to buy from Walmart, better in your home town than somewhere else. BTW, Walmart does not necessarily have the lowest prices on everything, but they’ve spent a gazillion dollars over the years advertising that they do. It’s a hard myth to bust.

People Want Excellence in Shopping

So, what is it that makes some small, mom and pop stores survive and thrive even in a global economy with the dreaded box stores everywhere and competition from every possible kind of Internet sources? Excellence. Excellence in the goods and services offered and in the way they are presented. People want to be treated with kindness. They want to receive what they expected for the price paid. Being surprised by receiving more than they expected keeps them coming back again and again. People want a positive experience they can’t get anywhere else. Most of the box stores and Internet outlets are horrible at providing a positive experience.

People Want Excellence in Public Institutions

In a broader sense, the principles of “buying local” apply to our public institutions as well as small retail businesses. We all expect a certain level of competency from our local and county governments, our schools and hospitals. But once those basic competency levels are met, what determines where people want to live, go to school or go when they are sick? They will go where they get the most attention and the most positive experience.

There are programs and initiatives that help businesses and public entities sharpen their skills at offering a positive and excellent experience. We have access to some of them but it starts with an awareness of what people really want and a desire to provide an excellent experience. It’s the interactive experience with all entities in a community, and whether it’s excellent or not, that determines where people want to live, work and shop.

 

Jim Correll is the director of Fab Lab ICC at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on the campus of Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349, by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu or Twitter @jimcorrellks.

 

Published in the Independence Daily Reporter June 2019

• We opened October 1, 2014; the first at a Kansas community college
  • The new equipment was purchased with a Kauffman grant and local matching donations
  • In an initial space, formerly Cessna training was underutilized
• Our mission is about improving the self-efficacy of all–people of all ages and all walks of life–that experience our programs and services.
  • This supports the prime tenets of the college mission about academics, cultural enrichment, and economic development
• Resources for the expansion building came about in two years, starting in March 2016
  • Including $350,000 from the federal Economic Development Administration
  • Individuals and the college
• At 15,000 sf, we’ll be the largest maker space in markets our size, in fact
  • We believe no other market <50,000 has this much maker space
• We are open to the public through membership fees; $125 annually for individuals
• We aspire to be a national leader in combining entrepreneurship with the Fab Lab experience
  • We have tools and services for business growth not available to many small businesses, especially in rural communities
  • We are currently working with six inventors in various stages of going to market
  • Our first success, Tim Voegeli, dba Tubeless Solutions, came to us from Wichita before 3D printed prototypes were available there.
  • Our Women 4 Women program ($82k Kauffman supported) seeks to lower barriers to women getting into a full or part-time business.
• We’ve logged over 18,000 visits since we opened in late 2014
• We believe that entrepreneurship provides the best hope for prosperity in the new economy
  • We aspire to be a national leader in drastically changing workforce training in small rural community colleges to make local industries more competitive
    • We’re launching a pilot called “Fab Force” this fall
  • We believe every rural community in Kansas should have maker space
    • We host two boot camps per year for community leaders from around Kansas and a few from around the United States to show them how to launch
  • We will provide Boot and STEM camp services to 200 youth this summer
    • Weekly boot camps in collaboration with Greenbush education cooperative
    • 3-week long STEM camp for 100 middle school girls thanks to a nearly $100k grant from the Verizon Foundation, one of just 16 such camps conducted in the US this summer
  • Owned by the college, we strive to operate as a small business, using generated revenue and offer budget relief to the college
    • Other than salaries, space and utilities (substantial support by the college) we generate our own revenue through memberships, material sales, and grants for all our supplies, repairs and new equipment purchases

 

Jim Correll is the director of Fab Lab ICC at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on the campus of Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349, by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu or Twitter @jimcorrellks.