Page 99 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 201599function is to facilitate and provide our product with the ability to appeal to more than just early adopters and secure a good market position.2. How to develop new business opportunities: from generating ideas to putting them into practiceInnovation is in vogue, as is the need to applyit, to create new things, to develop new business models, and so forth. But the truth is that things are continuing to be done in the same way as before. Roughly speaking, when faced with the possibility of starting or building a product/ser- vice, it is likely that in 90% of cases drawing up a business plan for the idea/project is recommended as the most appropriate action to be taken as the initial stage of the work. The error does not lie in using a business plan, but in the moment of using it plus its interpretation as an absolute reality at initial stages of the projects – something that is starting to be proven to be mistaken. And much more so if it is used before taking any other step or action regarding our potential product. In the context we have described above, presupposing and defining the future development of a compa- ny (or a startup) in a linear and theoretic manner is ambitious at the very least, if not impossible. Theory without possibility of praxis and praxis without reflection are senseless.This is where the first challenge of a new enigma/project/undertaking arises: how to control uncertainty? In this respect Design Thinking (DT) is a very useful tool at such early stages because it combines rational and intuitivethinking, allows us to give sense and order to the typical suppositions that are usually made before releasing the product onto the market and helps really pinpoint the underlying problems, which are always to be found. All this makes it possible to come up with a better proposition that has real value and is shaped, oriented and adapted to the possible market (user-customer).The various tools for qualitative research can be merged with Visual Thinking in order to get to the bottom of the matter (problem/process) – which, in turn, may entail a new enigma – and, ultimately, propose a valid but not unique idea. A not so evident fact: there is never a certain answer, only the answers we believe there are.Example of visual thinking: difference between using Alltop and Google.Source: Dan Roam, author of Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems with PicturesJuan Gasca and Jose Manuel Jarque Muñoz