Hasta La Ideas

All Images Courtesy of The Economist

What is it with ‘ideas conferences’ these days?

Inspired by leading forums like Davos and TED, there is an oversupply of cross-disciplinary events that clash writers, futurists, executives and entrepreneurs together. The perceived value of taking time out to absorb unusual ideas and hobnob knows no bounds.

In spite of their popularity, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that many exhibit a certain intellectual vagueness, lack of focus and elitist undercurrent. This year’s Big Rethink, although backed by The Economist’s clout, followed this trend with a woolly program on the importance of ideas to business.

Whereas last year’s event offered up design thinking as an approach for leaders looking for new solutions, this year’s event turned the mirror on business to demonstrate its understanding of the world today and the new approaches being taken to generate and implement game-changing big ideas.

So how did they fare? In short, just as there was little actual design thinking on display last year, the big ideas at this year’s Rethink were few and far between. I was left pondering two questions: why are big businesses not better at re-imagining what they do; and what role do designers have to play?

David Butler (Coca-Cola) and Vijay Vaitheeswaran (The Economist)

Implementation over imagination

In contrast to the day’s premise, speakers from P&G, Diageo and Coke declared that they weren’t much in search of big new ideas—instead operational and incremental improvements were offered as sources of inspiration.

Coca-Cola’s Vice President of Design, David Butler explained how his team has concentrated on the pragmatic task of creating systems that add to the bottom line. From ensuring faster and more effective management across markets, formats and variants with its design machine; or establishing an efficient system of coolers that can be customised to local retail contexts; design here is firmly rooted in better implementation.

While there’s nothing wrong with incremental improvements, they’re hardly a big rethink. From the executives on stage, it seemed that innovation has been reduced to 99% perspiration. Big new ideas, are optional. The established global players are not being compelled to rethink how they operate. But for how long, it remains to be seen.

Watch out—the ideas are coming!

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