Back to
#25 Innovage
2008

Everywhen

by Kevin Roberts

0 Faves
Vote!
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars
Loading ... Loading ...

I’m a believer in the “I” words. Ideas, Intuition, Invention, Inspiration, innovation… and now… Innovage. Add vintage to innovation and you’ll be time traveling, speeding back to the future. This implosion of past, present and future is what the Aboriginal people of Australia called “the Everywhen.” It was, and is, timeless time. This is when we shoot forward by reinventing who we are, as we strengthen why we are. “Vintage” and “innovation” mean different things to different folks. Stop people in the street and you’ll get a range of definitions. My kids would probably call me “vintage”, and I’ve a fondness of all kinds of vintage expressions, ranging from Ben Sherman men’s wear through to old Barolos, Brunellos and Sophie Loren! But it’s as CEO of a Global Ideas Company, that Innovage comes out of the blocks. Everyday, I lead 7000 people into a creative furnace. Their job is to leap out from the past across the present and into the future, without getting third degrees burns from “the client”.

Here are 5 thoughts on being (let’s call it) an innovageur:
1. Don’t give the Gods cause.
2. Touch.
3. Revel in it, surf chaos and love it!
4. Live your best life every day.
5. Turn Blue.

1. Don’t give the Gods cause.
The Gods first make bored those whom they wish to destroy, as one vintage Italian said many years ago. I’m a big fan of what Francis Ford Coppola would call spontaneous recklessness. In simple terms, this “is going for it”, clutching your messenger bag under your arm and hurling yourself off the edge. It doesn’t matter what your station in life is, there’s no benefit in standing still. Murray Moss, who runs New York’s best design store, gets it. Moss (now open in Los Angeles) blurs the lines between museum, gallery and retail. Bon Innovage!

2. Touch.
Brands that become Lovemarks are restless through their constancy. Look at Fiat, returning to glory through reinvention of its roots with Fiat 500 (I just bought one for my vintage Lakelands cottage in Grasmere). As we loop back and forth through time, the magic ingredient is touch. An idea is only an idea when it touches someone. This is what innovation means, to change the world around us. Innovation delivers a quintuple bottom line: profit, share, preference, sustainability and involvement, all based around consumer experience. Chanel perfume is pure Innovage in a bottle; that’s why it sells for a super premium. In a sub-conscious second, a scent on the breeze can bring the past into the present and open portals into the future.

3. Revel in it, surf chaos and love it!
Anyone unlucky enough to be called a brand manager knows how tough it is to stand out and how easy it is to go under. It’s sheer bloody chaos out there because consumers have all the power now. And you can only thrive in chaos if you love it. Whether you’re vintage or modern, the way to win is roll up your sleeves, wade in, get closer to consumers and be super-responsive. Learn to fail fast, learn fast, and fix fast. Apple introduced flops like the Newton and Pipin long before the iPod and iPhone. As we from the lands down under sometimes say, “get amongst it!”

4. Live your best life every day.
Some vintages are so ripe for innovation, they need a revolution. This interminable business of work / life balance is one of them. Work should never prevent you from having a life. It should enhance your life. By integrating work into life, living can be one constant flow of joy. I have three “flow” questions for any person or fashion or wine that claims to be “vintage”.
1. What do you want to be doing in 5 years?
2. When are you at your best?
3. What will you never do?

5. Turn Blue.
The days of sustainability as a green idea are over. There’s a new color in town, and it’s eternal.
a. Green is about the earth; blue adds the depth of ocean and sky.
b. Green is about limitations, blue is about possibilities.
c. Green is about fear; blue is about radical optimism.
d. Green is about obligations; blue is about opportunity.
e. Green is about problems. Blue is about passions, people saying: “I want to sustain this Blue Planet, and I can do something.”

Innovage feels right to me, reflections on the past that move forward and grow. “Ah…”, says Bob Dylan, “but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

Kevin Roberts

Kevin Roberts is the New York-based CEO Worldwide of Ideas Company Saatchi & Saatchi – one of the world’s leading creative organizations with a team of 7000 people across 83 countries – and part of Publicis Groupe, the world’s fourth largest communications group. In 2004 he released the book Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands, which shows how emotion can inspire businesses and brands to deliver sustainable value. His newest books are Sisomo: The Future on Screen, a look at the central role of sight, sound and motion in accelerating emotional connections in the digital age, and The Lovemarks Effect: Winning in the Consumer Revolution, a collection of influential insights on the impact of Lovemarks in the market. Kevin is the inaugural CEO in Residence at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School in the UK and Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Waikato Management School in New Zealand. Kevin’s leadership appointments range from membership of the Publicis Groupe Management Board, and business ambassador for the New Zealand United States Council, to trustee of the Turn Your Life Around Trust, an Auckland charity that mentors at-risk teenagers. A New Zealand citizen, he has offices and homes in Auckland and New York, and homes also in St. Tropez and Grasmere in the English Lake District.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Bookmark and Share

Write a comment

Click here to login
Comment required
First name required
Last name required

Nickname required
Email required
Captcha required
Captcha Code required

Information on protection of privacy I agree I don't agree
  • Follow illywords
  • Follow on Facebook
  • Follow on Flickr
  • Follow on Youtube
  • Follow on Rss Feed

Images

  • INNOVAGE - Nicola Ryan

    KALEIDOSCOPES. Reinventing ideas of the past. Replacing the traditional glitter and beads with electronic circuit boards; creating a snippet of the future.

  • School of Graphic Design at the London College of Communication

  • The Innovage project

  • Romi Yoo

    INNOVATION AND VINTAGE, INNOVAGE. An innovation is a new thing or a new method of doing, and also it is the introduction of new ideas, methods. Innovage, I think that innovation and vintage both of them come from human’s desire. I could say that is the dream of people. New ideas, new method and so on, all new creative things come from people’s dream and desire. When people step on something or step in a particular direction, people put their foot on the thing or move their foot in that direction. So, in my design, the feet, which means step on people’s dream. Get into people’s desire and dream. I hope that all come true in very soon. That is the Innovage I think.

  • Mark Simmonds

    DRAWING IN THE WIND. The wind is an invisible force. Yet one can experience it’s immediate effects, such as the sight of a lonely floating plastic bag or the glistening sound of golden leafs in the autumn. A system was devised that graphically captures the wind. Due to the dynamic nature of the wind, each drawing is unique.

  • Mark Simmonds

    DRAWING IN THE WIND. The wind is an invisible force. Yet one can experience it’s immediate effects, such as the sight of a lonely floating plastic bag or the glistening sound of golden leafs in the autumn. A system was devised that graphically captures the wind. Due to the dynamic nature of the wind, each drawing is unique.

  • Mark Simmonds

    DRAWING IN THE WIND. The wind is an invisible force. Yet one can experience it’s immediate effects, such as the sight of a lonely floating plastic bag or the glistening sound of golden leafs in the autumn. A system was devised that graphically captures the wind. Due to the dynamic nature of the wind, each drawing is unique.

  • Mark Simmonds

    DRAWING IN THE WIND. The wind is an invisible force. Yet one can experience it’s immediate effects, such as the sight of a lonely floating plastic bag or the glistening sound of golden leafs in the autumn. A system was devised that graphically captures the wind. Due to the dynamic nature of the wind, each drawing is unique.

  • Dan Sayle

    Illywords Write up. VINTAGE INNOVATION. Designs of an age that today can still be classed as innovative. Zig Zag Chair. Gerrit Rietveld. 1933. EKCO Bakelite Radio. Wells Coates. 1933. Zippo Lighter. George G Blaisdell. 1933.

  • Mark Simmonds

    MUSIC TRACE MACHINE. Visualising music. David Bowie’s 1979 album ‘Lodger’ interpreted by Music Trace Machine. The machine converts sound to motion, which is carbon paper traced onto sheets of newsprint. The outcomes of the drawings are dependant on the length and intensity of the particular piece of music. The machine consists of four components, sound to light converter, light to motion converter, stereo headphones and a music player.

  • Mark Simmonds

    COAL COVERS. In the 19th century British buildings in cities usually had a coal hole in the pavement to allow the coal merchant to fill up the bunker (often under the pavement) without entering or transporting coal soot in the customers house. The hole, which measured anything from 12 to 24 inches, was covered with a cast-iron plate that often advertised the name of the maker. They were also given a raised pattern so that on rainy days pedestrians would not slip on a smooth surface.

  • Mark Simmonds

    COAL COVERS. In the 19th century British buildings in cities usually had a coal hole in the pavement to allow the coal merchant to fill up the bunker (often under the pavement) without entering or transporting coal soot in the customers house. The hole, which measured anything from 12 to 24 inches, was covered with a cast-iron plate that often advertised the name of the maker. They were also given a raised pattern so that on rainy days pedestrians would not slip on a smooth surface.

  • Nicola Ryan

    VISUAL LOOPS. Acknowledgement of the value of history paves the path to the future. A loop of constant referral: Looking behind to the past, whilst simultaneously looking forwards to the future.

  • Nicola Ryan

    KALEIDOSCOPES. Reinventing ideas of the past. Replacing the traditional glitter and beads with electronic circuit boards; creating a snippet of the future.

  • Nicola Ryan

    KALEIDOSCOPES. Reinventing ideas of the past. Replacing the traditional glitter and beads with electronic circuit boards; creating a snippet of the future.

  • Thomas Brasington

    LOOKING BACKWARDS TO GO FORWARDS. Even if we don’t realise we are always looking to the past to create something new. The photos created are the result of photographing through the front of a lens to capture the reflected image of that camera’s viewfinder. Due to the construction of a lens you get a reflection of myself on each of the lens’ elements creating the image that the other camera ‘sees’. The camera itself is significant here too. It remains the most widely used device for recording our world and possible the oldest but it is constantly advancing in terms of technology and innovation.

  • Sheetal Patel

    TAPE 2. Working with Tape, pixilation of the piece and eliminating areas to show how the tapes use and importance has decreased. Since the CD, the majority don’t use tapes anymore and they are becoming forgotten.

  • Gyorgy Korossy

    Although using grids to create complex compositions of type and imagery, or intricate illustrations is by no means a new idea, designers have been developing innovative methods of deploying them in all fields of design for decades . As one of the most prominent graphic artists of the last 75 years, M. C. Escher exploited the grid to no end creating some of the most amazing and often baffling pieces depicting numerous sides of an impossible reality. Influenced by Escher’s sketches and his quote on design: “As far as I know, there is no proof whatever of the existence of an objective reality apart from our senses, and I do not see why we should accept the outside world as such solely by virtue of our senses.” I have applied the principles of the relatively new graphic style, Pixel Art, using building blocks to create a piece illustrating an impossible reality.

  • Gyorgy Korossy

    Although using grids to create complex compositions of type and imagery, or intricate illustrations is by no means a new idea, designers have been developing innovative methods of deploying them in all fields of design for decades . As one of the most prominent graphic artists of the last 75 years, M. C. Escher exploited the grid to no end creating some of the most amazing and often baffling pieces depicting numerous sides of an impossible reality. Influenced by Escher’s sketches and his quote on design: “As far as I know, there is no proof whatever of the existence of an objective reality apart from our senses, and I do not see why we should accept the outside world as such solely by virtue of our senses.” I have applied the principles of the relatively new graphic style, Pixel Art, using building blocks to create a piece illustrating an impossible reality.

  • Gyorgy Korossy

    Although using grids to create complex compositions of type and imagery, or intricate illustrations is by no means a new idea, designers have been developing innovative methods of deploying them in all fields of design for decades . As one of the most prominent graphic artists of the last 75 years, M. C. Escher exploited the grid to no end creating some of the most amazing and often baffling pieces depicting numerous sides of an impossible reality. Influenced by Escher’s sketches and his quote on design: “As far as I know, there is no proof whatever of the existence of an objective reality apart from our senses, and I do not see why we should accept the outside world as such solely by virtue of our senses.” I have applied the principles of the relatively new graphic style, Pixel Art, using building blocks to create a piece illustrating an impossible reality.

  • Gyorgy Korossy

    Although using grids to create complex compositions of type and imagery, or intricate illustrations is by no means a new idea, designers have been developing innovative methods of deploying them in all fields of design for decades . As one of the most prominent graphic artists of the last 75 years, M. C. Escher exploited the grid to no end creating some of the most amazing and often baffling pieces depicting numerous sides of an impossible reality. Influenced by Escher’s sketches and his quote on design: “As far as I know, there is no proof whatever of the existence of an objective reality apart from our senses, and I do not see why we should accept the outside world as such solely by virtue of our senses.” I have applied the principles of the relatively new graphic style, Pixel Art, using building blocks to create a piece illustrating an impossible reality.

  • Oliver Bothwell

    TRIANGLES. Innovation and Vintage; the old and new, or rear view mirror as it is referred to by Marshall McLuhen. Innovation for me cannot be without the past, as it has to be growing from history. Innovation is a balance of creativity and destruction, destroying the parts that do not work to create the balanced solution. This piece represents all of this, balance, growth and destruction. Why the triangle? The triangle is a solid base on which to grow.

Related posts

  • "Where I am, makes me what I am"

    Anonymous at Galleria illy London

  • “The time is always right to do the right thing”

    Martin Luther King

  • "Liberty is about our rights to question everything".

    Ai Wei Wei

Headline & Editorial

Headline & Editorial

Last Issue: #31 The Journey

Twenty thousand leagues under the sea by Jules Verne (1825-1905). This book is the answer to my thoughts on travel. It certainly anticipated the saga...
Read more
People

People

For several years, the magazine has published dialogues, opinions and points of view on themes dear to a company living in the contemporary world.  Topics have covered space, courage, dreams,...
Read more
Schools

Schools

On the pages of illywords, the works of writers, artists and established professionals are the inspiration for the ideas and images of emerging artists, photographers and...
Read more

Contacts

You can leave your comment on the blog pages, asking everything you want to know.
Read more

Where to find

illywords is distributed at the most important cultural events of design and art supported by illy, and it is also available at leading bookshops the world over.
Read more