Spend 48 sleepless hours with America's top new-product idea man.
DAY ONE
6:30 A.M.
The mission
Newtown, Ohio, on the out-skirts of Cincinnati. The sky's still dark on this drizzly winter morning, but innovation guru Doug Hall's headquarters--a 157-year-old, three-story, 29-room structure immodestly named the Eureka! Mansion--is already a furnace, glowing from every window. Inside, Hall reviews his client notes, prepares not one but two pep talks, and mentally runs through a series of group exercises designed to perform the equivalent of business magic: to pull new-product ideas out of what looks like thin air.
Hall is 38. Before his 1991 launch of Richard Saunders International (RSI), named after Ben Franklin's pen name, he spent 10 years at nearby Procter & Gamble Co., where he became the company's first and, so far, last "master marketing inventor." When he hung out his own creativity shingle, he promised clients delivery of 30 commercially viable ideas in 30 days. (In contrast, P& G's expected new-product development cycle was three months.) Nowadays, his techniques refined, he inspires his clients to come up with similar results in 3 days. Corporations such as PepsiCo (which has made 12 visits to the Eureka! Mansion), AT& T (10 visits), Nike, and even Batesville Casket send employees to the mansion for one-, two-, and three-day sessions to invent new products, paying RSI as much as $150,000 a visit--a McKinsey-esque rate that's at least five times what most "creativity facilitators" ask. The average American home now contains 18 brand-name products or services that, according to Hall, RSI helped develop or reposition.
Due through the mansion's door on this day are employees from Celestial Seasonings Inc., a $75-million-a-year company with the lion's share of a flattened market, herbal tea. Celestial wants to at least double its sales in the next few years and knows that to do so, it will need to branch out well beyond its artfully boxed teas. It knows, as well, what most companies are being forced to learn: that every business's vitality is built on being newer and better, and that staying power in today's market means following up one success with another, and another--and fast.
Eager to capitalize on its well-loved and well-established brand, Celestial has given Hall a dream assignment: help invent something--anything--that appropriately leverages its leadership position.
This is the diary of how Hall does it, step-by-step--with Hall annotating the logic behind his methods along the way. This, Hall argues--this by now well-tested mixture of play and sensory overload and analytical rigor--is the alchemy of creation. He trusts it so much that he has struck an entrepreneurial bargain with Celestial: he has waived his princely fee in return for a fixed percentage of sales on any mansion-launched products. In other words, Hall knows as he is about to begin this session that if he doesn't get results, he'll have worked for nothing.
He has two days.
7:01 A.M.
Preparing the props
The Eureka! Mansion bustles with activity. Near the kitchen by the back door, a couple of Hall's so-called Trained Brains are filling balloons on the nozzles of two in-house helium tanks. In the spacious living room, other Trained Brains are loading a cache of tommy-gun-like Nerf Ballzookas, stuffing scores of bright yellow foam balls into the revolving five-chamber magazines. A 100-CD jukebox booms out high-energy oldies: "Wooly Bully," "Gimme Some Lovin'," "Wipe Out."
In the front hallway a caterer sets out breakfast-buffet fare. At the foot of the elegant staircase, a Dixieland quartet dressed in gold hats and bow ties warm up on trumpet, trombone, guitar, and banjo. The loaded Nerf guns get piled in the middle of the living-room rug and hidden beneath a blanket. The collective pulse thrums ever faster.
7:50 A.M.
Pep talk
As Celestial's 8:30 arrival time draws nearer, Hall gathers his charges--a twentysomething-to-fortysomething mix of Trained Brains--in the mansion's living room and addresses them as if he were a coach before a big game. "It's not often that you find an entire category invented by one person," he says, pointing to box after box of Celestial Seasonings teas on shelves placed center stage, in front of the fireplace. Hall sketches the company's history: It was founded in 1970 by Mo Siegel and a partner, who initially picked their own herbs for their teas. It was sold to Kraft in 1984. Siegel then traveled the world with an eye toward philanthropy. Kraft sold the company back to its original management, which welcomed Siegel back in 1991 as chairman and CEO.
Hall gives his talk standing in front of an as yet unmarkered Panasonic whiteboard. He's wearing jeans and an untucked blue-and-white-striped short-sleeve shirt. His feet are bare.
At P& G, Hall was notorious: he was the guy who invented dress-down days on his own; the weirdo with all the stuffed animals in his office, who played music so loudly that the people in nearby offices had them soundproofed; but also, the guy people called when they wanted some help coming up with ideas. Hall loathed those closed-door, sit-around-the-conference-table sessions. He soon discovered that he came up with better ideas by combing the bargain-book bins at the local bookstore or walking the aisles at a farmers' market. In 1991 he left P& G, bought the mansion, and began turning what had been a bankrupt bed-and-breakfast into an idea factory.
"The people up top in the companies we work with can be pretty conservative," Hall continues telling his team. "They say they want big ideas, but they get scared of them. Celestial, though, is willing to take on anything. Licensing arrangements with other companies are possible: licensing others' names, licensing out the Celestial name." Suddenly, Hall kicks himself into a higher gear. "Really push for ideas that can promote an emotional reaction. It's a wide range--from Sleepytime to Fast Lane."
The group's pent-up exuberance begins to bubble up.
