Large organisations increasingly realise the importance of developing partnerships and building out ecosystems. Used well, ecosystems enhance and accelerate innovation; enabling the rapid development of new products and services to generate new revenue streams from customers old and new.

Customer-led design is an accepted norm these days; a go-to approach for innovation teams. But there’s a fundamental flaw in customer-led design when you’re trying to take a real leap forward: customers can’t lead you there.

9th January 2021 marked Wilson Fletcher’s 18th birthday. The coming-of-age party we’d planned obviously won’t be happening (our 21st definitely got a scale-up) but it’s an amazing milestone for us to hit. Some reflections on the journey so far…

Keeping a focus on customers throughout the design process has long been the domain of the persona, but we rarely use them in favour of two more powerful and applicable tools; behavioural archetypes and behavioural modes.

Our recent work with Nesta’s Future News Pilot Fund has highlighted again how crucial local news is, why it must have a viable future for all of our sakes, and why that future lies in forming a new relationship with consumers, starting now.

Incremental innovation is everywhere, but the real step-change, breakthrough innovations are much harder to come by. There’s no fixed formula for success, but here are six key techniques that we use consistently to generate big ideas.