NEW BOOK: Pivotal: Creating Stability in an Uncertain World 

407-476-5373 |

Innovation Insights
by Stephen Shapiro

e27 cloning stephen shapiro web

Podcast E27: How Can We Clone Stephen Shapiro?

On today’s episode, we look into ways of “cloning” someone digitally. In particular, we discuss how to take the knowledge from someone’s brain and convert it into workable tools.

The problem statement we start with is, “How can we create software that is so great that customers will be mad if we take it away?”

My guest problem solver is Adam Leffert, a freelance, C#, .Net Software Architect and Developer based in the Boston area. And he is the creator of the Invisible Solutions® Tools.

We use the Invisible Solutions® Lenses Chatbot as an example. This conversational tool asks you questions that walk you through the process of finding the best lenses to apply to your problem. We discuss the design principles behind the tool and then we use the lenses to identify ways to enhance the software.

The lenses we primarily used are:

  • #14: EMOTION – What emotion do we want people to feel? In this case, anger if the software is taken away.
  • #6: ANALOGY – Who else has solved a similar problem? How do medical chat bots help diagnose illnesses?
  • #3: REDUCE – What if we reduced the size of the problem set? What if instead of focusing on all 25 lenses, how can we go deeper into the 10 lenses that are used most often and have the widest applicability? This is related to lens #1: LEVERAGE.
  • #11: RESEQUENCE – How can we change the timing of the work? How can we get input earlier in the process of developing the software? How can we communicate asynchronously?
  • #24: VARIATIONS – Instead of designing for the exception, how can we design to handle the exception?
  • #4: ELIMINATE – What can we remove from the software to make it easier to use and/or easier to develop?

Learn more about the Invisible Solutions® Tools and take advantage of trial access to the Lens Browser. The Chat Bot that we discussed during this episode is still under development.

To download the lenses, go to www.GetTheLenses.com