Resource:How to be a UIF in the corporate world

On Saturday, we interviewed Corey Brugh, a University Innovation Fellow that attended the Colorado School of Mines and studied Chemical Engineering. He currently works for P&G onpackaging for dish soap brands for North America. His role also includes doing work on changing the company culture to embrace design thinking and lean innovation. During the introduction, he told us about his time as a University Innovation Fellow–because he was the first fellow from his university, it was hard for him at first to get anything done because nobody really knew what design thinking was or what UIF was. Eventually, Corey created a living learning community centered on design thinking, secured funding for a campus-wide makerspace, and had 9 fellows replace him by the time he left.

The first tip Corey gave about being a UIF in a corporate space was to do your research.

“It’s important to understanding the landscape—trying to figure out what the organization looks like: where are the strengths of the organization as far as innovation and design thinking and where are the gaps? the easy wins?”, said Corey.

For example, the first thing Corey did at P&G was to see how they prototype new products.. When they do that, they hire a company to help them produce prototypes at an absurd cost. Corey knew we could do it for much less. So, his second tip was: instead of telling people there is a better way, just show them. P&G wanted to figure out how to bundle two different types of products together and package them—Corey bought the two items off the shelf and used tape and wrapped them all up himself. Then, he presented his rough prototype at a meeting. They were able to design another piece of packaging material that could be used so they could make the prototype that they wanted just in one afternoon. After he shared his idea of “low-resolution prototyping” with the rest of the company and proved that his concept had value, he was able to generate a lot of interest in his idea.

Corey’s third tip was to know the best way to generate value. He said that  becoming a UIF was an amazing way to learn how to do this, whether it was for a startup or a huge company. “It’s just as true in a startup as in the world’s largest consumer products company—with UIF you learn the best way to generate value : in the corporate world, your UIF experience is valuable in both innovation/development but also on just innovating on how you do your job differently and generate value. As a UIF, you get the skill set of driving change and creating new experiences.” he said.

Next, we asked him how he was able to convince the stakeholders in a huge company of his proposed changes–after all, they weren’t going to say yes right away to just one employee. Corey’s response was to make sure you have quantifiable proof.  “Once a positive result with data and a support is shared, it spreads like wildfire. It’s possible to be agile in a large corporation, you just can’t take as many risks depending on the company culture,” he said. Additionally, having clarity in thought and perfection in execution when presenting the new idea, as well as making sure to utilize the vast resources a corporation has, was very important.

We also asked him what his number one challenge as a University Innovation Fellow was. Corey responded that it was transitioning from being a UIF at a university to a corporation. ”At a university, I was the one that was the customer, and the university was a little more receptive to listening to students,” said Corey. With an organization, if he wasn’t strategic about how he brought about change, it could cost him his job.

Overall, we ended the conversation with the impression that Corey had gained an immense benefit from being a University Innovation Fellow in the corporate world. At his job, he’d gotten a raise and a new role. But most importantly, he gained an overall sense of creativity: “Before UIF, I used to think I wasn’t a very creative individual, but then I realized that creativity is like a muscle. Now, I try to exercise and practice it.”

author: Risha_Parikh

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