Can innovation be taught? – Vogue Business

Key takeaways:

After its Moncler Genius experiment paid off, Moncler wanted to emphasise its positioning as a collaborative, innovative company. This summer, the Italian outerwear brand hosted its first company-wide hackathon in the hopes of landing on another innovative idea.

The brands 450 employees, broken into 37 teams, were asked to brainstorm and develop new ideas across nine categories including products, information technology, supply chain, sustainability and Monclers internal learning academy within 24 hours. The projects were judged on desirability, business impact, feasibility and level of innovation. Some teams were then invited to continue to develop their ideas; the winning team, voted on by the company, is to be announced this week.

The prize: Participation in a training programme at Silicon Valleys Singularity University, an organisation co-founded by futurist Ray Kurzweil and engineer Peter Diamandis in 2008 to teach innovative thinking to executives. The Moncler employees who won the hackathon will spend two days learning about the technologies that will impact the fashion industry and what it means to think like a startup founder.

For years, fashion, which hinges on newness, has been eager to inject innovation from the outside. Gucci has borrowed from software engineering by hiring a scrum master, for example, while both LVMH and Kerings chief digital officers came from tech. Fashion has also turned to startups through incubators like Farfetchs Dream Assembly and LVMHs La Maison des Startups. Taking it a step further, companies are now future-proofing by training existing employees in innovation.

Moncler's summer hackathon separated all 450 employees into groups of 12.

Moncler

In 2018, Monclers Genius project replaced the brands seasonal collections and solo creative director with monthly designer collaborations. It has contributed to double-digit growth for the company since. Moncler Genius turned out to be an innovation within our industry, says Moncler chairman and CEO Remo Ruffini. Now, we must keep on developing and being like a startup that elicits interest and keeps on revamping our clients curiosity.

Fashion and beauty industry executives at Singularity University, which doesnt share information on past students but reports an uptick in interest from fashion companies since 2015, participate in programmes to learn about technologies including artificial intelligence, 3D printing, machine learning, augmented reality and virtual reality from both faculty and industry experts, says managing director of corporate communications Adolph Hunter.

In the programmes, executives work on using technology to solve business problems or for growth through workshops, prototyping, future mapping and unlearning techniques that encourage new methods of thinking. The courses, which are set up as two-day to week-long crash courses, can be designed as individual lessons or to service classes of 100. The universitys pre-designed exponential innovation programme starts at around $5,000.

While most of the SU clients are not from the fashion industry, Hunter says that the organisation works with fashion, beauty and fashion merchandising and supply chain brands.

The basic premise is that there are so many technologies that are poorly understood and not being well implemented, Hunter says. Fashion leaders leave with a keen understanding of how to harness, not be a victim of, these unstoppable advancements in technology.

Matthew Drinkwater, head of London College of Fashions Innovation Agency, has worked on fashion and beauty mixed reality projects with brands such as Microsoft and Westfield. These projects attracted execs interested in creating something similar, and Drinkwater has developed bespoke courses for senior-level fashion executives. (He doesnt disclose which executives hes worked with.) Teams will often learn general principles about a specific technology before workshopping specific applications in design, supply chain, showcasing and retail, he says. A few participants have developed virtual try-on experiences, and another has been developing a strategy around digital fashion. Programmes start at 5,000 for a one-day workshop.

Drinkwater sees AR and VR as two of the most important emerging technologies in fashion. Immersive technologies are going to redefine the entire ecosystem of fashion as we know it.

Lisa Lang, CEO of fashion-tech consultancy ThePowerHouse, will mentor students in Polimoda's innovation course. Gabriele Moschin, Polimoda head of education, says that member of the fashion industry had been asking for this course.

Federica Fioravanti

This spring, Florence-based fashion school Polimoda will host its first nine-month programme designed to train future chief innovation officers for fashion companies. The programme started after the school heard from fashion brands that graduates needed extra technology education; its also a way for independent designers to gain a competitive edge, says Lisa Lang, the programme mentor and CEO of fashion-tech consultancy ThePowerHouse.

"Our aim is to prepare students to face the fashion world from 2021, which leads us to the next big issue: What will the professions of the future be?" says Gabriele Moschin, Polimoda head of education.

Lang plans to bring in experts from other industries who can apply existing systems and technologies to fashion. Topics will include bio and material science, 3D printing and new textile studies, electronically enhanced materials, anti-counterfeiting and circular economy technology and new business models, and the full programme costs 28,000.

A key lesson for Langs students will be a mindset shift. The current fashion industry is poison for innovation, Lang says, referring to hierarchical, top-down structures. There is no team culture it's everyone for themselves. In tech, you are allowed to question the boss. In fashion, it is a different approach. We are talking about changing the culture, and that takes time.

Lang says that hiring teams with pure technology backgrounds and no experience in fashion isnt the best solution for a long-term shift. Rather than hiring a scrum master who has zero understanding of how fashion works, wouldnt it make sense to train the people who are familiar with the industry? she says. A technical programme designed specifically for fashion works, she says, because sending a fashion person to a technical university would be like flying to Mars and talking to aliens.

Fostering collaboration was part of the impetus for the Moncler hackathon, Ruffini says. Solutions can rarely come from just one person, and we all know that innovations often do not come from specialists or expert[s], adding that establishing a culture of innovation and collaboration is an important investment. He encouraged the hackathon teams to acknowledge when you need to be a good follower and teammate.

But any broad cultural change takes work, and Drinkwater doubts that innovation is a skill that can be taught. I know there is a lot of debate on this one, he says. I sit more on the side that we don't teach innovation; we just create an environment in which it can take place. He says that creating a sense of curiosity and experimentation is vital.

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Can innovation be taught? - Vogue Business