UPS has developed new shipping containers made of a composite material called MacroLite, similar to that used in body armor, as well as an active fire suppression system.  Tests show that these new containers which weigh less and are more durable than legacy aluminum or polycarbonate-sided containers can confine an internal fire of 1,200 degrees for 4 hours.  Bob Brown, a UPS member of the group developing the new container, stated that some of the solutions were found in unusual places,  “We had to go outside of aviation into the automobile industry, Navy submarines and space programs to see how they handled fires.”   (Aviation Week and Space Technology)

While the containers cost more, the company stated that the added expense will be offset by transportation savings stemming from its reduced weight and by reduced maintenance.  What’s equally important is the company’s approach to the project.  Members of the development team went outside the walls, or silos, of this company to explore products and practices in other companies and industries.  Expanding their vision to the periphery helped this team develop a new product with benefits that should be felt for many years.

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Business scholars Karim Lakhani and Lars Bo Jeppesen studied Innocentive, the service that helps connect companies that have a problem or technical challenge with ideas and solutions that anyone in the world can offer. Their research found that when a company posts a highly complex problem, they are not typically solved by professionals in the discipline in question, but rather by what they describe as a “borderline expert” – someone with knowledge of the field in question, but whose expertise lies in an adjacent field. The second marker of success involved individuals who have “interdisciplinary expertise” – the ability to draw connections between one subject and another. One of the scholars opined, “You have to be close enough to comprehend the technical aspects, but not so close that you’re biased by the way those immersed in the problem tend to think.” (The Atlantic)

This research suggests some takeaways for decision making, human-resources planning and staffing.  There are benefits to hiring people with non-traditional backgrounds for work in a related field. Diversity of a person’s professional experience can offer a broader range of insights and ways of approaching a problem. Changing a person’s area of focus and analysis can broaden his or her ability to make connections and gain insights. Companies should avoid having staff operate in siloes of expertise among colleagues who share a similar expertise.

In a recent real-world example, a team of researchers in Boston and Japan have discovered something other scientists are calling “shocking,” “astounding,” “revolutionary,” and “almost like alchemy” – a reference to the ancient belief that lead could be transformed into gold: Researchers learned that by dipping mature adult cells into a bath of acid for half an hour, the cells will transform on their own into stem cells. Currently, the art of creating such induced pluripotential stem cells or iPS cells, involves a series of highly technical steps with the use of specialized drugs. (Boston Globe)

This discovery could be a transformational landmark in the application of stem cell research, which has spent years looking for approaches to offer stem cell therapies that do not involve creating or destroying embryos. What is also significant, as noted by the Boston Globe, is that “the approach is so simple and so out-of-the-box that it might never have been tried if it hadn’t been for the persistence and curiosity of Dr. Charles Vacanti, an anesthesiologist working largely outside the field of stem cell science” [emphasis added].

Consider that Dr. Vacanti works in an adjacent field to stem-cell research but is not considered an expert therein, not dissimilar from the most successful researchers found in the study on Innocentive.

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Could such an offering eventually become the moneymaker the Postal Service needs to replace the fall off in first class mail over the past several years?

If anything, such an offering, should it eventually be broadly offered in many cities, would be another enabler of the changing nature of retail, toward smaller stores and online shopping and fast delivery. Americans have increasingly found such convenience desirable, especially when compared to gassing up the car and zigzagging among various big-box stores and malls.

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If the company starts and ends with back-to-school haircuts and jean store iPads, the strategy won’t amount to much, but Johnson may be onto something. As we have recently written, consumers are now valuing experiences above all else, and if J.C. Penney is able to transform itself from a retailer to a provider of experiences, then they will be on the path to success.

What kind of experience will work is, of course, the critical question.  In the past, shopping, itelf, was the experience, but online capabilities have undermined the shopping experience and made it cumbersome…and often more expensive.  Various apps that provide “check in” can appeal to some and real-world games have had some appeal, but they are not likely to last.  Restaurants have learned that experience is not just ambience but is a focus on the food, with the biggest successful experiences coming to those restaurants that focus on the local-foods, farm-to-table model.  These feature locally grown produce from named farms and offer clientele the opportunity to visit the farms and participate in food and wine tasting related to the local-food experience.

Retailers might need to think through the restaurant example to find the kinds of experiences that physical retailers can use — selling internationally produced goods that look like those on sale everywhere else could become a market loser.

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