User:Eraible/Synecticsworld

Synecticsworld is an international consulting firm. The company focuses on facilitating innovation, including new product development, process improvement, cost reduction, and reinvention of business models. Synecticsworld specializes in using the creativity methodology synectics and has been called "perhaps the world's leading creativity consulting firm." It is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It has offices in five other US cities as well as in Madrid and Brisbane.

Name
Synectics comes from Greek roots and means essentially “the bringing together of diverse elements.” Synectics is also the name of a problem-solving methodology developed by Synecticsworld co-founders George M. Prince and William J. J. Gordon. This methodology is the basis of Synecticsworld practices.

History
Synecticsworld's history starts in the work of George Prince and Bill Gordon, though the company itself began as a spin-off from the Arthur D. Little Invention Design Unit in 1960. The group, then called simply Synectics, engaged in research, experiments, and teaching in the methodologies being developed by Gordon and Prince.

The original group included a varied list of skills: painters, sculptors, mathematicians, advertising men, physicists, philosophers, chemists, actors, mechanical engineers, architects, electrical engineers, marketing men, chemical engineers, sociologists, biologists, physiologists, musicians, anthropologists, and zoologists. The idea was to bring together a diversity of different talents, personalities, and backgrounds. "Our hypothesis was that a general level of novelty...depends on the widest variety of skill, knowledge, and interest being brought to bear."

Practices
Building on Prince and Gordon's research, Synecticsworld developed a series of innovation practices that form the core of their offerings. These are called the "body of knowledge," and focus on four key areas: climate, thinking, process, and frameworks and tools.

The company's offerings tend to fall into three categories:


 * Marketplace Potential: insight discovery, brand renewal, new product development, marketing communication, positioning, naming, and tapping consumer creativity;
 * Growth Strategies: vision/mision, strategy, new business models, scenario planning, and foresight;
 * Performance and People: business process innovation, training and coaching in innovation capabilities, leadership coaching and private consulting, corporate meetings, organizational development, technology transfer, creativity and innovation index, and innovative culture.

Synecticsworld also offers workshops and trainings in their methods.

Synecticsworld sessions have been featured in news outlets such as the Washington Post and 20/20[8] for their unusual approach to consulting. A typical session includes using metaphors and analogies to dream up a wide variety of ideas, out of which a few are chosen and developed. Patrick Kiger describes the process as "a cross between the Strasberg acting method and 'Pee-Wee's Playhouse.'"

Notable Work
Notable clients of Synecticsworld include 3M, Blue Cross, British Airways, Coca Cola, Dixie, Kraft Foods, Nestle, Shell, Staples, Subway, Universal Studios, Wrigley, and Yum.

Some notable projects include:


 * Queensland Rail Valet level crossing: a system of in-road lights to give drivers earlier warning that a train is approaching a level crossing, aiming to decrease crossing accidents (November 2010).
 * St. Louis Post-Dispatch new format: the paper switched from a broadsheet format every day to a tabloid format on Saturday and broadsheet the other days, increasing Saturday readership. (October 2008).