Corporate innovation can occur in many organizational places apart from technology. Garry Ridge, the CEO of WD-40 Company, the manufacturer and marketer of popular WD-40 lubricant, devised innovative leadership and innovative marketing programs to transform a venerable U.S. household brand into a global entity.  When Ridge became CEO of WD-40 Company in 1996, the company had become stagnant marketing one product - WD-40. In fact, the company needed more than its own lubricant to move out of its stuck gears. A strong global marketing vision, a profound concern for constituents, including employees, a desire to outsource, a well-thought out corporate strategy, and an attitude that people have learning moments rather than failures all helped Ridge succeed.  In 2009, Ridge collaborated with Ken Blanchard, the best-selling management book author, to write Helping People Win at Work:  A Business Philosophy Called "Don't Mark My Paper, Help Me Get An A." The book profiles many of the innovative leadership principles Ridge pioneered at WD-40 Company.

Enterpriseleadership.org sat down with Ridge to learn how he turned a one-brand U.S. company into a well-oiled global marketing and sales machine offering a variety of industrial and household lubricants and cleaning products. Here is what he said:

EL. What challenges did you face when you become CEO of WD-40 Company?

GR. Being the CEO of a company these days has to be something you really want to do, whether you are selling Apple computers or WD- 40. The responsibilities and the depth of the needs differ greatly today than last year or 10 years ago, especially with the changes in regulations. On the WD 40 side, we had a company conditioned to do the same thing for 40 years. Every time the company woke up every day, it sold the only product it had - WD-40. The culture and the operating style had to change. We said that we had to wake up one day and do things other than WD-40. That became a major challenge. The transformation consisted on going from silos of knowledge to what I call fields of learning. Everyone knew most everything about what we did. To bring in new ideas and ways of doing things, the culture needed to change so we could challenge ourselves to become competent in a few new areas. Changing a corporate culture is not easy to do. You are dealing with the most precious and the most complicated thing in the world -- people.

EL. How did you begin the transformation?

GR. Back in the early 1990s, I went to a national retailing association seminar where I heard the vice chair of Wal-Mart speak. He said that if you want to survive tomorrow, you have to separate it from today. That statement stuck in my head for several years. Because we had never done anything like this before, we formed a group of people who would just focus on future revenues. We started with our research and development group, which we called Team Tomorrow.  I selected one of our long-standing executives who thought globally and had a marketing background as the Team Tomorrow leader. We set this organization on this track. We gave them a goal to create $100 million worth of incremental revenue within a specific period. We wound up beating that goal. After the fifth year, the team generated $165 million worth of incremental revenues.

EL. How did you begin to drive innovation and conquer additional global markets? 

GR. We had a three-prong strategy. Our first goal was to expand our distribution globally. Today we sell more WD-40 outside the U.S. than we do in the U.S. That is a robust growth area for us. We said what geographic opportunities look good and how we should attack them. We set up an operation in Europe. Our operation there today is larger than what the entire company was back in the mid 1990s. It is in excess of $100 million in revenue and has had an annual compounded growth rate of about 19 percent for the last five years. We opened an operation in Malaysia to manage our Asian operation. Recently we opened a subsidiary in mainland China.

Next, we wanted to expand by brand. We looked for some strategic acquisitions. We acquired four brands over a period of five years. Then we said, 'What sort of business do we want to be in?' We had an obvious answer to this question, 'We are going to be in the squeaks, smell, and dirt business where we get rid of squeaks, smells, and dirt. We can to do it with products that deliver exceptional performance at extremely good value.' Where we have the right to play is where we have our greatest strength.

Last, we wanted to expand our trade channels by selling WD-40 in multiple trade channels. You can now get it in hardware stores, grocery stores, home and industrial stores, and sporting goods stores. Most products limit themselves to one trade channel.

Based on the strategic analysis of our organizational strength, we looked at what products, brands, or extensions of those brands could help us to derive more revenue. As a result, we expanded into the 3-IN-ONE brand, which was one of our acquisitions. We extended that from regular drip oil into a full range of multi-purpose maintenance products. We took that to the world. We are in the middle of further expansion in the new brand called BLUE WORKS. It is an industrial high-end range from the WD-40.

EL. What is your revenue like right now?

GR. For fiscal 2008, we did more than $300 million. Revenue for fiscal 2009 was slightly less than $300 million. On a consistent currency basis, we would up marginally on last year right now. With the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against the pound, we have lost about $30 million internationally by translation only. Last year we had translated European business into the U.S. at $2 per pound. It has been as low as $1.40 per pound. It just disappears; you cannot do anything about it.

EL. What kind of investments did you have to make in technology to develop new products?

GR. We invest between $3.5 million to $4 million a year in our Team Tomorrow, which is now our research and development area. We outsource much of the functions of the research and development. I jokingly say that we have the most up-to-date research lab in the country because we go out and rent what we want on a daily basis. We do not have a building full of scientists. Instead, we have many scientific partners. We will ask them to help us develop this product. We manage the process more than do the work. Outsourcing for us has been economically feasible because we always have access to the latest technology. If we had to maintain our own Web site, we would need to update it daily. We can do go out to the most modern places and ask the brightest in the world to help us.

EL. Did the transformation change your governance, and strategy development and execution?

GR. Yes. We became more inclusive with our people. We say that we do not make mistakes. Instead, we have learning moments. A learning moment is a positive or negative outcome of any situation. In fact, the learning moment has been the backbone of the change that we had.  I have a Web site called the LearningMoment.net, which has much of our philosophy on it.

EL. Did you dabble in analytics for sales, marketing, and distribution?

GR. All of the time! It is part of our determining where we have the right to win and the right to play. We look at trends within categories, where markets tend to move, and what trade channels deliver more than other channels. We also look at if our consumers move from where they shop. We look at that globally because it changes in every country of the world. The analytical database and information base in China will differ from that of the U.S. Most of our business in China goes into more industrial and manufacturing. In the U.S., our business consists mostly of household and home consumption. We certainly look at these leading indicators of where business is moving.

EL. Can you share an anecdote about the challenge of marketing WD-40 globally, such as in China?

GR. We tend to do grassroots marketing. For example, several years, I had a booth at a Chinese trade show where we sampled our product to Chinese industrial factory workers. No one paid attention to me because my Chinese description of WD-40 translated to lubricant. I asked myself, 'Why don't these people want a lubricant?' I could not help noticing the line of people picking up empty paper bags at the Toyota stand. I quickly realized that these people could use the bag to bring home rice from a store. To them, lubricant meant dirty diesel oil, which they did not need. Based on our additional research, we changed our message to pitch WD-40 as an anti-rust lubricant. They could easily relate to rust. Within minutes, we had security guards on our stands stopping people from destroying it. People were in a frenzy to get the product. This example became a learning moment. You need be awake enough to understand if there is a need, and you identify that need in the market correctly.

EL. Can you describe the research you do to make sure you have the right product technology? Do you leave that to your outsourced partners?

GR. We do all of that. It starts with the end users. Our research consists of following our end users around. We do focus groups. We do broad-based Internet concept studies. We use all of these tools. We had a company called Edison Nation go out and ask end users to suggest new products and uses for WD 40. We use as much about the customer or about the user information as we can. Then we take that into concept testing. We have used all of the tools that are available from time to time.

EL. Are you doing anything with social media such as Procter & Gamble?

GR. Yes. We just set up a program where we put out a social media page. It asks people to share with us their money-saving tips for using our products.
Before social media became commonplace, we formed the WD-40 Fan club. In 2000, we went to our end users and we ran a competition. We wanted to know their favorite use for WD-40. In the U.S., we got 400,000 entries. We distilled that down to the top 2,000 uses. At last count, the WD-40 fan club has 135,000 active members. They interact through out Web site. We feed them user information, such as tips about WD 40. We reach out to them for research.

EL. To go global what changes did you make to your supply chain?

GR. Globally we mirrored what we did anywhere else in the world. We outsource all of our manufacturing except for the manufacturing of the secret formula for WD-40, which we control very tightly. We found good quality aerosol canners and liquid fillers all around the world. We pay attention to quality. We verify and approve all of our outsourced partners. We look at their capabilities and capacities.

EL. Because WD-40 is such a popular brand, was it hard to introduce other brands?

GR. Yes, that gets back to my statement about this not being an easy company to change. Because the thinking was around one thing, we needed to develop things such as learning moments. We also needed to pay much attention to vision and values that drive our behaviors. We invest so much in the development of our people and education and learning. We are a living learning laboratory here. The biggest barrier to any thing in life is fear. It comes out of people being afraid to make mistakes.

EL. Did management have to go through a transition to change this company around?

GR. Fortunately, since we started this program, we have had some impressive retention numbers here. We look at ourselves more as a tribe rather than a team. Nobody has the right to get in the way of people doing magnificent work. I challenged our management team to rally to this thinking. It is their job to make their people successful. We focus on that. In the book, we took at our entire process of coaching, mentoring, and enabling people. Today, many middle management people in the backroom make the decisions that drive how the day-to-day organization functions. We need to include these people in the issues and ask them to help management solve problems. People at the helm should not be afraid to say, 'I don't know.' I say this all of the time. That is why I surround myself with smart people.

EL. How do people articulate the value they provide to the company?

GR. It gets down to a giving people the feeling of doing meaningful work. At WD-40, we say we are in the memories business. We strive to create positive lasting memories with our customers, our end users, our employees, people, our shareholders, and our partners.

Elizabeth Ferrarini is a technology writer from Boston, MA. Reach her at elizabethferrarini@yahoo.com.

What does the Apple's computer mouse, Oral-B toothbrush for children and Palm V handheld organizer have in common with each other?  Each company designed its respective product with the help of engineers from IDEO, one of the most recognized global design firms.  Since 1991, IDEO has helped to design more than 3,000 new products and to reinvent many established Fortune 500 companies.

IDEO's name has become synonymous with innovation. BusinessWeek has ranked IDEO in the top 25 most innovative companies in the U.S. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal dubbed IDEO's office, Imagination Playground. The company has become the subject of two books: The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation.

Collaboration among IDEO's clients and myriad of engineers who specialize in discipline ranging from human factors to interaction designs has played a critical factor in the company's success. Doug Solomon, IDEO chief technology officer says, "Because we are not content experts about the thing the clients come to us about, we need to learn from them and their colleagues, and them share this information with our colleagues." In fact, Solomon and his design team devised a collaboration platform, called the Tube, to improve the cross-pollination of ideas across global constituencies.  Employees generated more than 1,000 pages six months after the Tube went live.

Enterpriseleadership.org sat down with Solomon to discuss what design considerations that went into the Tube and what CIOs can learn from them.

EL. What challenges did you face in designing a collaboration platform for a company such as IDEO?

DS. We have employees in eight offices on three continents. In the past, we worked in a distributed manner locally with our colleagues. We might have five or six people meeting face-to-face to discuss a project. Now our global clients expect us to collaborate around the world. We had the challenge of scaling our local work process to how best to collaborate across all of these time zones.

Experiencing something works best when it comes to innovation. As a result, we like to take our clients on observations in the field, such as on shopping visits, or looking at analogous kind of problems and other companies in the ecosystems. We had to find ways to make it easy and convenient for our clients to be part of the process without having them be physical with us the entire time.

We also work with people in the ecosystem who might be affected by some product or service or idea we work on. We use an anthropological type of methodology where we do more than interview them. In fact, we might live with them, go to work with them, or go shopping with them.  Since our projects are so diverse, we never know in advance what kinds of interests and people we want to speak with.

EL. How did apply your experience as an innovation company to the design of your collaboration platform?

DS. We treated ourselves as if we were a client of IDEO. We used our human senses design techniques and methods to observe our environment. We talked to people to understand how they would like to collaboration, but felt it is difficult to do at this point. We looked at the culture within IDEO to understand what would motivate people to share what they knew. We looked at what kinds of technologies we could experiment with and use for system prototypes. We also looked at our business constraints to make sure we could support this initiative.

EL. Can you summarize the concept of the Tube?

DS. We designed the Tube, which is our Intranet, based on the London subway system. It connects all of the people around the company, and provides them with a way to share information with each other. Some parts of our Tube consist of homemade components. We designed a consistent, human interface based on Ruby on Rails and other Web 2.0 technologies. It pulls in information from many of our legacy information systems, such as project management and time cards. We also have third-party tools we have built in. For example a screen sharing tool makes it easier for anyone here to make a presentation to a client or a colleague in another office. You just click on a link and you automatically you will have your screen starting to share with whomever you would like to invite.

EL. What are the various page types that one has available via the Tube?

DS. Our system is built around a number of page types, such as people pages similar to Facebook.  Active Directory pulls in a person's official data, such as phone number, to create the page. People can also describe themselves in anyway they like to pull their official biography. They can turn their bio into a PDF document, click on a link, and mail the bio to a client. We have project pages that have a start date and an end date. If someone enters a new project, then the system will pull in all of the people who have ever worked on that project. The information will include their bios, photos, and email address.  Our digital assets pages pull in all of the different rich media, such as videos, PowerPoint presentations, images, or documents of any sort.

EL. What tagging capabilities do you have in the Tube?

DS. We also have tagging built throughout the system. You can tag every kind of object, such as rich media. You can search on the tags, on the people, and the digital assets. You can easily search them across our entire system. All of these associations are noted. You can easily find who you should talk to about something, in addition to reading about it. We call this feature our knowledge sharing rather than knowledge management.

The data feeds pull in feeds from external sources, such as blogs. You can even push out internal information, provided it is not proprietary, to external blogs. We have very little top down control of the information. Users generate everything except for a very small piece of our home page. Here our internal communication groups tell what is going on within the company. Each project page lists what information you can share with the public and which information must stay in-house.

EL. Do you have separate pages for clients?

DS. We have a page for each client that aggregates all of the projects that we have done for that client. You can easily look and see what we have done in the past. You can even see information about discussions we had had with the client. These pages help us with business development activities.

EL. How are you handling blogs and wikis?

DS. We are on our fifth Wiki system at IDEO. It is simple to use and does much of the work most wikis ask people to do, such as create the navigation. We have more than 15,000 wiki pages. They are the first place where people want to go and to collaborate with their team members around projects and personal interests.

We give everyone a blog when they join the company. They can decide whether or not to use it. We also have many group blogs. We get 100s of postings per month to the blogs. The ethnographic research about ourselves that we learned as an email culture has helped to make our blogs popular. In the past, we have had different types of blog systems. In fact, our blogs went through a cycle of ups and downs. Some people would blogging and then stopped because no one was reading the entries. People would stop looking for the blog. We built a small tool called Feedmail which watches the blog for you. Initially, we subscribe you to all of the blogs. You can unsubscribe to the blogs and custom which ones to watch. Each day it generates a HTML email with the images and a short summary of what is in the blog posting for that day. You can click through and read the entire posting or skim the blogs. In a minute you can see what's new on all of the blogs and decide what you want to read. That is where much of the content of projects comes from.

EL.  Is there email within your collaboration system?

DS. You just click on a link within the system and it opens your email...it is integrated with our email.

EL. Do you made any provision to use the Tube as a repository for company documents?

DS. We have also a tools section within the Tube that allows us to post a variety of different tools, everything from HR forms, such as health benefits and time cards, and screen sharing tools.

EL. How often do you update the Tube?

DS. Our internal development team pushes out a new version of the Tube weekly. Each new version contains bug fixes and new features.

EL. How would the Tube help me to facilitate putting a project team together?

DS. The Tube can help you look at what manpower resources are available to work on a project. If you use a combination of data from our enterprise management system and our time card system, you can see the kind of people who are available for a project within your time frame.

EL. Have you opened up a section of the Tube to your clients and do you plan to expand it?

DS. Yes, already have a custom section of the Tube opened to our clients. They cannot get confidential information about other clients. They, however, can get access to any work that is happening on their project, such as status reports. In fact, we give them access to all of their information in one place. They don't have to search through their email to find the last update on a project or a report that IDEO showed at a presentation.  It allows us to have a very direct link with our clients and share with them the work that is in progress, such as drawings, illustrations, or storyboards. We can even share videos people we interviewed to get information about the project.  Many clients like this way of interacting, but some clients prefer a more conservative way of sharing information, such as email.  The majority of projects with our clients include some external Web-based tool for collaboration.

EL. What can CIOs learn from you folks about collaboration?

DS. Like many companies, when we started looking at collaboration, we first looked at the technology piece, especially the dozens of existing tools. Of course, we wanted to see if we could find something that could meet our needs.  We experimented with all of the Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis, social networking sites, telepresence, and video; conferencing. The more we spoke with other consulting companies about their collaboration tools, such as McKinsey & Company, we found the reason why most of these systems do not  meet the expectations of those who buy them. It does not have to do much with the technology as it does with the social network within an organization that wants to drive more collaboration. You need to understand the organization's culture. What are the rules around collaboration?  Do we really encourage it or discourage? Many companies do not look at the motivations that would really provide some benefit for people to collaborate. Unless it really meets some needs people have, you understand those needs and their rewards, then it turn into a system that people will not use.

You also need to understand the kinds of concepts you want to share. People carry around much passive, not explicit, knowledge of things. That explains why we decided to create links between people. This proved to be a better alternative than creating a knowledge management to suck information out of peoples' heads, put it in a database, and then download it in their heads.

So, the trick consisted of finding the intersection between what motivates people and what is important to the organization. People need to get some benefit from collaborating with the system. Most benefits will vary company by company. It takes a custom system to provide that kind of motivation. People at IDEO really want to express their interests, to share their work, and to be known to other people in the organization. We never told people they must use the system. We designed the system so that it would appeal to people. We then unleashed it, trained people, and watched what happened.

EL. What is the key to designing intuitive interfaces?

DS. Many systems are not designed to be intuitive. We have tried to do things such as eliminate all of the little roadblocks that make it difficult for people to use the system. For example, we made is very similar to use across every part of the Intranet. We use the Active Directory system. You only log on once. You do not need different passwords for blogs or wikis. For example, special wiki language can cause people to stay away from the system. We have a simple editor in our wiki system.

You need to allow people to go where they already are rather forcing them to go to new places. We tried to understand the work processes we have in our collaboration today. We provide ways for people to use the same type of methods but do it in a better more effective. For example, Feedmail brings the blog digest to you via email. Most companies make you go to each blog and search around to find what's new. People waste time searching through dozens of blogs.

We built our system to adapt to changes in the environment. To this end, our collaboration system is a constant work in progress. We always look for new ways to improve it. We have a built in feedback system which people can click on a link and send our team a message. We want to find the functions that people want and overcome any barriers to them using it as fully as possible.

Our innovative process as a company is based on prototype early, and often. We try to get things out as early as possible as we can get feedback from users. We set the expectation that we will need to change things. I recommend that CIOs do that over time.

EL. What has been the payoff from the Tube?

DS. It has helped us to understand how we can improve collaboration and use technology to improve our innovation process. It has also helped us to improve our efficiency and our quality of work. It has helped us to generate more revenue because we have been able to attract new types of project outside of our traditional IDEO community.

Elizabeth M. Ferrarini - She is a technology writer from Boston, Massachusetts. Reach her at elizabethferrrini@yahoo.com.