Ideas
Explore the world's #1 largest database of ideas and innovations, with 460,592 inspiring examples.
Trend Reports
Discover why 1,240 brands rely on our AI-powered Trend Reports to get better, faster insights.
Newsletter
Join 321,086 subscribers who rely on our weekly newsletter to keep up with need-to-know trends and insights.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Consumer Insights
Uncover major shifts and emerging opportunities with our exclusive PRO research.
Trend Reports
Discover why 1,240 brands rely on our AI-powered Trend Reports to get better, faster insights.
Newsletter
Join 321,086 subscribers who rely on our weekly newsletter to keep up with need-to-know trends and insights.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Advisory & Services
Accelerate innovation and ignite disruptive thinking with our award-winning programs and research.
Trend Reports
Get fast, customized trend reports, presentations and deep dives 20x faster than traditional research.
Plans
Get started today with a free consultation, our self-serve tools, or a dedicated program.
Articles & Magazine
Get inspired with our 4,210 innovation strategy articles, keynote, videos and innovation tools.
Innovation Awards
Trend Hunter’s Innovation Strategy Awards recognize the best innovation tactics gathered from our interviews with some of the world's most notable business leaders, authors and change makers.
Advisory & Services
Accelerate innovation and ignite disruptive thinking with our award-winning programs and research.
Innovation Assessment
Enhance your innovation potential with a deeper understanding of your unique innovation archetype and how your organization benchmarks.
FuturistU
Prepare for the years ahead with 100+ lessons, tactics, tools and frameworks with our full learning database.
Innovation Books
Join 20,000,000 people getting better and faster with our New York Times Bestselling books and keynote videos.
Jeremy Gutsche
Ignite your event or virtual event with our CEO, a NY Times Bestselling Author and one of the top innovation keynote speakers.
Our Team of Speakers & Virtual Presenters
Inspire your group with our most popular speakers on innovation, trends, change and futurism.
Custom Training & Events
Bring the Future Festival experience directly to your team or co-hosted custom event.
Custom Masterclasses
Join the world's leading brands who leverage our custom programs to accelerate innovation.
FuturistU 5-Day Program
Become a Futurist with our immersive 5-Day program at Future Festival World Summit.
Online eLearning
Learn the fundamentals of futurism and trends with 100+ online courses about innovation.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Contact
Get in touch to learn more, ask a question or submit a tip.
About Us
Learn more about Trend Hunter and how we accelerate innovation.
Follow-Us
Join our 3,500,000 social media followers, on the cutting edge.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
FAQ
Get answers to common questions about Trend Hunter.
Community
Stay on the cutting-edge with the help of the Trend Hunter community.
Team
Meet the team trusted by hundreds of leading businesses worldwide.
Jobs
Find opportunities to accelerate your career with the #1 Trend Firm.
News
Catch up on noteworthy Trend Hunter news and media mentions.
Join
Build a portfolio and put your trend-spotting abilities to the test.
Advertising
Supercharge your marketing by partnering with Trend Hunter.
Portfolio
Visit your public portfolio and browse your past articles.
Add a Trend
Write up an article and showcase your trend-spotting skills.
My Trends
Edit your articles and see how they stack up on the leaderboards.
Settings
Edit your profile, connect your social media accounts, and more.
Add a trend, customize your dashboard, or track topics.
Future Festival
Innovation Events
Join the world's top innovators at our in person events.
Free Webinars
Learn to innovate through chaos, navigate the new normal and maintain work culture from home.
Custom Training & Events
Bring the Future Festival experience directly to your team or co-hosted custom event.
Search our database of 460,592 cutting edge ideas.

A Tradition of Innovation

Elena West, CEO, Ohio Art
Sean Watson
July 10th, 2015

Related Trend Reports

Babies, Health, Life, Life Stages, Lifestyle, Toys, Youth
With 100 years in the metal lithography business, hall of fame innovation, Ohio art is ready for the future.

As CEO of Ohio Art, Elena West oversees one of the most beloved products in toy history. The Etch-A-Sketch® has sold over 100 million units to date. A reported 58% of America has owned the toy at one point or another over the past five decades. While those numbers are daunting, Elena's focus is on taking Ohio Art to the next level. According to her, the key to that is great execution at the heart of great innovation. It's something she has learned the hard way over the years, but is a mantra that she stands by.

6 questions with Elena:

1. What makes an innovative culture? How do you create a culture of innovation?

My experience has shown that you have to let people think for themselves. You can provide some guidance and parameters, but you really don't want to lock them into something that will preclude them from thinking differently. My teams have always been given directions on where we want to go but not how to get there. I've always loved the phrase "fail often, fail fast and fail cheap." That concept of always testing ideas and throwing things at the wall. If they fail, that's fine, you just keep moving forward. One of the most important things about innovation is that it's done with a team. I've always had the great fortune of having a really great team to work with. Those are the people that are truly able to execute great innovation. It is one thing to think innovatively and to come up with the next great idea, but it's another thing entirely to execute them. If you don't have a good team behind you to execute, you will fail. It doesn't matter what kind of idea or innovation you come up with, it will never come to life.

2. Do you have specific rituals for re-setting your team to be creative when they hit a wall?

You're always going to run into reasons why things aren't going to move forward. What we often do is bring people back together to push that reset button. We try to reprioritize around things we know will achieve the results we're looking for. That helps to really clarify the direction but let them figure out how to get there. When we run into a wall, if the idea or innovative process is good enough that people feel passionate about it, we will rethink it and it resubmit it for further review. An idea isn't necessarily dead until we've gone through 3 iterations of the concept. We essentially give ourselves 3 strikes.

3. How do you identify trends? What resources does your team use to spot trends and consumer insights?

We're privy to a ton of different research. We tap into the research available from the Toy Association or research we've secured ourselves through outside research firms over the years. We've been in business forever so there's quite of bit of data that we've acquired over those years. There is also a lot of information available online, more so than ever before.

4. What is the biggest challenge you face when innovating?

The biggest challenge comes back to having the ability to execute innovation. In a bigger company, even though the resources are there to execute, innovation can become crushed by a thousand other priorities from dozens of other departments. In a smaller company, I think innovation has a greater ability to flourish, but can be harder for that innovation to see the light of day in the market place. Really good products, no matter what the category, are having a hard time being noticed and getting shelf space due to competition and dominance of licensed products. Coming up with great innovative products is not as difficult as it is to figure out a way to get that product in front of a customer. What you're seeing today is a lot of great innovation online, reaching customers through direct sales. That area is where a lot of the great innovation is happening.

5. Do you find inspiration or ideas from adjacent industries?

Absolutely, there are so many things constantly happening in consumer goods, fashion, and sports that we keep an eye on. All of these areas influence toys because they are at the heart of pop culture. Sometimes, toys can hold an opposite view on what's going on in pop culture as well. For example, if technology is the predominant trend, we in the toy business may say that we're going to come up with a line of unplugged products so parents have a choice.

6. Looking to the future, how is Ohio Art going to be a leader in innovation?

One of our advantages is that we're small enough, nimble enough, and creative enough to move very quickly. We can be flexible and fluid in the types of products we bring to the marketplace. We're not beholden to a lot of the overhead and cost structure of some of the bigger companies. That alone allows us to innovate quickly and effectively, which makes it the number one thing going for us right now. We are also incredibly passionate about producing quality products for children and have been for the 108 years. At the heart of what we do is about the making sure kids are having a great time by making creativity fun for them.
References: linkedin, world-of-toys