The E-MU credit card with a twist

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A hard guy to track down, Peter Williams (@rexster) from Deloitte Digital is a Chief Executive, a Buddhist, a thinker and a mover and shaker.

We met in one of Melbourne’s colourful lane ways, ordered coffee from a hole in the wall and didn’t stop chatting until we ran out of breath…. first he describes how an idea can come from a disused office in Adelaide and turn into a world-first innovation in just months. As so many ideas are, this one was borne from frustration. In particular, the frustration we feel when we’re dealing with banks over the phone – not quite knowing whether they are the real deal or a scammer.

It is the E-MU card (End to End Mutual Authentication) – the next innovation in credit cards. It’s a credit card with a keypad and digital display on the back.

It’s interesting the way Peter talks about the importance of prototyping. Once you’ve narrowed down a brainstorm to a small number of options, any sort of lo-res prototype will help move things to the next step. Even a 2-d drawing.

Dubai’s Policy of Open Innovation

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For Ideas Arabia, Peter went to Dubai – you will see the pic of the famous luxury hotel:Burj Al Arab ($AU1800 a night) in the background of his Twitter avatar. He is super impressed by SheikhMuhommed who he describes as of the most visionary leaders in the world. Under his direction, Dubai has become a regional hub around financial services, logistics, tourism, health and education. The Sheikh mandated that all business and government departments must have an open innovation system. Citizens are encouraged to come in and submit ideas and they are rewarded if those ideas get up.

Under the Ideas Arabia program, Peter contributed expertise to assist Dubai toget even more value from their employee innovation program. Interestingly, they have the most culturally diverse workplace – represented by over 110 countries!

He says that just as we study fruit flies in biology to understand how humans work – we should be studying Dubai’s open innovation program as best-practice.

Deloitte’s Innovation Academy

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In Part ii of the interview, we talk about the Deloitte Digital Innovation Academy… a ’software as a service’ offering being used by major corporates and being modeled in house by Deloitte themselves (17,000 staff on board!)

Great to hear Peter say that, in the early stages of brainstorming, he’s disappointed if they get less than 1000 ideas contributed. QUANTITY is so important at that stage.

Although I was SURPRISED to hear him say’WE LOVE getting repeat ideas – that tells us it’s an idea that should be implemented.’ I normally say the opposite – that if you are getting repeat ideas from multiple areas, that’s the everyday/average/boring idea that even your competitor could have come up with. I liked Peter’s take on my argument – ‘I don’t spend time worrying about competitors. If the idea is a repeat one, it means it needs to be implemented and if it’s a new idea to the business, then it’s an innovation for THAT business’.

Internally, Deloitte run monthly campaigns on specific themes – like Mobile Apps or Social Media. He showed me how Yammer is being used like a closed-community Twitter universe.

Interesting facts about Peter

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How he gets ideas: He looks at what IS and asks ‘how can I flip that on it’s head’ .

Rather than thinking out of the box: He likes to create a new box.

He was a insolvency practitioner/chartered accountant and yes, he really is a Buddhist. He’s 45 and has 3 teenage kids.

He’s very passionate about helping the Bushfire affected area of Flowerdale since some of his family lost their homes : Check out his blog:: http://helpflowerdalenow.blogspot.com/