Olive Juice in Fast Company

I still worked in Public Affairs at Mayo Clinic when Fast Company published a story about Mayo Clinic’s SPARC Innovation Program in its April 2006 magazine. My job was to connect the writer with doctors leading the initiative and escort the magazine’s photographer around campus. The photographer took a lot of pictures but only one appeared in the story. It was a long, skinny shot of a whiteboard covered in sticky notes. There were people sitting in a semi-circle in front of the whiteboard but you could only see the back of their heads. Everything was bland and boring except for one little green logo in the background…our old Olive Juice Studios logo! I didn’t plant the logo. I swear. If I had, someone would have reported me for “using my position of power to gain an unfair advantage for my business”. Turns out, one of the administrators saw the logo and liked it so much, he hung it on the outside of his cubicle and used it to explain innovation to program participants. It was an example of how innovation is often incremental - you take something that already exists (“Welcome to Las Vegas” sign) and make it better.