About
The Office of Strategic Innovation, the Virtual Thinking Expedition Company, and the man behind both.
The Office of Strategic Innovation, Inc. is a process consulting firm that connects and integrates innovation, creativity and quality into a deliberate strategy for generating and implementing new ideas on a continuous basis. The techniques and processes we use today were originally developed to support long-range technology planning for the U.S. Air Force’s Innovation Initiative.
1987: the Air Force to Exxon
Rolf Smith retired from the Air Force in 1987 as a Colonel, having created and run the first military Innovation Center and Office of Innovation, and entered an exclusive contract with Exxon to build an Innovation Center on the Air Force model. By 1989 the innovation process had spread to virtually every department in Exxon, and OSI created the School for Innovators to teach people how to jumpstart new ideas, facilitate innovative thinking and lead change.
1993: the first Thinking Expeditions
Beginning in 1993 the firm tested mini-expeditions in Australia, New Zealand, Texas, North Carolina, New York City and the Colorado Rockies. Teams including customers, suppliers and outsiders achieved “impossible” cost objectives, from Alaskan Arctic ice operations to Gulf Coast chemical plants, with savings from $2 million to $50 million each.
1997: vTx
On January 1, 1997, OSI formed a separate division, the Virtual Thinking Expedition Company, to work with organizations in search of very different results for unusual and urgent large-scale problems. Bottom-line results from expeditions with Procter & Gamble, Exxon, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, the U.S. Navy and others had by then exceeded $1 billion.
Rolf C. Smith Jr.
“Life is a continuous expedition. Learning never ends.”
Known as “Colonel Innovation”, Rolf founded the first military Office of Innovation, launched innovation as a corporate strategy in the Air Force, and has since led executives of the world’s leading companies on Thinking Expeditions. Ten years in Europe with NATO; Schools for Innovators in Australia and New Zealand; a two-stage expedition on Alaska’s North Slope with a joint Exxon, Arco and British Petroleum team; a 170-person expedition for the reinvention of Cadillac Fairview. He is the author of The 7 Levels of Change, lives in Fredericksburg, Texas, and is fluent in German, with a smattering of Spanish, African French, limited Latin and old Fortran.
“Focus on the one square inch. Don’t forget to periodically look back down the trail you’ve traveled and take stock. If it’s stoopid and it works, it’s not stoopid.”
Start a conversation
Tell us about the mess you are facing and we will tell you whether an expedition is the right route.