Category Archives: Creativity
MBA in Curiosity
Last month I got invited to be part of a small group of Businessmen/Entrepreneurs/Consultants/CEO’s that meet once per month to talk about technology and innovation. We’re calling it Mix 2.0 for some reason.
Our first meeting was Wednesday. We met at (ironically) Bar20 at VIA Corporativo, which is one floor beneath my office. There were about 15 of us and we had the place all to ourselves. We sat in a circle, and to get things rolling we introduced ourselves.
The 2nd person to introduce himself is an inventor. Among other things, he worked on the Nintendo Wii controller about two years before the Wii came out. As you can imagine he’s a very interesting person. He spent about 10 minutes talking about his career. This set the tone for everyone else. I soon started thinking: Let the I-out-credential-you begin! (more…)
3 cognitive limits we must overcome to think differently
Expertise is the enemy of innovation right? Yes, but even experts can think differently. And there’s much to learn from them on how they are able to overcome their ‘know-it-all’ tendencies.
Indeed, research into expertise and expert performance explains how great strategists use mental frames to break cognitive barriers that prevent others from seeing new options. It is not just that experts know more about the problem—in fact they often know less—but they think differently. They restructure, reorganize, and refine their representation of knowledge so as to more efficiently apply knowledge to solve problems.
Thinking differently is just a matter of shifting your frame. Of seeing things from a different point of view. But what inhibits us from being able to think differently?
More specifically, what happens inside our minds that limit our capacity to think differently? (more…)
What can you do to improve your business in a day?
That is the question. That and what can you do better tomorrow that you did today?
With that in mind, I’m organizing a Business Hack-a-Thon next month in my office building. It’s for us and everybody else in the building. I want everyone to come together and see different points of view. This is an opportunity to mix it up, get people uncomfortable, change roles and see anew.
This is really a test so I can then hopefully expand it outside the four walls.
Anyway, one of the key questions that’s come up while we’re preparing for this is: how do we put a concept to the test if my business is not online? (more…)
4 Innovation Lessons from the Miami Heat
Image via Wikipedia
If you’re a fan of basketball, competition and innovation, you will enjoy this. Before the start of the NBA season, ESPN published a fascinating article about how the Miami Heat’s offense will be reinvented. As you might remember, the Heat lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the last year’s NBA Finals.
After the loss, the Heat’s Head Coach, Erik Spoelstra had a lot of time to think about how we would reinvent his team. His answer: Study the Oregon Ducks spread offense to see how he could apply the same principles to create a fast-paced basketball offense.
How might an offense that’s powered by dynamic players be reinvented? (more…)
How to have great ideas without having to smoke weed
Catchy title huh?
I’m not much about celebrating milestones but this is the 400th post in the history of this blog. That’s a lot of writing. So to celebrate the occasion, I thought I change it up a little bit.
Last week a buddy of mine told me that for him to be able to have brain shaking ideas, he’d have to be high. Lol!
I’m sure you’ve heard this before yourself. And I’m not so sure any professional recommends their clients to get high before a brainstorming session. Although we do like to use this analogy when explaining our own creative process, minus the catalyst for getting high. I think there’s some truth to that but I’ve personally never gotten high to have great ideas.
But really, you don’t need to smoke weed to have great ideas. (more…)
How are you connecting the dots?
Connecting the dots. It’s all about connecting the dots. And it’s never been more important and more relevant than it is today in this information overload world we live in. Or is it?
I don’t claim to have all the answers on how to connect the dots but I recently received an interesting comment regarding this unknown activity and it got me thinking about it. My buddy basically says that those of us who engage in curation/filtering are crazy.
Why?
Because since we curate information that we find useful for others, we’ve got ideas to spare. We’ve got ideas about how to have ideas and then some. And if you curate information about diverse topics, we have ideas about stuff that doesn’t make sense to the majority of people. And this makes others feel overwhelmed because we can criss-cross from one topic to another.
On that last point is where a lot of ‘dot connecting’ happens. (more…)
Creative thinking is not a one time activity
Late last year, in response to an article that stated that you need to stifle your creativity in order to get promoted, I argued that you needed to become a credible innovator to cut through the smoke and keep those objections at bay.
Now, new research further indicates that people are biased against creative ideas. Among the findings: (more…)
