What helped to elevate my system from Brain Dump to a useful Insight Bank was the following breakthrough: I had various stages from “cold storage” all the way up “do this week” but I created some parameters in order to ascend an idea from one stage to the next.

For example, in order for an idea to go from “cold storage” to “warm idea”, it needed to fit within one of four spheres in my life. (There were several other parameters, too). And, in order for it to ascend from “Near Term” to “Do This Week”, the idea needed to be actionable and have an estimated expense and an estimated ROI.

I guess this sounds a little anal retentive but I have a ton of ideas, plus I’m overly optimistic, and I needed a framework to act on only some of them at once.

I like that quote. Don’t remember where I heard/read it before.

The big thing about innovation, is creating the expectation of failure. People have to be aware that they may fail. And failure is learning. The question is: how fast can you learn?

Cheers,

Jorge

A young manager led a $10m program which failed in every way possible. Called into the CEOs office he said “I suppose you wan’t my resignation now?” to which the CEO replied “are you kidding! I just spent $10m educating you”

Thanks. Nothing wrong with asking the practical questions but there’s much more to it than just that.

I also like this question by Mike Myatt: Who Will Be Crying At Your Funeral? – onforb.es/AAdNbg

Will add it to my repertoire

Cheers,

Jorge

I agree. Listening is key. It doesn’t just apply to human relationships. But listen ‘for change’. How funny is that?

Really? I didn’t catch the article. Link me

Cheers,

Jorge

I love the idea of a Chief Ignorance Officer.  I’ve felt like that at many points in my career….

I’ve just written a blog on the role of the naive challenger for Braden’s site, you’ll find similar sentiments there.  

Kevin

Awareness also helps. More specifically, awareness that change is imminent. Awareness of our human biases and how they’ll take over. How they’ll protect us from uncertainty.

Being aware helps keep our ego in check.

Expertise is necessary, no doubt. You still need square pegs around (specialists), they’ll put structure to the chaos (generalists).

Cheers,

Jorge

Reinvention is hard, particularly when the current situation kinda works. A desire to do it better is a good starting point. Then some creative thinking to disrupt your norms. And some cahones to make it happen.

Is it ignorance we require, or risk taking, or both? Innovation is said to be creating something new and valueable, and then making it happen. I think ignorance does play an important part in the initial ideation, and it could probably help in the risk taking (if you’re feeling lucky), but surely you need some level of expertise to actually craft something that works. And risk taking when you know the risks is far more exciting than risk taking when you don’t.