Tag Archives: Creativity
Must read innovation stories of the week: Make new mistakes
Make new mistakes? Yes, that’s right. If you always follow the tried and true, what worked before, being right, always having the same answer then you’ll never come up with anything original. To foster a culture of innovation you need to go off the same road you’ve always been walking in and if you feel a certain ‘fear’ that it’s not the best thing to do, then you’ll know you are on the right path because it means you don’t know what might happen.
Have the courage to be wrong.
To achieve the impossible we must first try the impossible which is letting go of what worked before and trying something new.
-
Conditions that can create an innovation culture (Innovate on Purpose)
-
The Innovation Rules (Open Forum)
-
Human Capital x Social Capital = Productivity and Innovation (Blogging Innovation)
-
50 Ways to Foster a Culture of Innovation (Idea Champions)
-
Creativity: Develop a ‘take from anywhere’ attitude (Think One Step Ahead)
Weekend innovation tip: Create new products and services using subtractive thinking
How do you create new products and services that deliver new value?
Using subtractive thinking by:
Additive
+ Create: Develop by designing from scratch
+ Improve: Build upon by enhancing what already exists
Subtractive
- Reduce: Minimize by taking down to the bare essentials
- Eliminate: Remove by doing away with entirely
Subtractive thinking applies to Business Models, Product Design and Brand Development. Here are some successful examples:
- Saturn removed negotiations from the car buying experience.
- Subway removed the traditional kitchen from the fast food restaurant.
- Netflix removed the storefront from video rentals.
- Little Caesar’s removed the restaurant from the pizzeria.
- Apple removed complexity from the user interface.
- Yellow Tail removed the pretension from selecting wine.
Credit: Black Coffee
MICHAEL JACKSON: That wasn’t it
Last night I went to the premier of Michael Jackson’s This is it. In the movie you’re looking at a creative genius at work but you’re also looking at the world through his eyes. It’s a great movie to watch if you a MJ fan because he WAS going to put on show!
Although there are many things we can take away from MJ, there is something a friend of mine said tome after it was over that got me thinking. The Billie Jean performance is Michael at his best.
In his own words:
When I see MJ you don’t need to live abroad or to go visit new places to get in your inventive or creative mood… INNOVATION comes from INSPIRATION, it comes from INSIDE.
Just like a little kid, who makes out of a simple box, castles, dungeons, towers with trapped princesses inside or secret passages, MJ takes in all of his surroundings and transforms them into a work of art.
Just as he did once, with just A SIMPLE BOX, a GLOVE and A HAT.
MJ’s creative toolbox consists of a box with a hat and a glove and the best dance moves in the business. That’s it! Simple as that!
Anyone can put on a hat, a glove and dance but MJ makes the hat and glove all part of the dance, the performance. They become an extension of himself, his persona.
The whole key is he never lost his ability to astonish. Our inner child needs to be nourished, and see what no one else sees. We must never lose our ability to astonish ourselves.
So ask yourself, in my business what would be equal to the box, glove and hat I can use to create a memorable experience?
Must read innovation stories of the week: How to build a culture of innovation
Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway dvd This weeks must read innovation stories starts with an Interview with IDEO CEO Tim Brown on how his firm uses design thinking to drive innovation in the company and with clients.
- IDEO’s Tim Brown: How to build a culture of innovation (BNET)
- Ten great ways to boost your personal creativity (Blogging Innovation)
- Take a Chance on Experimenting (Businessweek)
- Is Innovation Just Another Business Model? 3 Systemic Innovation Processes (Fast Company)
- Innovation lessons from emerging markets: Live with your customer (Financial Times)
- Find a business model competitors can’t copy (Fast Company)
Weekend innovation tip: To think outside the box look in other boxes
Solutions are everywhere and the best way to think outside the box is to look in other boxes.
Your box limits your view
How many times have you meet someone that tries to solve problems using the same method over and over again to no avail? More than you can remember I assume.
This is even more apparent as we grow older, we keep doing what worked before believing that’s the only way it can be done. If it isn’t broke don’t fix it right? The problem with this is that when we’re looking for new ideas we won’t find them looking in the same places, we have to venture off an unknown path where the chances of finding something new are more higher.
Why is it so difficult to try something new?
Because change is hard, we become so fixed in a single view of the world that we filter out all information that conflicts with our beliefs and are unable to see another possible solution.
What we see is what we think
The box is our mental model.
Beliefs, assumptions of how you think your world (box) works all lock you in to a box, limiting your view of going about solving problems. The problem with this is that all your solutions will always be the same, predictable and linear. More of the same!
Brain researcher Gerhard Roth of the University of Bremen in Germany in his 2007 book whose title translates as Personality, Decision, and Behavior writes:
“The brain is always trying to automate things and to create habits, which it imbues with feelings of pleasure. Holding to the tried and true gives us a feeling of security, safety, and competence while at the same time reducing our fear of the future and of failure.”
Look in other boxes that is not your own.
To start finding new ideas we first have to become aware of the limitations of doing things the same way, we must become aware of our mental models and question our beliefs and assumption.
Also understand that innovations themselves are combination’s of what came before, rather than an original invention. It’s discovering things in other boxes and then combining them in a useful way that you get something new. Creativity really is all about discovery!
The fact is solutions are everywhere and the best way to think outside the box is to look in other boxes.
Key Takeaway: Develop a take from anywhere mindset. Borrow ideas from other fields, keep an open mind and cherry pick your way to a new solution.
Photo Credit: Gilad Benari
Where do new business concepts come from?
How did Apple come up with the idea of the iPod and later iPhone? How did Google come up with a way make money from their search engine?
While there are enough books that can tell you the story of how it happened, they won’t tell you what happened inside the minds of the people or individual who came up with the idea.
While I was pondering this question I also posted it on Yahoo Answers to gauge people’s opinion, here’s the best answer I got:
New business concepts come from people. Those who have the ambition and where with all to discuss open topic issues with others, those who are willing to step outside the box of comfort and ask questions, research and try to think as if they are in the other persons shoes. Putting yourself “out there” and being focused at the same time while trying to figure out how your idea can benefit from your thoughts.
So where do new business concepts come from?
The profound insight doesn’t come out of any strategic planning process nor does it come from some brainstorming session, it comes from a mix of individual desire, curiosity, ambition and need. But there also needs to be some foresight, a sense of where things might go.
Key Takeaway:
New business concepts come out of a mix of unexpected problems, novel experiences, random conversations and newly discovered facts. The fact is there is no predictable and mechanical process for creating a bold new business concept.
Where do you think new business concepts come from?
Imagine the future and enhance your creativity
Looking beyond the obvious has it’s rewards according to new research on how imagining an event in the future enhances our creativity:
This research has important practical implications. It suggests that there are several simple steps we can all take to increase creativity, such as traveling to faraway places (or even just thinking about such places), thinking about the distant future, communicating with people who are dissimilar to us, and considering unlikely alternatives to reality. Perhaps the modern environment, with its increased access to people, sights, music, and food from faraway places, helps us become more creative not only by exposing us to a variety of styles and ideas, but also by allowing us to think more abstractly. So the next time you’re stuck on a problem that seems impossible don’t give up. Instead, try to gain a little psychological distance, and pretend the problem came from somewhere very far away.
“True innovators are never bound by what is; instead they imagine what could be.”
