Tag Archives: Innovation

Making creative connections: What matters is that you make them

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Jorge

While there are a lot of organizations that aggregate trends (see Trend Hunter and Trend Watching to name a few), people often ask me how believable those trends are and if they should be arriving at the same conclusions while doing their own trend hunting.

The answer is no.

The assumption is that is you give two people the same information and put them in separate rooms to formulate strategy they should arrive at the same answers. This is flawed thinking. If anything they should come out with more questions or different answers.

There are times when validation is great (predictable outcomes like in Manufacturing) but when creating the new, we have to look for evidence that doesn’t support our case, because if we don’t we risk falling into the confirmation bias trap.

Don’t fall into the trap of trying to make the same connections everybody else makes, make new connections and feel proud that only you see them. It takes courage to move in a direction nobody else is moving, but it’s also exciting.

If you’re making new connections between unrelated ideas already that are different from everyone else, King’s to you.

Remember: One of the key skills that distinguishes innovators is the ability to ‘associate’, to make connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas. Cultivate it and make it your new key creative skill to master.

Posted in Creativity, Innovation | 2 Comments

Innovation posts of the week: Five habits of great innovators

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Jorge

Nine Ways to Test an Entrepreneurial Idea – HBR
Innovative companies are constantly obsoleting themselves via @ralph_ohr
Only Outthinkers Will Survive Today’s Paradigm Shift - Fast Company
No Vision = No Innovation by @ovoinnovation
How to prevent ideas and opportunities from falling through the cracks – SmartBlog Insights
Staying Ahead of Innovation Challenges by @richardsona
The Five Habits of Great Innovators – Fast Company

Posted in Must reads of the week | Leave a comment

The wheel gets reinvented all the time

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Jorge

reinventing the wheel

“Let’s not reinvent the wheel” How many times have you heard that? How many times have you said it?

For practical purposes, people don’t like to reinvent the wheel. It’s better to do, follow, use what is already there because it saves us a lot of time and grief by letting us see blind alleys and lost trails of others who have worked in our area.

In reality, the wheel gets reinvented all the time because we need an almost infinite variety of wheels. The gear was a reinvention of the wheel, as was the pneumatic tire. Nano wheels are being invented that will make nano machines.

I’m not saying that being practical is a dumb idea. It’s not. The key is knowing in what context pragmatism comes in handy to move forward while also understanding that simply imitating the success of others will not lead to the same outcome for you.

So the most practical and intelligent thing to do is to first ask: how can I improve this? How can I make it better?

Start turning your own wheels before you imitate someone else.