Tag Archives: Innovation
Making creative connections: What matters is that you make them
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.
Innovation posts of the week: Five habits of great innovators
- 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
The wheel gets reinvented all the time

“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.
Related articles
- Reinventing wheels: Groupon and the Yellow page companies (jonsteinberg.com)
- Radio guest: Chris Zane, Author of Reinventing the Wheel (zanesafrit.typepad.com)
Innovation posts of the week: Are you improving or innovating?
- What is the Customer’s Role in Breakthrough Innovation? by @ralph_ohr
- Why disruptive businesses are worth so much – Innosight
- Wicked Problems — Our Defining Challenge by @finikiotis
- Making Innovation Matter – Businessweek
- Are You Improving or Innovating? Knowing Makes a Difference – Fast Company
- A Co-creation Primer – HBR
- Some good readings on Design Thinking by @jabaldaia
What did I miss?
Innovation posts of the week: Combining scale with agility
- Ambidexterity – the innovation skill we need now by @ovoinnovation
- Business Winners: Combining Scale with Agility – Irving Wladawsky-Berger
- The Future of How We Consume Things – HBR
- Creativity can hinder the corporate climb via @ralph_ohr
- Managing to be surprised by @rantcliff
- How PepsiCo, Kraft & MWH Accelerate Innovation by @andreameyer
- A Bias against ‘Quirky’? Why Creative People Can Lose Out on Leadership Positions – Knowledge@Wharton
Innovation posts of the week: How to disrupt your industry
- HOW TO: Develop Ideas That Will Disrupt Your Industry by @lukegwilliams
- From Trash Cans to Nokia: Is Creativity Innovation? by @stevedenning
- Innovation: The last people-centric process by @ovoinnovation
- User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and Ikea via @fastcodesign
- Innovators Must Co-create with Customers via @wimrampen
- Why Steve Jobs Couldn’t Find a Job by @adam_hartung
- Combating Cannibalization Concerns – HBR – (by @sda222)
Innovation posts of the week: The Connected Company
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Finding Disruptive Ideas by @timkastelle
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The Power of the Right Question – HBR
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Consumer Innovation as New Economic Pattern – NY Times
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Why Competing Is Getting Harder (And What to do About It) – Forbes
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Why disruption is the preferred innovation outcome by @ovoinnovation
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Are You Different on Purpose? – HBR
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The Difficulty of Making New Discoveries by @jonahlehrer
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The connected company by @davegray






