Innovation needs a purpose. A bold compelling vision brings everyone together on a real purpose. What’s your purpose?
Developing an Innovation Vision (Blogging innovation)
in Creativity
Halloween is tomorrow. Are you ready?
This was my costume a few years back. The idea came from a wallpaper login I had of a green goblin with symbols in it’s face, I decided I wanted to replicate it but instead of having a green face I would use red.
My ex-girlfriend laughed at the idea and said she would create the masterpiece you see in the picture, she shaved my head (which is the only time I’ve ever done it!), painted my face red and drew the symbols in my head with her makeup.
Material Girls move Driving was the most fun and I took full advantage of it by showing my tongue any chance I could at other drivers hahaha, feeling my skull for the first time was equally interesting.
At the end we laughed a whole lot, I won a couple of contests and had a blast!
Have a Happy Halloween!
in Innovation
Tim Morris, co-founder and director of Dynamic Horizons, a leading Australian innovation consultancy, has produced a fantastic video entitled "A brief exploration of the state of innovation in Australian business. Irreverent, frank and hopefully interesting." Although the statistics in this video refer to Australia, this message holds true for every business.
A few days ago I found myself reading one of the many posts out there about X reasons why brands refuse to embrace social media. The truth is many companies are already irrelevant because they fail to see the world as continuously evolving.
First it’s important to understand that as humans we are taught to see everything as a phase because it makes it easier for us to make sense of things by being able to separate one event from the others. The problem with this way of thinking is it tries to make everything predictable in the short term by not focusing on the long term consequences.
Win today and don’t worry about tomorrow.
Adaptability requires a you to see events as continuous, not linear. For an adaptable company change is always happening, not just between events. The objective of being adaptable is to be able to win as many times as possible but not worry about winning every single battle.
Stories abound of companies that became irrelevant because they failed to adapt, choosing to follow a predictable death. Most of these companies waited until chaos arrived to make adjustments and others clinged to the past. Why wait until chaos comes knocking on your door, adaptability is the most crucial skill you’ll ever need and it should be part of your strategy because if you don’t adapt you’re already irrelevant.
An exercise that always works wonders is showing people a vision where they no longer exist because they failed to adapt. Try it yourself, grab a few people from your office and ask them about the challenges facing your business:
If they don’t have a clear answer for both, you’re already in trouble because you’re sitting in a very comfortable position and nothing is challenging your business.
What do you think? What actions do you take to make your business adaptable?
in Wisdom
Have you read the 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction and the 33 Strategies of War? If you haven’t, you should!
Author Robert Greene wrote those books and just a few weeks ago his newest book, written with 50 Cent, hit the shelves. I haven’t read the book (it’s on my wish list) but in the above presentation 10 essential lessons from the book are distilled.
in Success
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?
As we age, we humans tend to follow familiar patterns of thinking. Using the same method that worked is useful but it has huge disadvantages when trying to create new products or services.
We have a tendency to think in a linear way, following logic, adding incremental improvements to the product or service along a predictable vertical.
Lateral thinking is the art of creating something new out of something existent, you achieve this by manipulating elements in the product or service. Lateral thinking is commonly known as thinking outside the box.
Lateral thinking is all about making new connections that aren’t entirely obvious.
Here are 6 lateral thinking techniques you can use to create new ideas, new options and ultimately something new:
Here a simple example of how this works using a pizza delivery service:
Substitute it. Send hot dogs instead.
Combine it. Send the pizza + lasagna for free.
Invert it. Send the pizza only on certain hours during the week and but on the weekend all day.
The Baader Meinhof Complex full Eliminate it. Don’t deliver pizza.
Exaggerate it. Deliver a pizza with double everything and call it extreme pizza.
Reorder it. Customer sends you the ingredients he wants and you make the pizza.
Give it a try, you’ll come up with new ideas in no time!