Archive for: February, 2012

A sneaky way to unearth innovation opportunities

Look beyond the obvious right? Ok, here’s a very sneaky way to do that and unearth innovation opportunities.

From the Businessweek article on Hybrids getting competition from plain old cars in gas mileage:

“I was surprised to see that cars like the Fiesta were actually about a nickel cheaper to run per mile than the Prius,” says Hacker. He bought a Fiesta for $16,400 instead of a $23,015 Prius. He’s averaging 37 mpg, which he says is on par with the real-world mileage of his Prius-driving friends who don’t take extreme measures to boost their mpgs. (“To get 50 miles per gallon, some dress like Eskimos because they don’t want to turn the stinking heat on,” says Hacker.)

Notice the words in bold at the end. The behavior described my friend, is a workaround.

When employees do not feel understood they resist change

Here’s an ongoing problem:

When leadership tries to implement change within an organization, the biggest objection from employees usually is: “You don’t understand my situation.” What this statement really means is: “You do not know my job. You do not realize what I have to deal with on a regular basis, and now you are instituting yet another initiative that will make things more difficult for me on a daily basis.”

When employees do not feel understood, they resist change more fiercely.

Innovation must reads of the week: How to reduce innovation risk

Anti-innovation: 10 Proven Ways Not to Innovate – Forbes

How to reduce innovation risk  by @ovoinnovation

3 Ways To Predict What Consumers Want Before They Know It – FastCoDesign

Innovation Hell: Saving Good Ideas From Premature Death – Fast Company

It’s the Jobs-to-Be-Done, Stupid! by @bhc3

Why Innovation is Less Risky Than You Think by @timkastelle

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How to turn Evernote into an Insight Bank

 

We need tools to manage our thoughts, data, information and knowledge to be able to find insights. A bit of structure and system could benefit you when seeking new ideas – and keeping track of them!

Having a Brain Bank is very useful. I have one on my Evernote. But ideas are a dime a dozen. What you need is an ‘Insight Bank’.

What’s an Insight Bank?

For practical purposes, I’ll tell you how I use Evernote to store insights.

Are you applying as fast as you are learning?

A few weeks go, Bill Taylor (@practicallyrad) asked: Are you learning as fast as the world is changing?

Next question is: Are you applying as fast as you are learning?

Here’s what I’ve noticed for awhile since I’ve been on Twitter, but became a little more obvious to me in the last few weeks: Those of us who spend time on Twitter, are a lot more cognitively accelerated than those who are not.

Case in point: My Mix group I told you about. They are interesting people, and have a lot of things to talk about. But none of them have a Twitter account. Or a blog. And it dawned on me that by only meeting once per month, that this isn’t going to change anytime soon.

For example, One of the Co-Founders of Serena Healthcare, who also in the group, provided me with another insight. Here’s a guy who takes mindmap notes on his iPad as you are speaking. And if he doesn’t have his iPad, he takes notes on his laptop as you are explaining things to him. But you know what? For all his note taking abilities, he doesn’t have or want a Twitter account because he feels overwhelmed by its fast paced nature.

What?

This guy’s mind moves fast. But apparently not fast enough.

So does that mean that we, ‘The Twitterati’, are a special bunch? I know some people who think so. They tell me that Twitter is for intellectuals, not for the lazy minded. Twitter is a fire-hose of knowledge no doubt (if you filter it becomes even more apparent), but that’s not where the discussion should stop.

Innovation must reads of the week: Beyond Bureaucracy

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