Imagine seeing an ad about a restaurant that makes fish tacos. Now imagine seeing a comment on Facebook from a friend about a restaurant he is at that not only sells fish tacos, but also poetically entertains you. And, next to that text is a picture of a hand written poem by the waiter that serviced him.
Which one makes you more curious?
Exactly!…
in Innovation, Interviews
How do you start a grassroots innovation program within your company? In the following interview, you’ll learn how simple it really is.
I had the opportunity to interview Babak Forutanpour, the Internal Innovation Lead of Qualcomm’s Flux, an employee run open innovation program. In a wide ranging interview he shared with me his experience in starting an innovation program inside Qualcomm, as well as the fantastic results they’ve achieved. What started as an 8 person experiment, four years later is a global initiative.
Below, I’ve summarized some of the answers. …
in Creativity, Innovation
A few days ago, I provided you with some questions to find hidden pain points. Well, after finding those pain points, the next step is to ideate ways to alleviate those pains.
How do you start?
Steve Jobs famously said that creativity is just connecting things. And he is right, combining ideas is one the most productive ways to generate non-linear solutions. Below I’ll show you a well known creative technique that is designed to help people generate creative combinations.…
in Innovation, Leadership
multidisciplinary teams working on ideas
So, you’re the CEO of a company and you are not known to be innovative. What do you do?
No fear, for you are not alone.
For all the talk about the need for innovation, the truth is most CEO’s are not innovative. They are much more focused on maintaining the current narrative than on discovery. But, there is one thing they can do to walk the talk:
Get out of the way.
Even though there is a lot of literature about how to innovate, many leaders have not understood and implemented a key insight about how to create the conditions for innovation to happen. And so it is here, where they can have an immediate influence!
How to start?…
This is a question I get a lot. Just like there is no shortage of creativity techniques, there are many innovation methodologies. For me, there isn’t one single way. Just like there isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” strategy that every company can plug and play onto itself. I think that just like every person/company should have their own reason for existing, they should come up with their own way on how to stay relevant.
For example, Intuit, came up with their own innovation methodology. It was crafted from their own values and reasons for doing what they do and why they do it. Here is their how:…
Question-to-innovate Series: This the twentieth of a series of weekly posts where I will answer a few common questions about innovation. Please feel free to add your own response. Also, if you have any questions you think we should discuss, let me know.
The greatest impediment to creativity is your impatience. Let me explain…
Bravery has always been associated with creativity. And, while fear is an important impediment to creativity, worse, I believe, is impatience.
The inevitable desire to hurry up the process, express something, and make a splash. Sure, the speed in how we communicate is a key driver in the pace of change in the world. This puts enormous pressure on companies to forge ahead and innovate (if they can).…