Tag Archives: Creativity

For innovation: Uncommon insights come from uncommon places

in Creativity, Innovation, Marketing

how to differentiate your businessThis is part one of the series on how to leave small thinking behind. In this first post, I’ll show you a simple technique for coming up with radical ideas. In the second part,  you’ll learn how to evaluate ideas so they don’t fit into “me-too” territory. In part three, I’ll tell you how to determine which ideas might work.

Perception separates the innovator from the imitator. So, a shift in perspective is all that is needed to see opportunities for new offerings. Here is one creative approach to do that…

One of the challenges of coming up with unconventional ideas is the weight of past ideas. Not just the ones you’ve applied, but also the ones you’ve seen, heard, tasted, smelled and felt, all of these are in your memory. You see, what we have stored in our heads is just as much a blocker of uncommon ideas as is your boss not giving you permission to go wild.

This is why the first 15 – 30 you come up with are always going to be very obvious. They are stuff you’ve already seen before. To get to the good stuff you have force your brain to come up with more. But this is quite hard  and takes some time for many to do…

But let’s suppose you don’t have the time to sit down and make a list of 50 – 100 different ideas on how to solve a pressing challenge. What’s a quick way to shake things up?…

The Big Bang approach to problem definition

in Innovation

The way a problem is defined guides the way people think about it.

You can never have/experiment with enough tools. I like to experiment with various “problem definition” approaches, as I believe this is the most important step in the innovation process. While there are various ways to define a problem, I think there isn’t a more intuitive way to do it.

This is important because it is a very common innovation issue to jump in before taking time to define the problem/challenge. As Michael Michalko, author of the creative thinking book Thinkertoys, says, “The more time you devote to perfecting the wording of your challenge, the closer you will be to a solution.”…

10 Change your course questions CEO’s need to ask themselves

in Innovation, Leadership, Strategy

question everything

Questioning, one of my favorite activities. I’ve been spotting a lot of it lately, and that’s good. Whether it’s because we are entering the last month of the year or because people are feeling the need to reflect, we need to be constantly questioning the obvious.

The obvious, if you’re succeeding, should also include this “change your course question” by Rosabeth Kanter: What is going to destroy our business, and are you taking steps to do it yourself before others do it to you?…

What a 16 year old magician can teach you about exceeding expectations

in Creativity, Innovation, Psychology

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!…

Q&A: Babak Forutanpour on how to start a grass roots innovation program in a big company

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. …

The Idea Box: On command creativity tool for creatives and non-creatives

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.…