Tag Archives: Creativity

What’s your creative thinking style?

in Career, Creativity, Innovation

Have you ever noticed how you come up with your ideas? Have you noticed how others come up with theirs? I’ve been thinking about this lately and seeing how on Twitter there’s no shortage of people tweeting ‘x ways to innovate’ back and forth (myself included!) it makes me think non-innovation people will get confused with so many ‘techniques’.

So how many ways are there really? infinite. This is a problem because most techniques are just designed to stimulate your brain to get it thinking in all sorts of ways but they don’t naturally come to you.

We must also remember that most people are put off by all of this ‘innovation’ talk, they just don’t care about the latest and greatest technique, they just care about the outcome and our job is to help them get there. So where do people like us who are trying to spread the religion of ‘innovation’ around start teaching the non-innovators? With what comes natural to us.…

Innovation is a habit

in Creativity, Innovation

Accepting reality has it’s advantages as it makes you focus intensely in the moment, but it also has it’s disadvantages because it puts imagination in the backseat!

Act different to think different. Easier said than done right? The truth is we’ve already , we just forget we did it. How is this possible? How is it that we lost that inquisitive mind? We just lost our imagination, threw the crayons away and got caught up in the reality of the adult world. That’s what happened!

Most innovations come out of some insight (aha! moment) someone had and it was all because this person was looking deeper and questioning the ‘believed’ truth of how something works. Just like kids, inquisitive people have a habit of questioning everything, looking for deeper insight by questioning the truth. Yet most people accept things for what they are, why is this? Because it’s safe, it’s that simple. We get trapped in automatic, mechanical thinking with no interest in asking why we’re doing whatever it is we’re doing and how we’re doing it.…

Weekend innovation tip: Go lateral

in Innovation tips

What if your new product or service was like a cow? How would look like? How would it work? Why would people want to use it?  Why would they hire you? Would they tell their friends about it?…Get the picture?

 

Sometimes when we’re looking for inspiration but can’t find it we get stuck, a good strategy to get ‘unstuck’ is to start ‘whatifing’. Just like asking ‘why’ five times is a good way to get to an insight, asking ‘what if’ opens your mind to seeming unrelated things you might not thought of before. Inspiration comes instantly like a bolt of lightning!

 

It’s no surprise that some of the most crazy ideas come from asking ‘what if’ a whole bunch of times because it forces your mind to look at something from a completely different context than before.

 

Check out this clever book 100 Whats of Creativity, written by Don the Idea Guy. The will help spark your creativity and lead you to someplace you’ve never been before.

Must read innovation stories of the week: Make new mistakes

in Must reads of the week

Make new mistakes? Yes, that’s right. If you always follow the tried and true, what worked before, being right, always having the same answer then you’ll never come up with anything original. To foster a culture of innovation you need to go off the same road you’ve always been walking in and if you feel a certain ‘fear’ that it’s not the best thing to do, then you’ll know you are on the right path because it means you don’t know what might happen.

Have the .

 

To achieve the impossible we must first try the impossible which is letting go of what worked before and trying something new.

 

 

Weekend innovation tip: Create new products and services using subtractive thinking

in Creativity, Innovation, Innovation tips

subtractive thinking

How do you create new products and services that deliver new value?

Using subtractive thinking by:

Additive

+ Create: Develop by designing from scratch
+ Improve: Build upon by enhancing what already exists

Subtractive

– Reduce: Minimize by taking down to the bare essentials
– Eliminate: Remove by doing away with entirely

Subtractive thinking applies to Business Models, Product Design and Brand Development. Here are some successful examples:

  • Saturn removed negotiations from the car buying experience.
  • Subway removed the traditional kitchen from the fast food restaurant.
  • Netflix removed the storefront from video rentals.
  • Little Caesar’s removed the restaurant from the pizzeria.
  • Apple removed complexity from the user interface.
  • Yellow Tail removed the pretension from selecting wine.

Credit:

MICHAEL JACKSON: That wasn’t it

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 !

The Lion in Winter dvdrip

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.

Shadow Man move

 

So ask yourself, in my business what would be equal to the box, glove and hat I can use to create a memorable experience?

Must read innovation stories of the week: How to build a culture of innovation

in Must reads of the week

Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway dvd This weeks must read innovation stories starts with an Interview with IDEO CEO Tim Brown on how his firm uses design thinking to drive innovation in the company and with clients.

  1. (BNET)
  2. (Blogging Innovation)
  3. (Businessweek)
  4. (Fast Company)
  5. (Financial Times)
  6. (Fast Company)