It’s all a matter of perspective. Perspective is worth more than IQ. Cliche’s you’ve heard before; they true. Having and gaining perspective is part of growing up, few people take full control of enhacing it and most don’t.
Tag Archives: problem solving
5 reasons why ethnography is not going to become mainstream anytime soon
in Innovation
It seems that since design thinking and lean startup methodologies have a “talk to potential customers to validate” component, it may seem that ethnography is becoming mainstream.
It isn’t.
In my opinion, of all the innovation techniques available to an innovation practitioner, entrepreneur, marketer or business leader none is more important than getting out on the field and observing people in their domains. And, we have ways to go before this ever becomes mainstream.…
You are only as great as the questions you ask
in Innovation, Leadership
Leaders lead through questions.
Farnam Street published a post about the art and science of asking better questions. The post includes some good tips on how about asking great questions, so be sure to check it out after you are done here.
Anyway, this got me thinking……
Why asking ‘WHY’ is so damn important
in Innovation, Psychology
We all think we know how most of the things we work with a on a daily basis work. Take for example your computer, how does it work? How does the screen display those icons? How does the mouse/keypad work? How does the computer know when you’ve written on the keyboard?
To answer these questions we could easily go to Wikipedia or HowStuffWorks and find out everything there is to know about computers, including how they work. But most of the explanations you’ll find are very simplistic, they’ll give you the basics. What they won’t tell you is ‘why’ they work this way. Why it is the way it is.
And that’s exactly the types of answers we should be looking for because we think we understand how most things work, but the truth is we don’t. We have an illusion of how things work. …
Use constraints to fuel your creativity
in Creativity, Innovation, Strategy
Quickly, think of as many white things as you can in ten seconds. Now think of white things in your kitchen. Did the more constrained prompt spark more ideas? Yes.
Recent research on the best approach to creating novel things says that the number one key to innovation is scarcity. In other words, constraints help you focus on what matters.
Apple knows that embracing constraints helps them focus on what matters. Google is popular for using constraints to fuel their design and development process which have resulted in ‘perceived innovations’ in user experience. The ever popular 37 Signals, maker of online business management apps, pretty much runs their business on constraints.
So, how does placing constraints to fuel creativity look like?…
How to look at a challenge from different angles
in Creativity
Questions are the key to opening the mind
Last night, I was browsing Luciano Pasuello’s excellent blog on how to better use your mind and I started reading the 10 best ways to harness the power of questions,which I found very insightful. I found some more gems in the comments, so I added my 2 cents and got a great response and thought I should post it here.
When presented with a challenge, knowing what to ask is the difference between doing more of the same and doing something extraordinary. The Phoenix Checklist of questions was developed by the CIA to encourage agents to look at a challenge from different angles.…