Go After What You Want
Here's to the Crazy Ones
Idea Champions
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:57 PM | Comments (1)
Everyone's a Genius, But....
If you want to create a culture of innovation in your organization, make sure you are matching people to projects that have passion for and have enough competence to succeed in.
If you're sensing that "things" aren't going all that well, it may be due to the fact that you've got fish climbing trees. Your task? Find a pond for the fish... and find some lovers of tree-climbing to pick the fruit or swing from the branches. Problem solved.
Idea Champions
Thanks to Lee Alter for the heads up.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)
How Many of Your Thoughts Are Original?
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September 29, 2011The Creative Adult...
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September 28, 2011The Idiot Savant's Guide to Innovating
Coming soon! I'm working on it. 100 tips on how to get off your ifs, ands, or buts and into the gravity-free zone of innovating.
Idea Champions
Free the Genie
Awake at the Wheel
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2011The Six Sigma Blues
One of my favorite clients of all time was a key manager in a prominent Fortune 500 company.
She was smart. She was funny. She was creative. And she was kind.
Then her company adopted Six Sigma.
I couldn't help but notice that soon after this she started becoming very cranky, not unlike the way an artist gets upon filling out a tax form.
When I asked her how the Six Sigma initiative was going, she rolled her eyes and mumbled something about "going through the motions."
In a lucid online Business Week posting, Brian Hindo deconstructs some of the flawed assumptions of the Six Sigma approach.
"The very factors that make Six Sigma effective in one context," explains Hindo, "can make it ineffective in another. Traditionally, it uses rigorous statistical analysis to produce unambiguous data that help produce better quality, lower costs, and more efficiency. That all sounds great when you know what outcomes you'd like to control. But what about when there are few facts to go on -- or you don't even know the nature of the problem you're trying to define?
"New things look very bad on this scale," says MIT Sloan School of Management professor Eric von Hippel, who has worked with 3M on innovation projects that he says 'took a backseat' once Six Sigma settled in.
"The more you hardwire a company on total quality management, the more it is going to hurt breakthrough innovation," adds Vijay Govindarajan, a management professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "The mindset that is needed, the capabilities that are needed, the metrics that are needed, the whole culture that is needed for discontinuous innovation, are fundamentally different."
And so, dear Heart of Innovation readers, in honor of all people who have ever questioned the long-term value of Six Sigma... in honor of all the people who have understood that increasing -- not decreasing -- variability is often the key to success, it is my utmost pleasure to make my graceful exit from this latest blog posting with the immortal, finger-snapping, toe-tapping, knee-slapping, put-on-your-blues-hat-and-sunglasses lyrics to....
THE GOTTA HAVE A PROCESS BLUES
I woke up this morning,
put both feet on the floor,
but I didn't have a process
to find the bathroom door,
so all I did was shuffle,
first the left foot, then the right,
forgot to count the tiles,
(hey boss, I ain't too bright.)
We got green belts, black belts,
corporate karate,
and soon we'll need a process
for going to the potty.
Lord, I need a chart and graph to help me choose
just what to name this song about the Six Sigma blues.
Back when we were kids
the only processed thing was cheese,
now we need a process
every single time we sneeze,
I say "achoo," I blow my nose,
I try to get it right,
my Black Belt says my charts don't flow,
not once a gesundheit.
I make no mistakes,
I do everything right --
to make sure nothing breaks,
I stay up all night,
I'm a Six Sigma cowboy
cutting cycle time in half,
I measure every joke
and the way it makes me laugh.
We got green belts, black belts,
corporate karate,
and soon we'll need a process
for going to the potty,
a fishbone diagram would be so cool to help me choose
just what to name this song about the Six Sigma blues.
I barely make a boo boo, I rarely blow a deal,
you might call it voo doo, but that's just how I feel,
I'm one in a million
though my defects number three,
I log on while I'm sleeping
and I've changed my name to "E."
We got green belts, black belts,
corporate karate,
and soon we'll need a process
for going to the potty.
-- Blind Willy Nilly (aka "Mitch Ditkoff")
Photo
Face the Music
Idea Champions
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:10 PM | Comments (2)
Even Michelangelo's David Started Out as a Block
Stuck? Confused? Blocked?
Get over it by printing out this posting, filling in the blanks, and then reading your story aloud. Works wonders! Better than therapy! Cheaper than Prozac!
"Boy, am I blocked! I haven't felt this bad since ___________. I've tried __________________ and ____________________, but nothing seems to work. It's almost laughable the way I'm spending all my time ___________________.
I feel so frustrated I could _________________________.
I hate it when _____________________________. It makes me feel like a ________________ without a ____________.
I'm so tired of ___________________________. Just yesterday, I felt so ___________________ I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But now... it feels like the tunnel is filled with ___________________ and the light has turned to ___________________.
Uh oh! What if I stay stuck like this forever?
I can see the writing on my tombstone now: '__________________________ _______________________.' What an epitaph! That would really make me feel like a _________________________________________.
I wish there was someone I could blame besides myself!
Hmmm... Maybe ________________ would make a good person to dump on. If he/she was here with me now, I'd _________________________________________.
How did I get into this situation anyhow? I never really intended to _____________________________________________.
All I wanted was ____________________________.
Why does it have to be so unbelievably difficult? If only I could stop feeling so ________________________________.
Hey! Just last week I got tons of great ideas about my project -- ideas like ____________________ and ____________________ and ______________________.
Any one of those brainstorms could easily be the key. And even if they weren't, I could always ________________________________________.
I could even call ________________ and _______________. They're tuned into my project! Maybe they'd have a clue about how to proceed.
Actually, this is all pretty funny.
I seem to love focusing on my problems instead of possible solutions. Talk about creative! I must have ________ ways to avoid taking the next step.
Which reminds me.... I guess the next thing I need to do is ___________________________. And after that I'll _____________________.
Isn't it fascinating how this stuff works? In a little while, I'll probably look back at this crazy time and realize _____________________
_______________________.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)
September 25, 2011More to Live For
More to Live For is a wonderfully inspiring new documentary, just shown at the Woodstock Film Festival, on a topic that is too little understood: bone marrow donation. Directed by Noah Hutton, a brilliant 24-year old filmmaker, More to Live For is more than a movie -- it's a project dedicated to saving lives. See it. The life you save may be your own -- or someone very close to you.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)
Bill Gates on Failure
Well, if this is true for Microsoft, with all of its deep pockets, think about your own business for a moment. Ouch! What can you do this week to ensure that your venture doesn't crap out in two years?
Rethinking Failure
Idea Champions
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September 24, 201122 Reasons Why We Love Lists
1. Lists simplify.
2. Lists promise instant knowledge.
3. Lists provide choices.
4. We are all victims of information overload. Lists help us make sense of the world.
5. Lists make it seem as if the list maker knows something that list readers don't.
6. Lists appeal to an ever expanding population of ADD sufferers.
7. Lists appeal to the left brain need for order and linearity.
8. Lists are made of soundbytes. Soundbytes 'R Us.
9. Lists are familiar. We grew up making them: laundry lists, grocery lists, and Christmas lists.
10. Lists can be updated, added to, or subtracted from easily.
11. Lists give us an instant opportunity to disagree.
12. Lists, with their declarative headlines, make list readers feel like they are just about to get a crash course on a topic of great significance.
13. Lists, when forwarded to friends or clients, position the list forwarder as a knowledgeable resource.
14. Lists include items that are numbered -- and most readers assume that an item that's numbered must be more true than an item that's merely bulleted.
15. Lists can be printed quickly, folded up, and put into one's pocket -- as opposed to New Yorker articles, the collected works of Henry Miller, or Sunday's New York Times.
16. Items on lists can be easily crossed off, giving the list maker an instant feeling of accomplishment
17. Lists are great ways for list makers, especially in the hyperlinked blogosphere, to plug their own books, products, and services.
18. Lists are easily scanned.
19. Numbered lists provide a sense of progression (either forward or backward).
20. Lists build suspense and excitement.
21. Lists provide bite sized facts and insights.
22. Lists make it easy to refer back to individual points or facts during a conversation ("Let's review point 10 again, it's relevant to what we're talking about right now.... ")
Thanks to Mark Dykeman for #18-22.
Can you think of any others?
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2011Catalyze This!
Every once in a while one of our clients really gets it. And when I say "it", I am not referring to stock options, narcolepsy, or the Nobel Prize.
The "it" I am referring to is the meme, the mojo -- the main meaning of our message -- a message, I am happy to say, that is not really OUR message, but the message of a billion aspiring innovators since the beginning of time.
Lo, I say unto you, the extraordinarily perspicacious Ken Mendelkern, Senior Account Supervisor of Catalyst Public Relations, in New Yawk City -- has just published this fine looking blog specimen on the Catalyst blog -- giving heartfelt props to Idea Champions (that's us, folks) in response to a four-hour ideation session we facilitated, last Friday, in Catalyst's finely appointed Empire State Building offices.
Read it and leap!
We like Catalyst. We think they're smart, funny, focused, and have exceedingly good taste.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2011Humor in the Workplace
Wonderful video about the power of humor in the workplace, featuring a (possible) new client of ours, Peppercom.
What's in a name?
Consultant outsources sleep
Quotes on play, humor, and creativity
Our clients speak
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September 19, 2011Intuit! Then Do It!
What is your intuition telling you about your most fascinating project?
Idea Champions
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September 15, 2011Picasso on the Act of Creation
Yes, sometimes things have to fall apart before they can reform themselves into something new and sustainable.
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September 14, 2011THANK Tanks, Not THINK Tanks
I'd like your feedback on a new idea of mine which I have playfully named THANK TANKS (with the help of one of my FB friends).
The idea, still rough, is for organizations to provide their employees with a practical way to express their appreciation (of each other and the business) -- instead of always harping on what's wrong.
In the same way that Quality Circles were a big hit in the 80's, THANK TANKS (i.e. "Appreciation Circles"), might be exactly what the doctor ordered for these difficult times.
The idea is related to the practice of Appreciative Inquiry, but is not focused on improving organizational processes. Rather, it focuses on the all-too-rare moment of people appreciating each other.
I realize that some business leaders will consider this a trivial pursuit. So be it.
I'm betting there are many forward thinking leaders who will be open to the idea -- especially if the execution of it is simple, engaging, low cost, and raises morale.
At the very least, consider devoting 10 minutes, in some of your meetings, for people to acknowledge each other for all the good stuff that is going on.
Your thoughts? Ideas? Feedback? How do you see this working in your company?
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September 12, 2011Go Beyond Logic and Analysis
Idea Champions
More Einstein quotes
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The Case for Laughter
There's a reason why AHA and HAHA are almost spelled the same...
Clarence Darrow
Idea Champions
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September 11, 2011Out of the Ashes, Breakthrough!
I am thrilled to publish the following article by Steve Cronin, a brilliant inventor who attended one of my innovation trainings ten years ago to the day. Thanks, Steve, for stepping up and speaking your truth. Keep on innovating!
"Almost everyone knows what 911 represents. Emergency! Help! Chaos! After September 11th, 2001, nine-one-one became nine-eleven and those numbers took on a whole new meaning.
Without a doubt, it was a day that changed the course of history -- a day that woke up an entire generation of Americans to a very real threat of terror at any time, any place.
I certainly remember where I was ten years ago on September 11th, 2001. The day was so vivid for me, in such a unique way, though I was nowhere near New York City or Washington.
I was in Akron, Ohio, at a Hilton Hotel, attending a one-day innovation training being facilitated by Idea Champions.
A couple of hours into the course we were on a break, at the hotel lounge, when the news flashed on a huge TV screen -- news of a plane hitting the World Trade Center, and then, a few minutes later, news of a second. All of us stood there in disbelief, shocked and confused.
What had just happened?
Our instructor, Mitch, was calm, but like most of us, in a bit in shock himself. It was much more personal for him, as he lived near New York City and had to make a couple of calls to make sure everything was OK.
The more I thought about what I had just seen; an unexpected determination began to grow inside of me. As the training progressed, those images stayed in my mind. I was determined to do... something. But what? What could I do?
At that time in my career, I was working in product development at Goodyear Tire and Rubber, with a focus on aircraft tires. I was what they call a "compounder", a person who created compounds to make aircraft tires better.
So there I was, watching planes crash into skyscrapers, destruction everywhere, while I was in a class devoted to creation, innovating something new, making things better, not worse.
That day changed me forever.
It was the day I knew I was meant to innovate something extraordinary. I knew that if I focused, something good would come out of something so evil.
So began my journey to develop a completely new aircraft tire tread compound.
It was not easy, and I surely didn't do it alone, but with time, hard work, and persistence, it happened.
When all was said and done, I had created a new tread compound, one of the best in the world for landing performance -- a product composed of materials that many people, including a high ranking official at NASA, said could not possibly work.
But I persisted. I knew, in my gut, that with a creative approach, it had to be possible. The feelings of that day, 9/11/01 stayed with me. I remained focused on the core principles of innovation, and I let the inspiration flow from the spirit within me.
In recognition of my efforts, I was named -- along with a few other collaborators -- Corporate Inventor of the Year in 2008. Yes, a little bit of good did come out of that day known as 9-11.
As Einstein so rightly stated: "In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity".
It's up to each of us to find that hidden opportunity and make it real!
It's difficult to say why we become who we become. Is it our genetics? Is it our life experience? Is it all predetermined?
I often ask myself why I was at Mitch's innovation class on 9-11, but looking back it's pretty obvious why. But regardless of the why, I can say without a doubt that I am hopelessly and passionately in love with innovation -- maybe even addicted to it. I can't think of anything nobler than to simply create, to innovate.
It's what I chose to do for the rest of my life.
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September 10, 2011Steve Martin on Presentation Skills
Now... if we can only get Steve Martin to facilitate our new presentation skills course.
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September 08, 2011Be Glad Your Ideas Are Foolish
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September 07, 2011The Beauty of Invisible Labor
What is work, anyway? Too many of us devote ourselves to looking busy when, in fact, the breakthroughs often come when nothing seems to be happening.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:25 PM | Comments (1)
September 06, 2011Innovators Don't Only Dream, They Remember Their Dreams
Many great breakthroughs have come in dreams.
Rene Descartes got the concept for the Scientific Method in a dream. Elias Howe came up with the final design for the lock stitch sewing machine in a dream. August Kekule arrived at the formulation of the Benzene molecule in a dream.
In the dream state, the subconscious mind arrives at solutions that the conscious mind is unlikely to discover during the daily grind -- no matter much it obsesses, gathers data, or blames the "organization."
That's why Thomas Edison and Salvadore Dali used to take naps during the day. They knew they got their best ideas in dreams, so they decided to wake up more than once a day. Yes!
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
1. Before going to bed tonight, bring to mind a compelling question, challenge, or opportunity that you've been wrestling with.
2. As you fall asleep, stay focused on it.
3. When you awake, write your dream down, even if it makes no sense.
4. Stay in bed for a few minutes and reflect on each element of your dream. See if you can make any connections to the question you asked before going to sleep. If so... write them down.
PS: I once asked a group of chemical engineers to remember their dreams after the first day of a two-day creative thinking training I was leading.
Before the session started on the second day, one of the engineers -- with a huge grin on his face -- asked if he could address the full group and proceeded to explain that, the night before, he dreamed the solution to an engineering problem he'd been wrestling with for two years.
With great excitement, he then drew the solution on a flipchart, complete with detailed schematics. His collaborator, also attending the training, just sat there, completely speechless. Then they both started laughing.
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny!'" - Isaac Asimov
Technique excerpted from Awake at the Wheel.
Illustration
Picasso
Idea Champions University
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I Don't Just Write This Blog, I Talk, Too -- As in Keynote Presentations
I am happy to announce that Core Speaker's Agency has stepped up to the plate and taken me on as one of their featured keynote speakers in the field of innovation.
I am also very ably represented by Speaker's Platform.
This is good news because both of these savvy bureaus are way better at representing me than I am at representing myself.
In the past 9 months, I've delivered keynotes for National Institutes of Health (twice), EXL, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Inpex, Intertek and, in October, BASF.
Here is a link to the topics I am currently offering.
Here's my approach to keynote speaking.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 04:23 PM | Comments (0)
The Joy of Not Knowing What Can't Be Done
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)
September 05, 201199% of Success is Built on Failure
Or as Thomas Watson, former CEO of IBM once said, "Hurry up and make your first 500 mistakes." Your move...
Charles Kettering
Idea Champions
Rethinking Failure
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)
How We Get the Job Done
Most people think that the ability to be innovative is a mystical state available only to the chosen few.
The effort, they imagine, takes a lot of time and hard work. And since they don't have time and don't like hard work, they reason that innovation just isn't in the cards for them.
But innovation is not a mystical state. It's a natural state -- a human birthright. The people in your organization, in fact, already are innovative. The only thing is: their natural ability to be innovative is being obscured by their own habits of mind and a variety of bothersome organizational constraints.
Their challenge is the same one as seeing the "hidden" arrow in the FedEx logo (look between the "E" and the "X").The arrow has always been there, but most people never notice it.
This is the work of Idea Champions. We help people see what they already have, but don't know how to access.
We help people make meaningful adjustments of vision, insight, and perception so they can acknowledge, embrace, and apply their innate ability to be more creative on the job -- and, for those clients who want to reinvent their "innovation process", we help them figure it out.
What follows is a brief summary of how we do this...
1. Know Thy Customer:
Long before we ever get into a room with participants, we do our due diligence -- learning about WHO we are serving, WHAT they expect, and HOW our time with them will be the most significant.
Sometimes this takes the form of phone interviews. Or online polls. Or studying key documents our clients send us in order to understand their current reality, industry, business challenges, organizational constraints, and hoped for outcomes.
2. Customization:
Based on our assessment of our client's needs, we put together a game plan to get the job done. Towards this end, we draw on more than 100 "innovation-sparking" modules we've been developing since 1986.
3. Co-Creation:
Early in the design process, we invite our clients to give us feedback about our approach. Their feedback stirs the creative soup and provides us with the input needed to transform a good session design into a great one.
4. Spacing In:
We make a great deal of effort to ensure that the space in which our sessions take place are as ideal as possible. Form may follow function, but function also follows form.
When participants walk into an Idea Champions session, they begin "mind shifting" even before the session begins. It is both our belief and experience that culture/environment is a huge X factor for creativity and innovation.
5. Drive Fear Out of the Workplace:
Peter Drucker, America's sage management consultant, was a big proponent of removing fear from the workplace. So are we. Towards that end, each of our sessions begins with a norm-setting process that makes it easy for participants to establish a dynamic culture of innovation for the day.
6. Mindset:
Organizations don't innovate, people do. But not just any "people." No. People who are energized, curious, confident, fascinated, creative, focused, adaptive, collaborative, and committed.
People who emerge from our sessions are significantly more in touch with these "innovation qualities" than when they began. Their minds have changed. They see opportunities when, previously, all they saw were problems.
They let go of perfectionism, old paradigms, and habitual ways of thinking. In their place? Open-mindedness, listening, idea generation, original thinking, full engagement, and the kind of commitment that drives meaningful change.
7. Balancing Polarities:
Human beings, by nature, are dualistic, (i.e. "us" vs. "them," "short-term" vs. "long-term," "incremental" vs. "breakthrough," "left brain" vs. "right brain".)
The contradictions that show up in a corporate environment (or workshop) can either be innovation depleters or innovation catalysts. It all depends how these seeming conflicting territories are navigated. Idea Champions is committed to whole-brain thinking -- not just right brain or left brain thinking.
Our work with organizations has shown us that one of the pre-conditions for innovation is a company's ability to strike the balance between these polarities.
Each workshop we lead and each consulting engagement we commit to is guided by our understanding of how to help our clients find the healthy balance between the above-noted polarities.
8. Expert Facilitation: "A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile when someone contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind," wrote St. Exupery.
This, quite simply, is what Idea Champions does. But we do far more than just contemplate. We also architect and build.
Since 1986, we've been facilitating innovation-sparking engagements for a wide variety of industries. We have mastered the art and science of turning lead (or leaders) into gold. And we can train your people to do the same thing we do.
9. Experiential Challenges: "What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand."
So said the great Chinese sage, Confucius. This 14-word quote describes the essence of our work. Simply put, we get people off their "ifs, ands or buts," and into the experience of what's possible. 
While we value theory, research, models, data, best practices, business cases, and most of the other flora and fauna of business life, we've come to understand that the challenge of sparking insight, breakthrough, and change, is best accomplished by doing -- not talking.
That's why all of our sessions include experiential challenges that provide participants with visible ways of seeing innovation in action -- what supports it and what obscures it.
10. Emergent Design: Awakening the creativity of an organization's workforce is not a follow-the-dots exercise.
Although all of our interventions begin with carefully crafted project plans and agendas, our facilitators are fluent in the art and science of making the kind of real-time adjustments, refinements, and improvisations that are the difference between a good session and a great session.
Facilitators who attempt to imitate our approach find it difficult to succeed without first learning how to master the art of emergent design. The good news is that it can be learned -- and this is just one of the things we teach in our Train the Trainer programs.
11. Edutainment: Idea Champions sessions are a hybrid of two elements: education and entertainment. We know that when participants are enjoying themselves their chances of learning increase exponentially.
That's why we make all of our sessions a hybrid of education and entertainment. Participants do not get tired. They do not get bored. They do not sneak long looks at their Blackberries.
12. Full Engagement: Idea Champions sessions are highly participatory. Our facilitators are skilled at teasing out the brilliance of participants, regardless of their social style, job title, or astrological sign. 
But perhaps more importantly, our facilitators know how to help participants tease out each others' brilliance. Eventually, everyone gets into the act. The shy people take center stage and the power players take a back seat. The collective wisdom in the room gets a much-needed chance to be accessed and expressed.
13. Convergence: Idea Champions is successful because what we do works. And one of the reasons WHY it works is because our sessions help participants translate ideas into action.
Ideas are powerful, but they are still only the fuzzy front end of the innovation process. Ultimately, they need to turn into results. Creativity needs to be commercialized. Our workshops, trainings, and consulting interventions help our clients do exactly that.
14. Tools, Techniques, and Takeaways: Ideas Champions closes the gap between rhetoric and reality. We don't just talk about innovation or teach about it -- we spark the experience of it. And we do that in very practical ways.
One way is by teaching people how to use specific, mind-opening techniques to access their innate creativity. Another way is by providing our clients with a variety of innovation-sparking guidelines, processes, and materials that can be immediately used on the job.
Free the Genie
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September 04, 2011Steve Jobs' Large Vision
What is your large vision? What difference do you want to make?
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 03:29 AM | Comments (0)
35 Awesome Quotes from Einstein
Since 1986, every innovation workshop I've facilitated has included a poster of Albert Einstein.
Somehow, Einstein's smiling countenance inspires everyone in the room -- no matter what their social style, gender, or title.
The only thing I find more fascinating than this is the incredible amount of powerful quotes he left behind.
1. "The only real valuable thing is intuition."
2. "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
3. "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
4. "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
5. "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."
6. "The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge."
7. "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
8. "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
9. "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."
10. "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."
11. "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
12. "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
13. "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
14. "Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."
15. "When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours. That's relativity."
16. "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."
17. "What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world."
18. "A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be."
19. "A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?"
20. "A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?"
21. "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
22. "Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."
23. "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
24. "Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them."
25. "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious."
26. "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
27. "I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right."
28. "The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive."
29. "Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."
30. "We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us."
31. "You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only ever had one."
32. "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
33. "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."
34. "Not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted counts."
35. "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
Idea Champions
Photo
Photo
Photo
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:09 AM | Comments (9)
September 03, 2011Express Your Ideas!
BTW, Rollo May wrote one of the best books on the roots of creativity that I have ever read. Very compelling. It's a classic: The Courage to Create.
Idea Champions
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)
September 02, 2011Building Innovation Capabilities
Most Heart of Innovation readers only know about Idea Champions from what they read on this blog. They do not necessarily know what we DO when we're not writing this blog.
If this describes you, here -- in the words of one of our newest clients (Highmark) -- is a clue.
"Idea Champions did a fantastic job conducting training for our leadership team! They have a very pragmatic approach to building innovation capabilities -- one that leaders can really connect with. The training was entertaining and hit the key points home. They are highly recommended and we plan to continue having them as a partner."
- Darcy Smith, VP, Subsidiary HR
What our other clients say
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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)
The Wisdom of Insecurity
What a perfect quote for these insecure times! Last week Hurricane Irene blew through the Catskill Mountains, where I live. Whole towns were washed away. One day your house is standing. The next day it's not. Same goes for your business... your job... and your entire industry. The question, of course, is how to maintain your sanity and your mojo even though everything around you is changing.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
