Innovation from the Inside Out
These days, almost all of my clients are talking about the need to establish a culture of innovation.
Some, I'm happy to report, are actually doing something about it. Hallelujah! They are taking bold steps forward to turn theory into action.
The challenge for them is the same as it's always been -- and that is, to find a simple, authentic way to address the challenge from the inside out -- to water the root of the tree, not just the branches.
Guess what? Systems are not sufficient to guarantee change. In the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Systems die. Instinct remains."
This is not to say that organizations should ignore systems and structures in their effort to establish a culture of innovation. They shouldn't.
But systems and structures all too often become the Holy Grail -- much in the same way that Six Sigma has become the Holy Grail.
Unfortunately, when the addiction to systems and structures rules the day, an organization's quest for a culture of innovation degenerates into nothing much more than a cult of innovation.
Organizations do not innovate. People innovate. Inspired people. Fascinated people. Creative people. Committed people. That's where innovation begins. On the inside.
The organization's role -- just like the individual manager's role -- is to get out of the way. And while this "getting out of the way" will undoubtedly include the effort to formulate supportive systems, processes, and protocols, it is important to remember that systems, processes, and protocols are never the answer.
They are the context, not the content.
They are the husk, not kernel.
They are the menu, not the meal.
Ultimately, organizations are faced with the same challenge that religions are faced with. Religious leaders may speak passionately about the virtues their congregation needs to be living by, but sermons only name the challenge and remind people to experience something -- they don't necessarily change behavior.
Change comes from within the heart and mind of each individual. It cannot be legislated or evangelized into reality.
What's needed in organizations who aspire to a culture of innovation, is an inner change. People need to experience something within themselves that will spark and sustain their effort to innovate -- and when they experience this "something," they will be self-sustaining.
They will think about their projects in the shower, in their car, and in their dreams. They will need very little "management" from the outside. Inside out will rule the day -- not outside in. Intrinsic motivation will flourish.
People will innovate not because they are told to, but because they want to. Open Space Technology is a good metaphor for this. When people are inspired, share a common, compelling goal and have the time and space to collaborate, the results become self-organizing.
You can create all the reward systems you want. You can reinvent your workspace until you're blue in the face. You can license the latest and greatest idea management tool, but unless each person in your organization OWNS the need to innovate and finds a way to tap into their own INNATE BRILLIANCE, all you'll end up with is a mixed bag of systems, processes, and protocols -- the husk, not the kernel -- the innovation flotsam and jetsam that the next administration or next CEO or next key stakeholder will mock, reject or change at the drop of a hat if the ROI doesn't show up in the next 20 minutes.
You want culture change? You want a culture of innovation?
Great. Then find a way to help each and every person in your organization come from the inside out. Deeply consider how you can awaken, nurture, and develop the primal need all people have to create something extraordinary.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:58 AM | Comments (6)
September 10, 200910 Ways to Help Left Brainers Tap Into the Best of Their Creativity
If your job requires you to lead meetings, brainstorming sessions, or problem solving gatherings of any kind, chances are good that most of the people you come in contact with are left-brain dominant: analytical, logical, linear folks with a passion for results and a gnawing fear that the meeting you are about to lead will end with a rousing chorus of kumbaya.
Not exactly the kind of mindset conducive to breakthrough thinking.
Do not lose heart, oh facilitators of the creative process. Even if you find yourself in a room full of 10,000 left brainers, there are tons of ways to work with this mindset in service to bringing out the very best of the group's collective genius.
Click below for ten tips...
1. Diffuse the fear of ambiguity by continually clarifying the process
Most left-brain-dominant people hate open-ended processes and anything that smacks of ambiguity. Next time you find yourself leading a creative thinking session, make it a point to give participants, early is the session, a mental map of the process you'll be using. Explain that the session will consist of two key elements: divergent thinking and convergent thinking.
In the divergent segment, you will be helping people consider non-traditional approaches and ideas. In the convergent segment, you will be helping people analyze, evaluate, and select from the multiplicity of ideas and solutions they have generated. If participants are going to get uneasy, it will happen during the divergent segment. Your task? Periodically remind them of where they are in the process. "Here's our objective," you might say. "Here's where we've been. Here's where we are. And here's we're going. Any questions?"
2. Get people talking about AHAS! they've had in their own lives
No matter how risk averse or analytical people in your sessions may be, it's likely that all of them -- at some time or another -- have had a really great idea. "Creativity" really isn't all that foreign to them (although they may think it is). All you need to do to get them in touch with that part of themselves is help them recall a moment in their lives when they were operating at a high level of creativity.
Get them talking about how it felt, what were the conditions, and what preceded the breakthrough. You'll be amazed at the stories you'll hear and how willing everyone will be, after that, to really stretch out.
3. Identify (and transform) limiting assumptions
One of the biggest obstacles to creativity is the assumption-making part of our brain -- the part that is forever drawing lines in the sand -- the part that is ruled by the past. Most people are not aware of the assumptions they have -- in the same way that most drivers are not aware of the blind spot in their mirror.
If you want people to be optimally creative, it is imperative that you find a way to help them identify their limiting assumptions about the challenge they are brainstorming. "Awareness cures," explains psychologist Fritz Perls. But DON'T get caught in a lengthy discussion about the collective limiting assumptions of the group. This is often just another way that left-brain dominant participants will default to analyzing and debating.
Instead, lead a process that will help participants identify and explore their limiting assumptions. Then, time allowing, help them transform each of these limiting assumptions into open-ended "How can we?" questions for brainstorming.
4. Encourage idea fluency
Dr. Linus Pauling, one of the most influential chemists of the 20th century, was once asked, "How do you get a good idea?" His response? "The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away."
That's why "Go for a quantity of ideas" is the first rule of brainstorming. You want to encourage people, early and often, to go for quantity. This will short circuit participants' perfectionistic, self-censoring tendencies -- two behaviors that are certain death to creativity.
5. Invite humor
The right use of humor is a great way to help people tap into their right brains. Indeed, "haha" and "aha" are closely related. Both are the result of surprise or discontinuity. You laugh when your expectations are confronted in a delightful way.
Please note, however, that your use of humor must not be demeaning to anyone in the room. Freud explained that every "joke" has a victim and is used by the teller to gain advantage over the victim -- a way to affirm power. And when a group finds itself in the realm of power (and the yielding of power), it will undoubtedly end up in left brain territory.
You don't want to feed that beast.
Instead, set the tone by telling a victimless joke or two, or by your own self-deprecating humor. But even more important than "joke telling" is to allow and encourage a free flowing sense of playfulness.
6. Do the right brain/ left brain two-step
Brainstorming for 3, 4 or 5 hours in a row is unusually exhausting, resulting in the "diminishing returns" syndrome. Creative thinking, like life itself, follows natural laws. Day is followed by night, winter by spring, inbreath by outbreath.
That's why the design of your creative thinking session needs to alternate between the cerebral and the kinesthetic -- between brainstorming and some kind of hands-on, experiential activity. By doing this two-step, participants will stay refreshed and engaged.
7. Periodically mention that chaos precedes creative breakthroughs
Left-brained, logical people are rarely comfortable with ambiguity, chaos and the unknown. It seems messy. Disorganized. Downright unprofessional. Indeed, much of the Six Sigma work being done in corporations these days is to reduce variability and increase predictability.
Paradox alert!
If you want to get really creative, you will need to increase variability and help participants get more "out of control." Picasso said it best, "The act of creation is first of all an act of destruction." Tom Peters said it second best, "Innovation is a messy business."
So, when you sense that your session is filled with ambiguity-phobic people, remember to mention how it's normal for ambiguity to precede a creative breakthrough. You may even want to mention how you will be purposefully infusing the session with moments of ambiguity, just to prime the creative pump.
8. Establish criteria for evaluation
The reason why ideas are usually considered a dime a dozen is because most people are unclear about their process for identifying the priceless ones. That's why a lot of brainstorming sessions are frustrating. Tons of possibilities are generated, but there is no clear path for winnowing and choosing.
Let's assume, for example, that the session you facilitate generates 100 powerful, new ideas. Do you have a process for helping participants pare the 100 down to a manageable few? If not, you need one. Ideally, the criteria for selecting ideas will be clarified before the session and introduced to participants early in the session.
Please note that there is some debate amongst brainstorm mavens as to when to offer the criteria. Some say this should happen at the beginning of the session (to help assuage the left brain need for logic and boundaries). Others suggest delaying the identification of criteria until just before the idea evaluation process. Either way will work. Your call.
9. Be a referee when you have to
No matter how many ground rules you mention about "suspending judgment" or "delaying evaluation," you are going to have some heavy hitters in the room just waiting for a moment to doubt your approach or "the process."
Indeed, one of the favorite (often unconscious) strategies of some left-brainers is to debate and question the facilitator every step of the way. While you want to honor their concerns and right to speak their truth, you also want to hold the bar high for the intention behind the brainstorming session -- and that is to challenge the status quo, entertain the new, and create space for imaginations to roam.
Don't be afraid to be firm with participants who want to control the session. At the very least, ask them to suspend their need for "convergence" (i.e. evaluation, judgment, decision making) to the end of the session when there will be plenty of time to exercise that very important muscle.
10. Consult with the tough people on the breaks
Every once in a while, a really opinionated person shows up in a session -- someone who is probably very smart, extremely competent, experienced, with a big BS detector, and just enough arrogance to make you feel uncomfortable. These people can really affect the group, especially if they hold positions of power in the organization.
In the best of all worlds, these people would always be on your side. They won't be. Be careful about playing to these people in a neurotic attempt to get their approval. You won't get it. But DO seek them out on breaks and engage them. Get them talking. Pay attention. See if you can pick up any useful feedback or clues about revising your agenda or approach.
Even though you wouldn't necessarily choose to be trapped on a desert island with them, these folks may turn out to be a huge blessing for you -- because they are carriers of a particular sensibility that needs to be honored. More than likely, some of the other people in the room are feeling the same thing, but have been too polite to show their true colors. So, don't be afraid of these people. They can be a very valuable resource.
* Excerpted from 32 Ways of Working with the Left Brain, part of Idea Champions' Platinum Innovation Kit
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:43 PM | Comments (2)
September 02, 2009We're #1 AND #2!
We are happy to announce that Online College Degree has chosen to feature two of Idea Champions' creative thinking tools as #1 and #2 on their list of 100 Excellent Online Tools to Feed Your Creativity.
There's lots of other useful tools on the list, as well. Check it out.
Another cool creative thinking tool on the Idea Champions site that you may not have seen yet is Free the Genie.
All of these are featured on IngenuityBank, our enterprise-wide, idea management software program which we have recently overhauled to make even easier to use. (Oh, by the way, that's me juggling and providing the introductory rap.)
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:44 AM | Comments (0)
August 22, 2009INNOVATION: It's About Time!
During the past few years I've noticed a curious paradox heading its ugly rear among business leaders tooting the horn for innovation.
On one hand they want the rank and file to step up to the plate and own the effort to innovate.
On the other hand, they are unwilling to grant the people they are exhorting any more TIME to innovate.
Somehow, magically, they expect aspiring innovators to not only generate game-changing ideas in their spare time, but do all the research, data collection, business case building, piloting, project management, idea development, testing, report generation, and troubleshooting in between their other assignments.
Tooth fairy alert!
This is not the way it happens, folks! Not only is this approach unreasonable, it's unfair, unbalanced, and unworkable...
You cannot shoehorn game-changing innovation projects into the already overcommitted schedules of your overworked workforce.
If you do, it won't be innovation you'll get, only half-finished projects and a whole lot of cranky people complaining to you in between meetings.
Aspiring innovators don't need pep talks. They need TIME. Time to think. And time to dream. Time to collaborate. And time to plan. Time to pilot. And time to test. Time to tinker. And time to tinker again.
That's why Google and 3M give its workforce 20% of their time to work on projects not immediately connected to its core business. That's why W.L. Gore gives its workforce a half day a week to follow their fascinations. That's why Corel instituted it's virtual garage program.
"Dig where the oil is," Edward deBono once said. Indeed! And where is the oil? Right beneath the feet of each and every employee who is fascinated by the work they do, aligned with their company's mission, and given enough time to make magic happen.
Need proof? 50% of Google's newly launched features were birthed during this so-called "free time" -- midwived by engineers, programmers, and other assorted wizards happily following their muse.
The fear? If you give people "freedom" they'll end up playing video games and taking 3-hour lunches. Alas, when fear takes over, folks, (the same fear Peter Drucker asked us all many years ago to remove from the workplace), vision is supplanted by supervision and all his micromanaging cousins.
Time to innovate is not time wasted. It is time invested.
Freedom does not necessarily lead to anarchy. It can lead to breakthrough just as easily.
Remember, organizations do not innovate. People do. And people need time to innovate. Time = freedom. Freedom to choose. Freedom to explore. Freedom to express. And yes, even freedom to "fail."
If you've hired the right people, communicated a compelling vision, and established the kind of culture that brings out the best in a human being, you are 80% there.
Now all you need to do is find a way to give your people the time they need to innovate.
(And hey, if you've found a way to do this successfully, let us know and we'll share the results with Heart of Innovation readers some time soon.)
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:36 AM | Comments (4)
August 03, 200935 Creative Thinking Techniques
Those of us at Idea Champions have been designing and facilitating creative thinking sessions for a wide range of organizations since 1986.
We've worked with left-brained people, right-brained people, and air-brained people -- all of whom have been interested in "getting out of the box."
In the process of providing our service, one thing has continued to astound us: No one has any time, or more precisely -- thinks they have any time. And because they don't, the need to "cut to the chase" remains paramount.
Speed rules -- and along with it the desire for "tools and techniques."
Now, we have nothing against tools and techniques. They can be very helpful. Golf pros give them out all the time. But tools and techniques are never enough -- especially in the realm of creative thinking.
Can they be useful? Yes, they can -- in the same way that jumper cables can be useful if your car won't start. But first you need a car -- and after that, someplace to go! Without a car and a destination, jumper cables are just a meaningless prop.
If you are committed to birthing a BIG IDEA, first understand that the car is you and the engine that powers the car is your passion for bringing something new into the world.
Only when that is in place, will tools and techniques make sense.
Some of the methods described in Awake at the Wheel will be right up your alley. Some will not. Some are so common-sensical you'll think you could have invented them. Some are so non-sensical you'll dismiss them as trivial.
Don't worry about loving them all. You won't. Just find the ones that interest you and give them a shot -- whatever it takes to get those wheels inside you turning once again.
Two different parts of you will be activated by these methods: the subconscious and the conscious.
The sub-conscious tools will increase your receptivity to new ideas, helping you access the part of you that already knows. Using the subconscious tools will feel a bit like walking into a dark room. At first there will seem to be nothing to see. But after a while your eyes will adjust and you'll begin making sense of what is there.
The second set of tools is less about receptivity than proactivity.
This approach presumes it is possible to quicken creativity by purposefully shaking things up in various ways. Experimentation is an important part of this approach. Trial and error, too -- much in the same way that chemists mix and match elements in the hopes of synthesizing new discoveries.
Is there a perfect technique? No. Just like there's no perfect diet, place to live, or relationship. What works for you on Monday may not work for you on Sunday. What works for you in the morning may not work for you at night.
But that's what makes the world -- just like the wheel -- go round and round.
And that's why we offer you 35 different methods to choose from. Is there an organizing principle? Yes, there is. The tools fall into five categories:
1. INTEND: To have in mind as something to be done or brought about; to have a purpose or design.
2. ATTEND: To be present at; to take care of or wait upon; to listen and give heed to.
3. SUSPEND: To defer opinion or evaluation to a later occasion; to render temporarily void.
4. EXTEND: To stretch out; to place at full length; to enlarge the scope of or make more comprehensive.
5. CONNECT: To join or unite; to establish communication between; to associate, attach or place in relationship.
Buy the book here.
Read more about the book here.
Watch old Jews telling jokes here.
Get your Innovation Kit here
Discover Woodstock's most beautiful B&B here
Read about Mozart here
Check out one of my son's favorite online cartoons here.
Learn more about Spiro Agnew here
Take ten minutes to get a breakthrough idea here
Don't click anything on this line.
Play with our online Genie here
Read our entertaining FAQ here
Discover why most corporate innovation efforts fail here
Or call us at 845.679.1066 and learn more about how we can help you and your organization get out of the box, the lamp, AND the cave. "If not YOU, who? If not NOW, when?"
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:24 PM | Comments (0)
July 02, 2009The Single Sock Theory
Dear Movers and Shakers:
We now interrupt this blog with an official announcement of the first annual WHAT HAPPENS TO THE SINGLE SOCKS? contest.
While we all have our differences, there is one thing we all have in common and that is the SINGLE SOCKS experience -- as in "Where the hell is my other sock?"
Let the theories begin!
Simply submit your favorite theories here and, who knows, you might end up the GRAND PRIZE WINNER: An Idea Champions Silver Innovation Kit (retails for $199) + five of my unmatched socks (which some sock conspiracists tell me are likely to match yours.) Sock it to me!
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 06:58 PM | Comments (12)
June 29, 2009I'm Giving Away the Farm
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and fire in the belly.
Online it is,
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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:35 AM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2009100 Simple, Low-Cost, Soulful Ways to Be More Creative on the Job
Have you ever noticed America's strange fascination with lists? Cruise any supermarket magazine rack and you will invariably notice some version of the following:
"5 Ways to Find Your Soul Mate"
"10 Ways to Profit from the Recession"
"50 Ways to Retire Before 40"
"The 100 Best Companies to Work For"
For years I ignored this phenomenon. Then I mocked it. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Perfect sense.
Lists simplify.
Lists cut to the chase.
Lists help people make sense of the world.
And so, in honor of America's love of lists, here is my time-tested, easy-to-read, highly compelling, list of 100 Ways to Be More Creative on the Job.
1. Find the most creative people at work and ask for their ideas.
2. Brainstorm daily with a co-worker.
3. Tape record your ideas on your commute to and from work.
4. Present your biggest challenge to a child.
5. Take your team off-site for a day.
6. Listen more carefully to your inner muse.
7. Play music in your office.
8. Go for a daily brainstorming walk.
9. Ask someone to collaborate with you on your favorite project.
10. Exercise during your lunch break.
11. Turn on a radio at random times and listen for a "message."
12. Invite your customers and vendors to brainstorming sessions.
13. Think of five other ways to define your challenge.
14. Assign a "fun fairy" to each of your meetings.
15. Reward yourself, in specific ways, for small successes.
16. Introduce odd catalysts into your daily routine.
17. Get out of the office more regularly
18. Play with fun toys in your office whenever you get stuck.
19. Take more naps.
20. Take the train, instead of driving to work.
21. Work in cafes.
22. Transform your assumptions into "How can I?" questions.
23. Write down as many ideas as you can think of in five minutes
24. Redesign your office.
25. Take regular daydreaming breaks.
26. Dissolve turf boundaries.
27. Initiate cross-functional brainstorming sessions.
28. Arrive earlier to the office than anyone else.
29. Turn a conference room into an upbeat "think tank" room.
30. Read odd books -- having nothing to do with your work.
31. Block off time on your calendar for creative thinking.
32. Take a shower in the middle of the day.
33. Keep an idea notebook at your desk or in your briefcase.
34. Decorate your office with inspiring quotes and images.
35. Create a headline of the future and the story behind it.
36. Choose to be more creative.
37. Recall a time in your life when you were very creative. Feel it.
38. Wander around a bookstore while thinking about a challenge.
39. Trust your instincts more.
40. Immerse yourself in your most exciting project.
41. Open a magazine and free associate off of a word or image.
42. Write down your ideas when you first wake up in the morning.
43. Ask yourself what the simplest solution is.
44. Get fast feedback from people you trust.
45. Conduct more experiments.
45. Ask yourself what the market wants or needs.
46. Ask "What's the worst thing that could happen if I fail?"
47. Pilot your idea, even if it's not completely ready.
48. Work "in the cracks" -- small bursts of creative energy.
49. Incubate (sleep on it).
50. Test existing boundaries -- and then test them again.
51. Schedule time with the smartest people at work.
52. Visit your customers more frequently.
53. Benchmark your competitors -- then adapt their successes.
54. Enroll your boss or peers in your most fascinating project.
55. Imagine you already know the answer. What would it be?
56. Create ground rules with your team that foster new thinking.
57. Ask stupid questions. Then ask some more.
58. Challenge everything you do.
59. Give yourself a deadline -- and stick to it
60. Look for three alternatives to every solution you originate.
61. Write your ideas in a notebook and review them regularly.
62. Make connections between seemingly disconnected things.
63. Use creative thinking techniques.
64. Play with the Free the Genie cards.
65 Use similes and metaphors when describing your ideas.
66. Have more fun. Be sillier than usual.
67. Ask "How can I accomplish my goal in half the time?"
68. Take a break when you are stuck on a problem.
69. Think how your biggest hero might approach your challenge.
70. Declare Friday afternoons a "no-email zone."
71. Ask five people how they would improve your idea.
72. Create a wall of images that inspires you.
73. Do more of what already helps you be creative off the job.
74. Laugh more, worry less.
75. Remember your dreams -- then write them down.
76. Ask impossible questions.
77. Eliminate all unnecessary bureaucracy and admin tasks.
78. Create a compelling vision of what you want to accomplish.
79. Work on hottest project every day, even if only 5 minutes.
80. Do whatever is necessary to create a sense of urgency.
81. Go for a walk anytime you're stuck.
82. Meditate or do relaxation exercises.
83. Take more breaks.
84. Go out for lunch with your team more often.
85. Eat lunch with a different person each day.
86. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
87. Invite an outside facilitator to lead a brainstorming session.
88. Take more risks outside of the office (i.e. surf, ski, box etc.)
89. Ask for help when you need it.
90. Know that it is possible to make a difference.
91. Find a mentor.
92. Acknowledge all your successes at the end of each day.
93. Create an "idea piggy bank" and make deposits daily.
94. Have shorter meetings.
95. Try the techniques in Awake at the Wheel
96. Don't listen to or watch the news for 24 hours.
97. Make drawings of your ideas.
98. Bring your project or challenge to mind before going to bed.
99. Divide your idea into component parts. Then rethink each part.
100. Post this list near your desk and read it daily.
NOTE: If your favorite way to be more creative on the job is not included on the above list, you may want to enter Idea Champions' First Annual 100 Ways to Be More Creative on the Job contest by clicking on the comment link below.
Prizes will be awarded in the following FIVE categories:
1. Most Intriguing Suggestion
2. Funniest
3. Most Likely to Start a Revolution
4. Wished We Thought of It First
5. Biggest Bang for the Buck
KIND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO: Anne Howe, David Beath, Jim Aubele, Gary Kvistad, Howard Moody, Farrell Reynolds, Hector Cruz Rosa, Jill Peckinpaugh, and Marcy Turkington for their wonderful suggestions.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:16 AM | Comments (5)
May 26, 2009Blue Sky Thinking for Fun and Profit
In 1989, Gary Kasparov, the Soviet Union Grand Chess Master, played a two game match against "Deep Blue," the reigning supercomputer of the time. Kasparov won easily.
When asked by the media what his competitive advantage was, he cited two things: intuition and the ability to fantasize.
(And this from a master strategist!)
Few of us, in the workplace, are ever encouraged to fantasize -- a behavior most commonly associated with children, slackers, and flakes.
And yet, fantasizing is exactly how many breakthrough ideas get their start -- the act of some off-the-grid maverick entertaining the seemingly impossible...
HERE'S A SIMPLE WAY TO FIND SOME BLUE SKY
1. Make a wish for the successful resolution of your challenge (i.e. "I wish I had more time").
2. Extend your wish by making a wild wish (i.e. "I wish I didn"t have to work my regular job").
3. Extend your wild wish further by thinking of a fantasy solution -- a seemingly impossible way to get a result (i.e. "a fairy godmother shows up at midnight to do my work").
4. Distill your fantasy solution down to a core principle (i.e. "I get more help" or "I outsource my responsibilities").
5. Using this principle as a clue, brainstorm new ideas for the successful resolution of your challenge.
Photo
Excerpted from Awake at the Wheel
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2009Are You an Idea Addict?
There are lots of things in this world that people get addicted to: alcohol, nicotine, heroin, sex, and Blackberries just to name a few.
But perhaps the biggest addiction, one that often flies in under the radar, is the addiction to OUR OWN IDEAS.
Here's how it works:
We think something up. We feel a buzz. We embrace the idea. We think about it some more. We tweak it, we name it, we pitch it, and POOF, the addiction begins.
At first, like most habits, it's subtle, harmless, a seemingly casual pursuit with a thousand positive side effects: increased energy, renewed focus, a feeling of well-being, a heightened sense of awareness.
Like wow, man.
But then...
We think about it in the shower. We think about it in the car. We think about it when we don't want to think about it. We even dream about it.
Soon we want EVERYONE to know about our idea. We want them to feel the buzz. We want them to nod in agreement. We want them to recognize just how pure our fixation is.
If this is where it ended, it wouldn't be that big a deal. If this is where it ended, I wouldn't be calling it an addiction. Maybe I'd be calling it an "inspiration," or a "commitment" or a "visitation from the Muse." But it doesn't end here. It goes on and on and on and on -- and often, to our own detriment.
If you have a business, of course, you WANT to conjure up cool ideas that turn you on. That's a good thing. But if you cling to ideas just because they're YOURS, or just because they are FAMILIAR, or just because you've invested major amounts of TIME in them, then it's definitely time to rethink where you're coming from.
It may even be time to get help.
The story behind the creation of the iPhone is a good example of what I'm talking about. Steve Jobs and his Apple team had to face the music and back off their own addiction to what they had created in order to create something even greater.
Here's what Steve had to say about the matter...
"There always seems to come a moment (when what you're doing) is not quite working. Take the iPhone. We had a different enclosure design for the iPhone until way too close to the introduction to ever change it. And I came in one morning, and I said 'I just don't love this. I can't convince myself to fall in love with this. And this is the most important product we've ever done.'
"So we pushed the reset button. We went through all the zillions of models we made and ideas we'd had... It was hell because we had to go to the team and say, 'All the work you've done for the last year, we're going to have to throw it away and start over, and we're going to have to work twice as hard now because we don't have enough time.'
"And you know what everybody said, 'Sign us up.'
That happens more than you think because this is not just engineering and science. There is art, too. Sometimes when you're in the middle of one of these crises, you're not sure you're going to make it to the other end. But we've always made it, and so we have a certain degree of confidence, although sometimes you wonder."
Fortune Magazine (p. 72), March 17, 2008
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 08:20 PM | Comments (1)
May 05, 2009Seeing Through the Eyes of a Child
Tonight, I came home from a meeting, and the image above was waiting for me in my inbox. Somehow, when I was gone, my 14-year old son figured out how to do this. (That's him). I will ask the wizard in the morning and let you know how he did it.
"The greatest invention in the world is the mind of a child." - Thomas Edison
"Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they're looking for ideas." - Paula Poundstone
"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." - Pablo Picasso
EXERCISE: Today, present your biggest problem to a child and ask him/her for three possible solutions.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:37 AM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2009The Seed of Fascination
The reason why many of us do not get inspired ideas is because we are not inspired.
The reason we are not inspired is because we do not follow our fascinations.
The reason we do not follow our fascinations is because we judge them as impractical, irrelevant, or impossible.
And so it goes -- sometimes for an entire life. The good news? This cycle can be reversed.
It begins by suspending judgment. It's followed by entertaining what fascinates you. It continues by getting inspired and then acting on the fruit of your inspiration.
WHAT TO DO
1. On a piece of paper, create three parallel headlines -- the first, "What Fascinates Me," the second, "People I Admire," and the third, "What I Would Do If I Had More Time."
2. Jot down at least five responses under each headline.
3. Look for connections between your various responses.
4. Write down your inspired ideas. Then circle your favorite.
Excerpted from Awake at the Wheel: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling (in an uphill world).
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2009On the Job Innovation Coaching
The root of the word "manager" comes from the same root as the words "manipulate" and "maneuver", meaning to "adapt or change something to suit one's purpose".
Although these words may carry a pejorative meaning for some of us, there is nothing inherently wrong with them. Indeed, into each life a little manipulation and maneuvering must fall.
For example, if the door to your office gets stuck, a handyman might need to manipulate it to get it working again. If there is a log jam at the elevator, you might decide to maneuver around the crowd and take the stairs. No problem there.
However, there is another kind of manipulation and maneuvering that is a problem -- when managers use their position to bend subordinates to their will. While short-term gains may result, in the end the heart is taken out of people. Your staff may become good soldiers, but they will lose something far more important in the process -- their ability to think for themselves.
General George Patton said it best, "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."
Unfortunately, ingenuity in many corporations has gone the way of the hula-hoop. "Intellectual capital" is the name of the game these days -- and it is the enlightened manager's duty to learn how to play.
Only those companies will succeed whose people are empowered to think for themselves and respond creatively to the myriad of changes going on all around them.
Simply put, managers must make the shift from manipulators to manifesters. They must learn how to coach their people into increasingly higher states of creative thinking and creative doing. They must realize that the root of their organization's problem is not the economy, not cycle time, not strategy or outsourcing, but their own inability to tap into the power of their workforce's innate creativity.
Where does this empowerment start?
First, by recognizing what power is: "the ability to do or act". And second, by realizing that power is intimately connected to ideas.
Clearly, one's ability to "do or act" depends on there being something worth doing or acting upon. What is an idea? Where does it come from? And how can a manager increase the chances of a good one showing up?
Most managers, unfortunately, perceive new ideas as problems -- especially if the ideas are not their own.
Bottom line, they don't pay enough attention to the ideas of the people around them. They say they want to innovate. They say they want "their people" to do something different. But they do precious little to support their subordinates in their efforts to do so. They foist their ideas on others and can't figure out why things aren't happening faster.
That's not how change happens. If people are only acting out somebody else's ideas, it's only a matter of time before they feel discounted, disempowered and... well...just plain dissed. People are more than hired hands; they are hired minds and hearts, as well.
Let's start with the basics.
Everything you see around you began as an idea. The computer. The stapler. The paperclip, the microchip and the chocolate chip. All of these began as an idea within someone's fevered imagination. The originators of these ideas were on fire.
Did they have to be "managed?" No way. In fact, if they had a manager, he or she would have done well to get out of the way.
If you want to empower people, honor their ideas. Give them room to challenge the status quo. Give them room to move -- and, by extension, move mountains.
Why? Because people identify most with their ideas. "I think therefore, I am" is their motto. People feel good when they're encouraged to originate and develop ideas. It gives their work meaning, makes it their own, and intrinsically motivates.
Who has the power in an organization? The people who are allowed to think for themselves and then act on their ideas! Who doesn't have power? The people who have to continually check-in with others.
Think about it. The arrival of a new idea is typically accompanied by a wonderful feeling of upliftment and excitement -- even intoxication.
It's inspiring to have a new idea, to intuit a new way of getting the job done. Not only does this new idea have the potential to bring value to the company, it temporarily frees the idea originator from their normal habits of thinking. A sixth sense takes over, releasing the individual from the gravity of status quo thinking.
In this mindset, the idea originator is transported to a more expansive realm of possibility. All bets are off. The sky's the limit. All assumptions are seen for what they are -- limited beliefs with a history, but no future.
If you are a manager, you want people in this state of mind. It is not a problem. It is not the shirking of responsibility. It is not a waste of time. On the contrary, it's the first indicator that you are establishing a company culture that is conducive to innovation.
This is not to say, of course, that you have to fund every idea that comes your way.
On some level, ideas are a dime a dozen -- and only a handful of them are ever going to amount to much. But if you treat all ideas as if they are worthless, you will never find the priceless ones.
Creativity, you see, is often a numbers game. Einstein had plenty of bogus theories. Mozart wrote some crap. But they continued being prolific. And it was precisely this self-generating spirit of creation, which enabled them to access the good stuff.
You, as a manager, want to increase the number of new ideas being pitched to you. It's that simple. You want to create an environment where new ideas are popping all the time. If you do, old problems and ineffective ways of doing things will begin dissolving.
This is the hallmark of an empowered organization -- a place where everyone is encouraged and empowered to think creatively. Within this kind of environment managers become coaches, not gatekeepers.
"Coaching", of course, has been widely written about and there are many fine books on the subject. What hasn't been written about very much is how to become an "innovation coach" -- how to create the kind of environment that elicits the hidden genius of the people around you.
It's one thing to tell people "you want their ideas", it's quite another to create the kind of environment that makes this rhetoric real.
Creativity cannot be legislated. It cannot be sustained by mission statements and pep talks. What needs to happen is you, as a manager, need to change the way you relate to people. Each encounter you have with another in the workplace needs to quicken the likelihood that their unexpressed ideas will get a fair hearing -- enabling a far greater percentage of them to eventually take root.
How does a manager do this?
First, by expressing a lot of positive regard. Get interested! Pay attention! Be present to the moment! This is not so much a technique as it is a state of mind. Simply put, if your head is always filled with your own thoughts and ideas, there won't be any room left to entertain the thoughts and ideas of others. It's a law of physics. Two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time.
Here's an example: Let's say someone comes up to you in the middle of the day and says something like, "I have this great idea for a new product that will generate over $200 million for our company."
The first thing you need to do is realize the opportunity you have. An idea is about to be shared, one that may herald a breakthrough or, at the very least, solve a problem, capitalize on an opportunity, or make your life easier.
Your willingness to sit up and take notice needs to be just as strong as if a customer were to call and complain. If possible, drop what you're doing, focus all of your attention on the idea generator, take a deep breath, and begin a series of questions that demonstrate your interest. If you cannot drop what you are doing, schedule some time -- as soon as possible -- for the idea originator to pitch you.
And whether the pitch is now or later, your response -- in the form of exploratory questions -- needs to be as genuine as possible. Consider some of the following openers:
* "That sounds interesting. Can you tell me more?"
* "What excites you the most about this idea?"
* "What is the essence of your idea - the core principle?"
* "How do you imagine your idea will benefit others?"
* "In what ways does your idea fit with our strategic vision?"
* "What information do you still need?"
* "Who are your likely collaborators?"
* "Is there anything similar to your idea on the market?
* "What support do you need from me?"
* "What is your next step?"
Basically, you want the idea originator to talk about their idea as much as possible in this moment of truth. An idea needs to first take form in order to take root, and one of the best ways of doing this is to encourage the idea originator to talk about it -- even if their idea is not yet fully developed.
The telling of the idea, in fact, is not unlike someone telling you their dream. The telling helps the dreamer flesh out the details of what they imagined and the subsequent hearing of it firmly installs it in their memory -- and yours -- so the idea does not fade quite as quickly.
Most of us, however, are so wrapped up in our own ideas that we rarely take the time to listen to others. Your subordinates know this and, consequently, rarely share their ideas with you.
But it doesn't have to be this way. And it won't necessarily require a lot of time on your part. Some time, yes. But not as much as you might think.
Bottom line, the time it takes you to listen to the ideas of others is not only worth it -- the success of your enterprise depends on it. Choose not to listen and you will end up frantically spending a lot more time down the road asking people for their ideas about how to save your business from imminent collapse.
By that time, however, it will be too late. Your workforce will have already tuned you out.
More on establishing an inner and outer culture of innovation in AWAKE AT THE WHEEL: www.awakeatthewheel.info
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:14 AM | Comments (0)
April 06, 2009Brainstorm or Braindrizzle?
Allow me to make a wild guess here and postulate that you have participated in more than a few brainstorm sessions in your life. Yes?
And allow me to make yet another wild guess and state that many of these sessions left you feeling underwhelmed, over-caffeinated, disappointed, disengaged, and doubtful that much of ANYTHING was ever going to happen as a result of your participation. Yes, again? I thought so.
There's a ton of reasons why most brainstorming sessions under-deliver, but the main reason -- the Mount Olympus of reasons (drum roll, please....) is the brainstorm facilitator.
Armed with a short list of ground rules, a flipchart marker or two, and a muffin, most brainstorm facilitators miss the mark completely.
The reason has less to do with their process, tools, and techniques than it does with their inability or lack of willingness to adapt. In an all-too-professional attempt to be one-pointed, they end up being one-dimensional, missing out on a host of in-the-moment opportunities to spark the ever-mutating, collective genius of the group.
If only our well-intentioned brainstorm facilitators could abide by the words of Walt Whitman, when he confessed that he "contained multitudes."
Translation? If you or anyone you know is going to lead a disparate group of time-crunched, opinionated, multi-tracking, high bandwidth people through a process of originating and developing breakthrough ideas, DON'T BE A ONE TRICK PONY! Be a multitude -- or, at the very least, be multi-faceted. Let it rip. Hang ten. Pull out the stops. Use your right brain and your left. Let all the cats out of the proverbial bag -- and by so doing, exponentially increase your chances of sparking brainpower, brilliance, and beyond-the-obvious ideas.
OK. Enough bloggy pep talk. Let's get down to business.
Take a few minutes now to rate yourself, on a scale of 1-10, for how skillful you think you are at embodying the following personas of a brainstorm facilitator, all of which you will need to call on at just the right time if you expect to play your role to the max. Then tune into your biggest strength and ask yourself how you can amplify that quality. Then identify your biggest weakness and figure out how you can improve in that arena.
While it may seem counter-intuitive, a well-facilitated creative thinking session is less about WHAT than it is about HOW and WHO.
1.CONDUCTOR
A skilled brainstorm facilitator knows how to orchestrate powerfully creative output from a seemingly dissonant group of people. In the conductor mode, the facilitator includes everyone, evokes even the subtlest contributions from the least experienced participant, and demonstrates their commitment to the whole by offering timely feedback to anyone who "gets lost in their own song."
2.ALCHEMIST
A good brainstorm facilitator is able to transmute lead into gold -- or in modern terms -- knows how to help people "get the lead out." This talent requires an element of wizardry -- the ability to see without looking, feel without touching, and intuitively know that within each brainstormer lives a hidden genius just waiting to get out.
3.DANCER
Light on their feet, brainstorm facilitators move gracefully through the process of sparking new ideas. Able to go from the cha-cha to the polka to the whirling dervish spinning of a brainstorm group on fire, savvy facilitators take bold steps when necessary, even when there is no visible ground underfoot. "The path is made by walking on it," is their motto.
4. MAD SCIENTIST
Skillful brainstorm facilitators are bold experimenters, often taking on the crazed (but grandfatherly) look of an Einstein in heat. While respecting the realm of logic and the rational (the ground upon which most scientists build their homes), the enlightened facilitator is willing to throw it all out the window in the hope of triggering a "happy accident" or a quantum leap of thought. Indeed, it is often these discontinuous non-linear moments that produce the kind of breakthroughs that logic can only describe, never elicit itself.
5.DIAMOND CUTTER
Fully recognizing the precious gem of the human imagination (as well as the delicacy required to set it free), the high octave brainstorm facilitator is a craftsman (or craftswoman) par excellence -- focused, precise, and dedicated. Able to get to the heart of the matter in a single stroke without leaving anything or anyone damaged in the process.
6. ACTOR
Brainstorm facilitators are "on stage" whether they like it or not. All eyes are upon them, as well as all the potential critical reviews humanly possible. More often than not, the facilitator's "audience" will only be moved to act (perchance to dream) if they believe the facilitator is completely into his or her role. If the audience does not suspend this kind of disbelief, the play will close early and everyone will be praying for a fire drill or wishing they were back home eating a grilled cheese sandwich.
7.ENVIRONMENTALIST
Brainstorm facilitators are the original recyclers. In their relentless pursuit of possibility, they look for value in places other people see as useless. To the facilitator in full mojo mode, "bad ideas" aren't always bad, only curious indicators that something of untapped value is lurking nearby.
8. OFFICER OF THE LAW
One of the brainstorm facilitator's most important jobs is to enforce "law and order" once the group gets roaring down the open highway of the imagination. This is a fine art -- for in this territory speeding is encouraged, as is running red lights, jaywalking, and occasionally breaking and entering. Just as thieves have their code of honor, however, so too should brainstormers. Indeed, it is the facilitator's task to keep this code intact -- a task made infinitely easier by the ritual declaration of ground rules at the start of a session.
9.SERVANT
Some brainstorm facilitators, intoxicated by the group energy and their own newly stimulated imagination, use their position as a way to foist their ideas on others -- or worse, manipulate the group into their way of thinking. Oops! Ouch! Aargh! Brainstorm facilitating is a service, not a personal platform. It is supposed to be a selfless act that enables others to arrive at their own solutions -- no matter how different they may be from the facilitator's.
10. STAND-UP COMIC
Humor is one of the brainstorm facilitator's most important tools. It dissolves boundaries, activates the right brain, helps participants get unstuck, and shifts perspective just enough to help everyone open their eyes to new ways of seeing. Trained facilitators are always on the lookout for humorous responses. They know that humor often signals some of the most promising ideas, and that giggles, guffaws, and laughable side-talk frequently indicate a rich vein of possibility to explore. Humor also makes the facilitator much more "likable" which makes the group they are facilitating more amenable to their direction. Ever wonder why the words "Aha!" and "Ha-Ha" are so similar?
Interested in learning how to facilitate breakthrough brainstorming sessions? Click here.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:11 AM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2009INTENTION: The Root of Creativity
If creativity is the flower of a human life, then intention is the root. Indeed, there are many bipeds among us who believe that without intention, there can be no creativity.
More than its second cousins -- hope, wish, dream, and desire -- intention is the ground from which creativity springs.
One of the biggest reasons why creativity is so flaccid in most individuals (and by extension, most organizations) is that there is very little intention -- and the intention that does exist is often a simulation of the real thing -- upwardly mobile fast trackers inheriting someone else's vision, strategy or idea, but not sufficiently in touch with their own inspiration to really break through.
And so, if you want to create something new and meaningful, you will absolutely need to get in touch with your intention.
The force. The mojo. What moves you.
Intention, of course, can take many forms: the intention to change, the intention to improve, the intention to serve, the intention to manifest miracles.
Whatever form it takes, however, your effort will need to be more than mental. More than emotional, psychological, or astrological. It will need to be primal -- in the same way that the moon affects the tides.
Moon-howling intention.
Well then, what is moving you these days? What is in your bones? What is calling you from within?
(Excerpted from Awake at the Wheel)
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:19 AM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2009Innovation Begins with Fascination
I own a huge library of books on innovation. Mostly hardcover. The $27.95 variety with big indexes and forwards by people who make more money than I do.
Some of these books are actually good. Most of them bore me. (I must confess I have a secret desire, whenever I enter a bookstore, to put glue between pages 187 & 188 in all of the new releases just to see if the publishers get any complaints).
Most of the books attempt to describe the origins of innovation. You know, stuff like "the innate human impulse to find a better way" and "the imperative to find a competitive edge" and "the endless search to fulfill an unmet need." That sort of thing.
Corporate-speak, in other words.
In my experience, the origin of innovation is fascination -- the state of being intensely interested in something. Enchanted. Captivated. Spellbound. Absorbed.
What kids are good at.
Kids and those mavericks at work who make everyone nervous and running for their spreadsheets at the drop of a hat.
A person who is fascinated does not need to be motivated... or managed... or "incentivized." All that person needs is time, some resources, meaningful collaboration, and periodic reality checks from someone who understands what fascination is all about.
That's why Google gives its workforce 20% of their time to explore projects on their own. That's why 3M and W.L. Gore do something similar. They know that the root of innovation is fascination.
If you, or the people who report to you, are not currently in a state of fascination about work it's time to turn things around. That is, IF you want to spark some innovation.
How do you do this?
For starters, here's one simple way, excerpted from Awake at the Wheel, just to get things rolling.
THE SEED OF FASCINATION
1. On a piece of paper, create three parallel headlines -- "What Fascinates Me," "People I Admire," and "What I Would Do If I Had More Time or Knew I Couldn't Fail."
2. Jot down at least TEN responses beneath each headline.
3. Look for intriguing, new connections between your responses. Any insights? New possibilities? Ahas?
4. Now, think about ways you might incorporate these new insights or possibilities into your work life (while staying open to the fact that your company is capable of changing and growing).
5. Jot down your new ideas.
6. Circle your three favorite ideas and brainstorm them with a friend. Then pitch anyone who's influence can help you launch your ideas for how to bring more fascinating projects into your work life.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:24 PM | Comments (6)
February 24, 2009One Secret of Creativity
Want to know one of the little known secrets of creativity? Making new connections between seemingly unrelated elements.
There. That's it. Plain and simple.
Drive in banking? What else is it but the combination of cars and banking? MTV? Not much more than the connection between music and television. Roller blading? Ice skating + roller skating. THESE DAYS, of course, they are oh so obvious, but there was a time before they existed -- a time when it took some out of the box thinkers to see what was really possible.
Is there a simple way to increase your ability to make new connections? Yes there is. It's called the Idea Lottery.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2009Streaming Visual Inspiration
Little Jolts of Wow Dept.:
Lunarr's Elements is another clever new community service for the programmable Web, existing to share "inspirational images and quotes (elements)." 
It's basically an on-demand slide show of photos or graphics that people find especially moving, with social media style customization. You can actively share faves and your own uploads with registered "friends," or just view streams of images from the larger community.
It's very, purposefully, simple in appearance: against a black background, with a minimum of buttons or other elements, one picture appears. It'll stay there until you click Explore to see another, or on I Like It, (broad)Cast It or Create. At right, free membership will let you add pictures, and to view publishers you follow and viewers watching you. Seven buttons, that's it, to do the simple job it has come into this world to offer.
In Mashable, Jennifer Van Grove's take was, "Elements feels like a cross between Flickr's interestingness, Twitter's follow features and Tumblr's content submission, with a focus on sharing inspirational content." - "Elements: A Flickr, Twitter and Tumblr Hybrid?" (2/8/09)
Similar to a Flickr slideshow, say, from a search on "inspiration"?
Behind the presentation level of the Elements site, their company site is fairly disorganized, perhaps because they've based it on a blog and those type of entries are so inherently slippery. So I had to go looking for the declaration of their raison d'etre; but the following, which seems ready to serve as a basic statement of purpose, can be seen if you counter-intuitively click "Products" in the nav bar:
"We've brought the cultural concept of 'ichi-go ichi-e' into LUNARR elements. It means 'one chance, one meeting,' and is traditionally at the center of a Japanese tea ceremony. It's the idea that you must treat your interaction with others as if it is the last time you will see them. With elements, we invite you to come take part in 'ichi-go ichi-e.'No one's taken credit for this other blog post on Lunarr's company site (Toru Takasuka and Hideshi Hamaguchi are listed as management), but it gives some elegant examples of the essential role inspiration plays in a productive life."The elements will gradually become customized for what you might find inspirational based on your actions, those you follow or those who follow you, the elements others cast in your direction and more. We also welcome you to become a catalyst of inspiration by uploading your own elements or clipping them from the web."
"Preserved Innovation"
December 19th, 2008What image caught Peter Tchaikovsky's eye while he was writing The Nutcracker ballet? .. . What conversation stirred John Logie Baird to create the first mechanical television?
What if instead of just seeing their finished product, I could see their entire thought process from inspiration to production? I imagine taking a look at the first images that inspired them to think in a new direction... The doodles and diagrams that came from their hands when that first wave of excitement flew over them as they realized that they could change the rhythm of the world.
Neat. But ultimately, isn't this just a cute implementation of "Web 2.0" social media with photo sharing? Basically pretty much the same thing as that slide show in Flickr or Picasa, or from a desktop Web widget? A one-trick pony?
Well, yes; as we saw, you can go to Flickr, type "inspiration" into the search bar, then look for the subtle "slideshow" link to the right of the top picture... and sit back. Elements, which clearly doesn't claim to be any more than one arrow in your quiver, adds the weaving social media in more directly, and a certain charm derived from the beautiful presentation and the sense of drama it creates.
But the fact that this picture-show site is centered on providing inspiration, the element that energizes and enables us in the most practical way, is what makes this more than just another cool site.
= = =
Have to give the nod to VentureBeat.com's writeup, "Lunarr's Elements is a Twitter-like image-sharing tool to stoke the imagination" by Dean Takahashi, February 8th, 2009.
Posted by Bill Ross at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2008METAPHOR: A Bridge Over Deep Waters
All of the creative thinking techniques we teach at Idea Champions are based on the innate capacity of the human mind to make connections, find patterns, and imagine alternatives. One of these techniques involves using metaphors to give us insight into what our challenge or opportunity really IS under the surface.
But the human capacity for metaphor-making is more than merely an ability. It's the foundation of thought itself. As psychologist and linguist Stephen Pinker states in his The Stuff of Thought, "Metaphor is so widespread in language that it's hard to find expressions for abstract ideas that are not metaphorical."
The word "metaphor" comes to us from the Greek and means to "transfer" or "carry over."
"Transfer or carry over what?" you may ask.
"An image," is the answer.
A metaphor is both an image that is carried over to help us understand a thought AND the bridge upon which it is carried over. And what does this bridge of metaphor connect? It connects the right brain, which deals in images, to the left brain, which deals in rational thought.
Is that cool or what?
In a new Harvard Business Press book, Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal about the Minds of Consumers, Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman, a father and son marketing team, reveal seven basic deep metaphors, -- "metaphors that structure what we think, hear, say, and do" that should help guide marketing efforts to connect with consumers.
These seven deep ("deep" because they are largely unconscious) and universal metaphors are:
1. Balance
2. Transformation
3. Journey
4. Container
5. Connection
6. Resource
7. Control
If your marketing campaign isn't offering your prospective customers at least one of these qualities, your prospective customers probably aren't connecting emotionally to your product or service. Which means they're probably not buying it. Egads!
Does your product or service help customers regain their balance? Can it transform something into something better? Does it provide them with the experience of a journey or give them a container? Does it help them connect with others, provide a necessary resource, or give greater control over something?
Bottom line: if you want to improve your marketing efforts, you could do a lot worse than invest a few bucks and a little time to study what the Zaltmans are saying.
Once you're clear about what you want to offer your customers on a deep metaphorical level, you can then craft your pitch, offering, or strategy in a more meaningful way.
That is, you can cross that bridge when you come to it.
Posted by Val Vadeboncoeur at 11:11 PM | Comments (2)
November 13, 2008Forget About the Box, Get Out of the Cave!
See the caveman to your left? That's Og. He's the protagonist of my new book, Awake at the Wheel: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling (in an uphill world). The word "protagonist" is not in Og's vocabulary. Even I don't use the word "protagonist" all that much -- though I have used it three times in this paragraph.
Hmmm... That's pretty odd.
Then again, the experience of inventing the wheel was pretty odd, too. Which is what Og did. 24,000 years ago. Long before Game Boy, i-Pod, or Starbucks. And yes, long before the Mesopotamians -- the people who usually get all the credit for the wheel -- some 20,300 years after my main man, Og.
(Hey, when was the last time you used the word "Mesopotamian?" That's another word not in Og's vocabulary.)
Actually, Og didn't need a big vocabulary. He had something else going for him: Neanderthalic genius. Stone age brilliance. Originality. Og, you see, was the first innovator. Intrinsically motivated, he was. Fascinated. Inspired. Mojo-driven. And while he was not without imperfections, he needed no attaboys, cash awards, or stock options to follow his muse.
Back in Og's time, when men were men, and stones were stones, even the idea of an idea was unthinkable. And yet... somehow, he had one -- an IDEA, that is -- and not just your dime a dozen variety. Nope. A GREAT idea, a BIG idea, or what I like to call an "out of the cave" idea: The wheel.
Ah... but I go on too long. If Og were here, he'd be frowning by now, shrugging his stooped shoulders, wondering in his delightfully pre-verbal way what other new ideas and discoveries awaited his wonderfully hairy touch.
Want to order the book now? (Og gets 10% of every sale). Go ahead. Help him put bear meat on the table.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:37 AM | Comments (1)
November 05, 2008Baking the Change and Innovation Cake
Last night, my 11-year old daughter, Mimi, and her good friend, Zoe, stayed up late to watch the election results. After Obama was declared the winner, they baked a cake in his honor and, in the morning, frosted it.
As they left the house this morning, Mimi stopped, cake in hand, and shouted out Obama's name at the top of her lungs. Something deep within her rose to the surface and begged to be expressed. Which, being 11 and free of the politically correct constraints that rule the lives of too many adults, she accomplished with great flair.
That same intrinsic motivation that moved Mimi and Zoe to bake their cake, needs to be alive and well in your company if you are truly serious about raising the bar for innovation and change. Mimi and Zoe didn't need to be TOLD to bake the cake. They wanted to. Even more than that, they HAD to.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: In what ways can you create the kind of culture in your organization that will encourage everyone to bake their cake for change and innovation?
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2008Song and Dance and Innovation Man
I once attended a talk by Mike Vance, Walt Disney's "head of idea and people development," way back in the day.
One of the many interesting points that Vance made back then, in his rapid-fire Midwestern twang, was "Ask a child to sing, and they'll sing something. Ask a child to dance, and they'll dance something. Ask a child to draw, they'll draw something. Ask an adult these same questions and he'll say 'I don't sing. I don't dance. I don't draw.'"
But he did when he was a child!
So, what changed? What happened to that spontaneity, that creative free reign, that spirit of play, exploration, and adventure?
What changes, of course, is that, over the years, we adults are taught what's right and wrong, what's good and bad, what's proper and improper and we've internalized all that training and education into our own private internal "critic" who often stops us from being creative even before we start. That's that little voice that says "that isn't good enough."
Sigmund Freud once lamented "What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the adult."
However, we know now that where there's life (and you ARE still breathing, aren't you?) there's always hope. For all of us.
What reminded me of Vance's talk was an online article I ran across today by musician/composer/sound engineer Brian Eno who has made some of my favorite musical recordings over the decades. In it, he encourages all of us to sing. He relates his own successful efforts to get together with friends to have fun singing "a capella," that is, without instrumental accompaniment...like choruses and doo wop groups do.
Besides the musical creativity and the fun involved in singing a capella with your friends, there are health and psychological benefits as well, plus a social learning component as you have to learn to blend your voice (tone, rhythm and breathing) with the other singers.
And, I'll go one further. I imagine that getting together regularly to sing with others (or play African hand drums with others, or go ballroom dancing, or picking up a brush and painting just for the sheer pleasure of it) helps us exercise the same creativity muscles that we exercised as a child before we forgot that we could sing, dance, draw and do all manner of enjoyable things.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Posted by Val Vadeboncoeur at 02:25 AM | Comments (2)
October 24, 2008Top 100 Amazon Reviewer Favorably Compares "Awake at the Wheel" to "Who Moved My Cheese?"
This just in from Thomas Duff, Top 100 Amazon reviewer:
Awake at the Wheel: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling (in an Uphill World) can, in my opinion, be compared to the classic "Who Moved My Cheese?". Ditkoff does for creativity what Johnson and Blanchard did for living with change... It gives the reader a short, humorous story loaded with meaning and concepts that hit the reader right where they live.
Ditkoff explores the world of ideas and creativity though the story of Og. Og is a caveman who spends more time thinking than the average Neanderthal. He stumbles upon the concept of a circle, and becomes obsessed with what it could mean to the group. Of course, most of his fellow cavemen are more concerned about maintaining the status quo... hunting, eating, staying warm.
Og takes a journey to talk with a wise one, and from that trip the wheel is born. But even then, others in his clan are more interested in shooting it down as something that will never work. But one person does figure out the practical application, and pretty soon everyone is "rolling along" with the greatest thing since dried mammoth...
I really did like this book.
Taking the concept of ideas and putting them in caveman terms freshens up what could be just another book on creativity. At the end of the book are 35 "tools" you can use to spur your own idea machine, as well as how best to make sure these fleeting thoughts don't disappear like smoke from a campfire.
Like many companies have done with "Cheese", this should be a mass purchase, handed out to all employees, and then discussed in team meetings. Those who are into this genre will love it, and the Neanderthals who are cynical will likely spend the 30 minutes or so it should take to read it.
And they might even come out of that experience as the new Og of your organization.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2008Your Second Chance to Enter the First Annual Multiple Uses of a Ping Pong Ball Contest
TA DA! It's time to win free stuff!
All you need to do is read the following starter list and submit your own ideas. Idea Champions will award prizes in the following categories: 1) Most creative; 2) Funniest; 3) Biggest positive impact on the world; 4) Most off-the-wall; 5) The one we wish we'd thought of; 6) Least likely to become a major motion picture; 7) Best way to save the U.S. economy; 8) Best party game; 9) Best use in a category we haven't yet thought of.
DEADLINE? October 31
1. Table Tennis
2. Beer Pong
3. Lottery selection
4. Cat toy
5. Child's room mobile
6. Door stop (crushed and stuck under door)
7. Model of the universe (with balls as planets)
8. Way to keep people awake at meetings (toss one)
9. Raft (by tying many balls together)
10. A fishing bob
11. Bathtub toy
12. Clown nose
13. Finger puppets
14. Kermit eyeballs
15. Xmas tree ornament
16. Child's playpen (fill large container with balls)
17. Jewelry (earrings, necklace, bracelet)
18. Comfy chair (fill seat cushions with balls)
19. Acoustical tool (affix balls to walls to deflect sound)
20. Abacus
21. Juggling balls
22. Mouth juggling (blowing balls in the air)
23. Sex toy
24. Child's game (run a race while holding one on a spoon)
25. Surgical tool (use in operations to keep organs in place)
26. Life jacket (fill container with balls and cling to it)
27. Catch people jumping from burning buildings (fill container with balls and have them jump into it.)
28. Anti-snake weapon (snakes will mistake balls for eggs and eat them which will eventually cause death)
29. Marketing tool (guess the number of ping pong balls in our new Honda Accord and win a free car)
30. Testing a long pipe or hose for obstructions
31. Air gun bullets
32. Create controlled avalanches with the balls and study the filmed results)
33. Xmas tree light enhancers (insert each Xmas tree light into a ping pong ball)
34. Votive candle holders (when cut in half)
35. Cut in half and use as tiny drinking cups
36. Hat for a puppet or hamster (when cut in half)
37. Packing material
38. Level tester
39. Barometric pressure gauge (based on how high a ball bounces)
40. Aid to develop hand muscular flexibility
41. Mouth gag
42. Trumpet mute
43. Control Google Map interface using "Atlas Gloves" software and lighted ping pong balls a la the film Minority Report
44. Create a painting by using colored ping pong balls as pixels
45. Raise a ship or other submerged items
46. Fill with napalm and use via aerial drop to create a controlled burnout in order to control a fire
47. LED diffuser
48. Model of a strand of DNA
49. Musical instrument (digitally record the sounds of ping pong balls until you have enough different tones, then use these tones to play music via a ping pong ball sound keyboard
50. Test strength and direction of wind by tossing ball in air
What kind of prizes will you win? One of the following:
Prize... prize... prize... prize... prize... prize
Special thanks to the very creative Val Vadeboncouer for the starter list of 50 uses.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:19 PM | Comments (6)
October 10, 2008An Ocean of Possibilities Awaits You
WC Fields was always an exceptionally gifted performer. But some of his most unforgettable performances took place off-camera.
Like most actors in the start of their career, Fields found himself a little short of cash. A problem? Not for him. The non-traditional Mr. Fields simply created a "Blue Ocean" job for himself in Atlantic City, one summer, as a professional drowner.
Here's how it worked:
Several times a day, Fields would swim out to sea, pretend to be drowning, and then be "rescued" by one of his accomplices, the lifeguard. Invariably, a large crowd would gather on the beach as the no longer struggling actor was "resuscitated." Once it was clear that this poor fellow was going to live, the suddenly relieved crowd would turn to Field's third accomplice, the hot dog vendor, (who just happened to be standing nearby) and treat themselves to an "I'm-so-glad-he's-alive" snack. At the end of each water-logged day, Fields would split the take with his buddies -- the lifeguard and the hot dog vendor.
Brilliant!
Now, I'm not suggesting that you do anything to deceive your customers. Not at all. But what I AM suggesting is that you take a fresh look at what you might do differently to get an extraordinary result. Is there a risk you need to take? An experiment you need to try? A non-traditional collaboration to enter into?
If your product, service, or venture is drowning, what can you do to resuscitate it?
My company, Idea Champions, once got a sizable contract from AT&T by teaching the Director of Training and Development how to juggle in five minutes -- something he'd been trying to learn for 25 years.
That's what I'm talking about: a new approach, a different twist, a non-traditional angle that will spark a positive response from your target market.
The alternative? In the famous words of Anonymous, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."
And so... if you have an example of an extraordinary result you've gotten by doing something different, simply click "comments" below and tell us about it. We will mail a Free the Genie deck to the person who, in the spirit of the great WC Fields, catches our attention with the most compelling anecdote.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2008The Rise of the Innovation Ninjas
Every once in a while I come across a quote or excerpt from an article that I want to immediately post on the windshield of every client of mine. It cuts to the chase and lucidly states what I've been trying to say, in various Neanderthalic ways, all these many years.
Take Einstein for example: "Not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted counts." Bingo! Bullseye! What a perfect way of explaining to a left-brained addicted world that metrics and analysis is not the only game in town.
And then there's Gary Hamel. He takes a bit more time than Albert to make his point, but hey, it's all relative isn't it? Check this out from the man behind one of my favorite business books of all time:
"Today, innovation is the buzzword du jour in virtually every company, but how many CEOs have put every employee through an intensive training program aimed at boosting the innovation skills of the rank and file? Sure companies have electronic suggestion boxes, slush funds for new ideas, elaborate pipeline management tools, and innovation awards -- but in the absence of a cadre of extensively trained and highly skilled innovators, much of the investment in these innovation enablers will simply be wasted."
"Imagine that you coaxed a keen, but woefully inexperienced golfer onto the first tee at Pebble Beach. After arming the tyro with the latest titanium driver, you challenge him to split the fairway with a monster drive. You promise the neophyte a $100 bonus every time he hits a long bomb that stays out of the rough, and another $100 for every hole where he manages to break par.
But what you don't do is this: You don't give him any instruction -- no books, no tips from Golf Digest, no Dave Pelz and Butch Harmon, no video feedback, and no time off to perfect his swing on the practice range. Given this scenario, how many 200-yard drives is our beginner likely to land in the fairway?
How long is he likely to stay avidly devoted to the task at hand? And what kind of return are you likely to get on the $2,000 you spent on a bag full of high tech clubs and the 450 bucks you shelled out for a tee time? The answers are: Not many, not long, and not much. And no one who knows anything about golf would ever set up such a half-assed contest.
"That's why I'm dumbfounded by the fact that so few executives have invested in the innovation skills of their frontline employees. The least charitable explanation for this mind-boggling oversight: senior managers subscribe to a sort of innovation apartheid.
They believe that a few blessed souls are genetically equipped to be creative, while everyone else is a dullard, unable to come up with anything more exciting than spiritless suggestions for Six Sigma improvements.
A more charitable reading: CEOs and corporate HR leaders simply don't know how to turn on the innovation genes that are found in every human being.
"Obviously, you can't teach someone to be an innovator unless you know where game-changing ideas come from. In other words, you need a theory of innovation -- like Ben Hogan's theory of the golf swing.
This is why, a few years back, I and several colleagues analyzed more than a hundred cases of business innovation. Our goal: to understand why some individuals, at certain points in time, are able to see opportunities that are invisible to everyone else. Here, in a pistachio-sized shell, is what we learned:
Successful innovators have ways of seeing the world that throw new opportunities into sharp relief. They have developed, usually by accident, a set of perceptual "lenses" that allow them to pierce the fog of "what is" in order to see the promise of "what could be." How? By paying close attention to four things that usually go unnoticed:"
1. Unchallenged orthodoxies -- the widely held industry beliefs that blind incumbents to new opportunities.
2. Under-leveraged competencies -- the "invisible" assets and competencies, locked up in moribund businesses, that can be repurposed as new growth platforms.
3. Under-appreciated trends -- the nascent discontinunities that can be harnessed to reinvigorate old business models and create new ones."
4. Unarticulated needs -- the frustrations and inconveniences that customers take for granted, and industry stalwarts have thus far failed to address."
Thanks Gary!
Clearly, what's needed these days are organizations full of Innovation Ninjas. Skillful, agile, perceptive, courageous, and highly trained individuals who know how to find their way through the seeming obstacles in the way in order to get a result.
These obstacles might be "internal" -- as in the outdated assumptions, paradigms, and habits of people with three letter acronyms after their name. OR the obstacles might be "external" -- as in an organization's funkadelic infrastructure, protocols, and processes.
But whatever the obstacles encountered (not counted!), our nimble ninjas of necessity manage to find their way to the goal. Imagine if you had hundreds of these people working in your company. Imagine you had thousands.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:57 AM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2008Getting Down to the Business of Creativity
Here's a terrific article on creativity, based on the work of three Harvard researchers/professors.
One of the things I especially love about the article is that it confirms the approach Idea Champions has taken since 1986.
According to Teresa Amabile's research, "inner work life" is one of the biggest determinants of creative output. In other words, a positive mood is a pre-condition for creativity in the workplace. If you are attempting to establish a sustainable culture of innovation in your organization, you (and everyone else) would be well-served to do everything humanly possible to positively impact the mood (i.e. tone, feeling, atmosphere, vibe, spirit) of the environment in which you work.
And that begins, of course, with the individual.
When you treat people with respect, acknowledgment, and genuine positive reinforcement, you significantly increase the odds of creativity -- and by extension, innovation -- flourishing in your organization.
Common sense? For sure. But common sense, it seems, is all too uncommon in most organizations. In our rush to produce, get an edge, and accomplish, we forget the most important thing...
And that is the quality of our interactions with others.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 05:35 AM | Comments (0)
August 06, 2008CREATIVE THINKING TECHNIQUE: The Daily Muse
In the 21st century, it is no longer considered radical to believe that thought shapes the future. This is something that has been proven again and again in experiment after experiment. And it is precisely for this reason that the media has become such a powerful force in today's world. The media shapes thought.
When we read something in the newspaper, we believe it is true -- and our lives take shape around it.
Well, here is your chance to take back the power of the press. And even more than that, here's your chance to impress your thoughts on the future -- your future -- and by extension, the rest of our futures (so please be coming from the the right place before continuing with the following exercise).
THE DAILY MUSE
1. Fast forward to a time in the future when you want your BIG IDEA to be fully manifested.
2. Imagine you are a reporter from a prestigious newspaper, magazine, blog, or website.
3. Write the story of your success, complete with testimonials, data, and anything else you care to add that will give your article oomph.
4. Read it to a friend or co-worker. Then start jamming...
Excerpted from Awake at the Wheel: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling (in an uphill world)
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 06:17 AM | Comments (0)
June 29, 2008More On Where and When You Get Your Best Ideas
A big thanks to Chuck Frey of Innovation Tools for his June 26th posting on our just-released poll results re: "Where and When People Get Their Best Ideas?"
Chuck notes the top ten catalysts:
1. When you're inspired
2. Brainstorming with others
3. When you're immersed in a project
4. When you're happy
5. Collaborating with a partner
6. Daydreaming
7. Analyzing a problem
8. Driving
9. Commuting to and from work
10. Reading books in your field
And here are the bottom ten:
70. Swimming
71. Brushing your teeth
72. Drinking anything with alcohol
73. Playing a sport
74. When you're sad
75. Mowing the lawn
76. Shaving
77. Procrastinating
78. In a bar
79. Having sex
80. Smoking tobacco
(If you're looking for a fun way to spark some great ideas, click here.)
Or here.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:14 AM | Comments (1)
June 27, 2008HEAR AND NOW: Small Business Big Ideas Show: 6/29/08
If you're looking for some inspiration and insight to help you grow your business and radically increase your ability to manifest BIG IDEAS, tune into the Small Business Big Ideas Show out of Toronto this Sunday, 7/29, at 9:00 am (www.ckdo.ca).
The delightfully open-minded Lissa Bergin-Boles will be interviewing me from 9:02 -- 9:15 am. We'll explore the fabulous world of creative thinking and what it takes to foster a culture of innovation within yourself and your business.
We'll also be talking about how my new book, Awake at the Wheel: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling (in an uphill world), can help you turn your top-of-the-line ideas into bottom-line results.
If you want to call in and ask me a question, the number is 888-511-2436. Hope to hear you then.
PS: If you're interested in the results of Idea Champions' recently released "Where and When Do People Get Their Best Ideas?" poll, click here.)
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2008POLL RESULTS: Where and When Do You Get Your Best Ideas?
Einstein used to get his best ideas while shaving. Mozart used to exercise before composing. The Scientific Method came to Rene Descartes in a dream.
One of our clients gets her best ideas when blow drying her hair.
Fascinated by the question of what catalyzes people's best ideas, Idea Champions polled 163 people and are sharing the results with you here (i.e. "Where and When Do You Get Your Best Ideas?")
Why bother reading it?
1. It will help you be more creative.
2. It will increase your ability to capture your best ideas.
3. It will give you insights about how to create a culture of innovation.
4. It's fascinating (i.e Out of 80 choices, the "workplace" ranked #35. "Daydreaming" was #6.)
If, after reading the poll, you think of other "best idea" catalysts, let us know. When we get 20 or more, we'll share them with Heart of Innovation readers here.
And if you're looking for help establishing a sustainable culture of innovation, click here... or here...or here. (Clicking your shoes three times ain't gonna cut it.)
Or, if you want to spring for $13.95, you can read Awake at the Wheel: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling (in an uphill world).
(Much thanks to Tim Moore (scroll down to the 8th bio) for his deep thinking, coordination, analysis, and report writing on this project!)
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)
June 01, 2008AWAKE AT THE WHEEL: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling (in an uphill world)
Ta da! After seven years, 22 rejections, multiple rewrites, 2 agents, and a whole lot of looking at myself in the mirror, here it is: the publication of my new book, AWAKE AT THE WHEEL: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling (in an Uphill World). Part fable, part creative thinking toolbox, the book is a wake up call for all aspiring innovators -- a simple way to help people "get out of the cave" and manifest BIG ideas in a world not always ready for the new and the different.
If you have an inspired idea that is lingering in your mind and needs a fresh jolt to see the light of day, this book is for you.
To order from Amazon, click here.
Tim Gallwey: "A superb catalyst for anyone with the urge to bring their best ideas into reality."
Donna Fenn: "Og may have invented the wheel, but Mitch Ditkoff has created a GPS for the innovation process. Awake at the Wheel is a witty and inspiring roadmap for the journey from ideas to invention."
Jay Conrad Levinson: "Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come. The time has come for this book and Mitchell Lewis Ditkoff has put it into words. He has done a masterful job."
Jack Mitchell: "Go ahead and 'hug' your employees by giving them Awake at the Wheel and creating a company culture that fosters, develops, and celebrates the best of their ideas."
Joyce Wycoff: "A highly accessible alchemist's stone for aspiring innovators."
Melinda McLaughlin: Awake at the Wheel illuminates! It's the perfect book for those of us who have felt the excitement of the 'aha' moment only to experience the frustration that comes when no one sees the brilliant lightbulb above our head. Mitch Ditkoff takes us on an engaging journey that re-imagines how to turn an idea into great success and makes it suddenly seem easy.?
Chuck Frey: "Entertaining and inspiring."
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 06:05 AM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2008CREATIVE THINKING TOOL #44: First Name Basis
Conventional wisdom has it that the best time to name a new product is after you create it. Unconventional wisdom has it the other way around: first you give your product a name, then you create it.
With this approach, the name -- instead of merely being the description of your creation -- becomes the catalyst for its existence.
The key is to come up with a compelling name -- one that intrigues, delights, and has embedded within it the kind of multiple meanings that stimulate you enough to decode them.
Let's use the topic of my new book -- creativity -- as an example.
If I was looking to invent new products to hawk in the back of the book, but had no clue what they were, I might start by generating some creativity-themed names -- and then work backwards from there.
CreativiTeas: Exotic teas that boost brainpower.
CreativiTees: T-shirts featuring photos of creative geniuses on the front and their inspiring quotes on the back.
CreativiTease: A strip poker card game in which players match famous quotes on creativity with the people who said them.
Invent some products that are sparked by these names:
Shower Power?
Chakra Chip Cookies?
Cheeses of Nazareth?
Sing Kong?
USING THE TOOL:
1. Make up a compelling name for something -- even if you don't know what that "something" is. HINT: Humor, double entendre, and spelling variations are good catalysts.
2. Now that you have a compelling name for an imaginary product, brainstorm what this something might be.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2008Synchronicity, Cavemen, Beer, and the Invention of the Wheel
I've always been fascinated by the concept of "synchronicity" -- the phenomenon of things happening at the same time for no apparent reason. Some people think of this as mere "coincidence" -- the chronological equivalent of a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters and eventually coming up with a good book. Others see more esoteric forces at work. Carl Jung, for example.
No matter what your point of view, I still think it's pretty cool that there's been an explosion of caveman ads (and tv shows) in recent months -- just in time to set the scene for the appearance of my new book. Bud Lite, Geico, and Fedex have all gotten into the act. I'd like to tip my hat to all these fine organizations for getting cavemen into the consciousness of the book buying public in time for the May release of Awake at the Wheel.
Take a look at the most recent example: Bud Lite's superbowl ad.
Of course, all my philosophizing about synchronicity, Carl Jung, beer, and thousands of monkeys could simply be the work of a modern day Neanderthal -- me -- an over-caffeinated biped with a highly mortgaged home in Woodstock, New York, instead of a cave on the plains.
But who cares? The book is still good -- a great way to get out of the cave and radically increase your chances of manifesting your most inspired ideas.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
April 18, 200824,000 Year Old Cave Man Invites You to a Book Signing in Woodstock
See that Neanderthal to your left? That's Og, the mythical inventor of the wheel and the hero of Mitch Ditkoff's new book which hits the book stores on May 1.
In honor of Og, I am inviting you to the book signing at the Golden Notebook in Woodstock, NY, Saturday, April 26th, 5:00 - 7:00 pm.
Here's what Og has to say about the book signing:
Morkel noophpa umphh! Kiaww noofti agu. Brrpp. Obama! Rok. Remu! Ditkoff sumphfta jabu.
Translation?
"Hey bipeds with Blackberries and cash flow problems! You don't even need to know how to read to enjoy a book signing! Free wine! Free cheese! The tribe reconvenes! And Mitch Ditkoff, who has recently developed full use of both opposable thumbs, will be signing books. Or eating crackers. Or talking too much.
Bring a friend. Bring two. Really, you don't have to buy a single book if you don't want to. Just come and be part of the fun.
And support the fabulous Golden Notebook!
If you want to listen to Mitch's two minute rap about the book, click here.
PS: If you can't make it to the book signing, so be it. You can still buy a copy here.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:58 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2008If You Want a Breakthrough, Take a Break
True innovators rarely follow the straight and narrow path. Not only do they march to a different drummer, they're often not even on the same playing field as most people.
Take Seymour Cray, for example, the legendary designer of high-speed computers.
According to John Rollwagen, ex-chairman of Cray research, Seymour Cray used to divide his time between building the next generation super computer and digging an underground tunnel below his Chippewa Falls house.
Cray's explanation of his tunnel digging behavior is consistent with the stories of many other creatives -- inner-directed, boundary-pushing people who understand the need to go off-line whenever they get stuck.
Bottom line, whenever they find themselves struggling with a thorny problem, they walk away from it for a while.
They know, from years of practical experience, that more (i.e. obsession, analysis, effort) is often less (i.e ideas, solutions, results).
Explained Cray, "I work for three hours and then get stumped. So I quit and go to work in the tunnel. It takes me an hour or so to dig four inches and put in the boards. You see, I'm up in the Wisconsin woods, and there are elves in the woods. So when they see me leave, they come back into my office and solve all the problems I'm having. Then I go up (to my lab) and work some more."
Explained Rollwagen, "The real work happens when Seymour is in the tunnel."
Many thanks to Chuck Frey for linking to our 100 Simple Ways to Be More Creative on the Job list on his excellent InnovationTools blog.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:55 PM | Comments (0)
April 02, 2008The Romance of Creativity
For those of you trying to bring something new and original into the world, know this:
The creative process is very much like a relationship.
And like most relationships, it usually begins with fascination -- that curious state of mind (and heart) that keeps us spellbound, charmed and aroused.
Bottom line, whenever a person gets a new idea, a kind of romance begins. We become absorbed. Intoxicated. Smitten. Indeed, for many of us, just thinking about a new idea is an aphrodisiac. It turns us on, psyches us up, and otherwise makes it very hard to eat, sleep, or obsess about cash flow.
While some people involved in a new relationship are able to sustain the accompanying excitement for months, most of us are less fortunate. Indeed, it's the rare person who knows how to savor and expand upon this feeling for years.
Ditto with the creative process.
After the intoxication of the initial encounter wears off, a less-than-incredible reality sets in. Where once we saw only beauty and possibility, now we see only blemishes on our high ideal. To make matters worse, some people, at this stage of the process, begin to experience a crippling kind of performance anxiety.
"Will I be good enough to achieve my goal?" they ask. "Do I have what it takes?" "Can I really pull it off?" Call it doubt if you like, but any way you slice it, the honeymoon is over.
What routinely follows (as it does in most romances) is a painful period of re-evaluation.
"Is this really what I want to be doing with my time?" we ask ourselves on the way to the refrigerator. "Is this really worth all the effort?"
Long-buried fears of being consumed by the "other" surface, driving us into withdrawal and self-analysis. Instead of enjoying the outpouring of creative energy that accompanies a new idea, we study it. We talk about it. We control it. Anything but let go to it.
Before you know it, the ever popular approach/avoidance stage is upon us. On Monday we're totally absorbed in our new venture. On Friday, we're sure it's a humongous waste of time.
But that's not all. The plot, like an unattended bowl of oatmeal, soon thickens. Instead of maintaining our commitment to our new idea, we begin having flings. We flirt with other ideas, other possibilities, and other new loves. We get into everything and anything -- whatever it takes not to sustain our ongoing relationship with our original inspiration.
Is there hope? Is there any possibility for all the creative thinkers on planet Earth to actually manifest their inspired ideas?
You bet there's hope. And something a lot more powerful -- awareness. Simply by paying attention to the games you play to protect yourself (from failure or success) will go a long way towards making magic happen.
To begin with, understand that all romances, no matter how inspiring, are temporary. The trivial ones simply end. The good ones mature, often growing into committed relationships -- even marriages.
If you are really serious about your current hot idea or venture, be willing to get closer to it. Be willing to go from the romance stage to an intimate relationship. Understand what the creative process is -- an impossible-to-deny encounter with yourself -- your fears, your power, your vision, and what drives you to play the game of life.
Be willing to see your new venture as it is -- with all its blemishes, quirks, and vagary. Know that you will have your falling out periods and your disagreements. Know that you will sometimes feel like a fraud. Know also that the fuel for many creative breakthroughs has not only been passion, purpose, and power, but also confusion, conflict, and collapse.
It's normal. It's human. It's part of the process.
So please, be gentle with yourself. Be patient. Breathe deep. And above all, do whatever you can -- day or night, rich or poor, male or female, manager or managee -- to put the elation back into your relationship to creativity.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:09 AM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2008The Sweat that Eureka demands
Serious about doing something innovative? Be prepared to spend many long, focused hours working on it (and working and working and reworking...)
"We want to believe that creativity and innovation come in flashes of pure brilliance," Janet Rae-Dupree writes in the New York Times. But, "Innovation is a slow process of accretion, building small insight upon interesting fact upon tried-and-true process. Just as an oyster wraps layer upon layer of nacre atop an offending piece of sand, ultimately yielding a pearl, innovation percolates within hard work over time."The article also quotes Jim Marggraff, creator of an interactive world globe called the Odyssey Atlasphere, and the LeapPad reading platform for children, among others. "The 'aha' moments grow out of hours of thought and study," he says. "If you look at my innovations, there's a common theme. I take something familiar, intuitive and ubiquitous, and recast it in a manner that will redefine its use to drive profound change.""'The most useful way to think of epiphany is as an occasional bonus of working on tough problems,' explains Scott Berkun in his 2007 book, The Myths of Innovation. 'The goal isn't the magic moment: it's the end result of a useful innovation.'"
Of course, which famous inventor explained this to us early in the 20th century? Who else but Thomas Edison. A bit of quick research gives us his famous quote in an expanded context:
(From a 1929 press conference, quoted by James D. Newton in Uncommon Friends; Newton knew Edison personally.)
"None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration."
In an interview in Harpers magazine, February 1890 (stay tuned here at Heart Of Innovation as we present the latest, greatest breakthroughs! ; ) , Edison explained his method:
"I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. ... I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory."
====
"Eureka! It Really Takes Years of Hard Work" (NYT, 2/3/08)
Related, here:
"Innovation: It's About Time!"
Posted by Bill Ross at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2008View from a Creative Mind
Although we are by no means a locally-focused company, with consultant/trainers traveling very widely to lead sessions, we are based in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York State, and one similarly local-but-far-reaching event caught my eye which I thought was very much worth sharing.
That would be a nearby exhibition of the work of Saul Steinberg, titled "Illuminations," the artist most famously known for his frequent appearances over six decades in The New Yorker magazine. He was the clever fellow who gave us the much-imitated 1976 cover illustration of how New Yorkers see the world, "The View from 9th Avenue," where a couple of blocks of the city dominate, and the rest of the country occupies a small square of land in the distance.
But so much of his work displayed such a fresh, wonderfully creative mind that, for me, it "illustrates" an essential attitude that successful innovators have. This is the habit of looking to see things newly, as opposed to how we usually see, which is through a haze of existing thought patterns; and, freely associating, to find useful connections between things that were hidden until then.
In the words of the Saul Steinberg Foundation's page on his life and work, "fingerprints become mug shots or landscapes; graph or ledger paper doubles as the facade of an office building; words, numbers, and punctuation marks come to life as messengers of doubt, fear, or exuberance; sheet music lines glide into violin strings, record grooves, the grain of a wood table, and the smile of a cat."
"Saul Steinberg: Illuminations" will be on view through February 24 at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, 124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie. (845) 437-5632;
(...which I found in Chronogram magazine.)
(All works © by The Saul Steinberg Foundation)
Posted by Bill Ross at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)
December 23, 2007Millions and Billions: The Probability of Terrestrial Life
The late science popularizer Carl Sagan once urged his readers and viewers to contemplate the millions of galaxies in the universe and consider the probability of extraterrestrial life existing somewhere outside our own planet. Today we live in a revised era, increasingly aware of humanity's impact on mothership Earth. So to shed light on our local dilemma, an innovative artist has been building a body of work that asks us to contemplate a different kind of vastness - the vastness of industrially stimulated consumerism.
Chris Jordan is a photo-montagist who creates vast wall-size panels which from a distance seem to be no more than interesting textures. Upon closer inspection though, they turn out to be created from tens of thousands of a single kind of consumable object we use and throw away: cigarettes, plastic bags, beverage bottles, aluminum cans, Vicodan tablets, cell phones. He packs these objects so tightly together that they merge into unified pointillist fields.
In one three panel set, a giant portrait of Ben Franklin turns out to be composed of 125,000 $100 bills. This number, it turns out, represents how much the United States spends each HOUR on the Iraq war - $12.5 million. Similar short clips of "consuming time" characterize most of Jordan's work: five SECONDS of plastic bags used and discarded by US Consumers (60,000 ; detail image above); a DAY's worth of cell phones discarded by US consumers (426,000, detail image below).
Because of the short time samples Jordan's montages represent, his work can convey the speed and staggering scale of industrial consumption in a way no other visualization has until now. We can grasp intuitively that these beaches of discarded goods are expanding daily, or hourly, by similar spatial units. (Four football fields of plastic bottles every five minutes. More plastic floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean than zooplankton.)
Like grains of sand on a beach, the individual objects in Jordan's images disappear. You search for a "subject" but nothing appears in the foreground. All the objects fuse into one vast background, a disorienting blur of granular overwhelm.
Then it dawns on you: YOU'RE the subject; YOU'RE the foreground. One of those plastic beverage bottles is MY water bottle. One of those cell phones is YOUR cell phone. Each one of us, easing through a supermarket checkout line on any given day, answers the question "Paper or Plastic?" WE are the subject, the foreground.
Chris Jordan creates flat backgrounds we have to place ourselves "in front of." And this helps us intuitively comprehend our interconnectedness and our impact on our LOCAL universe. Unlike Carl Sagan's CETI vision, Jordan lets us step back and contemplate the probabilities for life - not in space but HERE, on this fragile and finite planet. He asks us to consider where the superhighway to "prosperity" as we've defined it ultimately leads.
Here's a short interview with the artist.
Posted by Tim Moore at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)
Millions and Billions: The Probability of Terrestrial LifeThe late science popularizer Carl Sagan once urged his readers and viewers to contemplate the millions of galaxies in the universe and consider the probability of extraterrestrial life existing somewhere outside our own planet. Today we live in a revised era, increasingly aware of humanity's impact on mothership Earth. So to shed light on our local dilemma, an innovative artist has been building a body of work that asks us to contemplate a different kind of vastness - the vastness of industrially stimulated consumerism.
Chris Jordan is a photo-montagist who creates vast wall-size panels which from a distance seem to be no more than interesting textures. Upon closer inspection though, they turn out to be created from tens of thousands of a single kind of consumable object we use and throw away: cigarettes, plastic bags, beverage bottles, aluminum cans, Vicodan tablets, cell phones. He packs these objects so tightly together that they merge into unified pointillist fields.
In one three panel set, a giant portrait of Ben Franklin turns out to be composed of 125,000 $100 bills. This number, it turns out, represents how much the United States spends each HOUR on the Iraq war - $12.5 million. Similar short clips of "consuming time" characterize most of Jordan's work: five SECONDS of plastic bags used and discarded by US Consumers (60,000 ; detail image above); a DAY's worth of cell phones discarded by US consumers (426,000, detail image below).
Because of the short time samples Jordan's montages represent, his work can convey the speed and staggering scale of industrial consumption in a way no other visualization has until now. We can grasp intuitively that these beaches of discarded goods are expanding daily, or hourly, by similar spatial units. (Four football fields of plastic bottles every five minutes. More plastic floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean than zooplankton.)
Like grains of sand on a beach, the individual objects in Jordan's images disappear. You search for a "subject" but nothing appears in the foreground. All the objects fuse into one vast background, a disorienting blur of granular overwhelm.
Then it dawns on you: YOU'RE the subject; YOU'RE the foreground. One of those plastic beverage bottles is MY water bottle. One of those cell phones is YOUR cell phone. Each one of us, easing through a supermarket checkout line on any given day, answers the question "Paper or Plastic?" WE are the subject, the foreground.
Chris Jordan creates flat backgrounds we have to place ourselves "in front of." And this helps us intuitively comprehend our interconnectedness and our impact on our LOCAL universe. Unlike Carl Sagan's CETI vision, Jordan lets us step back and contemplate the probabilities for life - not in space but HERE, on this fragile and finite planet. He asks us to consider where the superhighway to "prosperity" as we've defined it ultimately leads.
Here's a short interview with the artist.
Posted by Tim Moore at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2007Absurd Collisions: No Breakthroughs Without Them
You say your kid's starting to crawl AND your floor's dusty? This handy pre-toddler mop garment was "invented" by Kenji Kawakami, a Japanese inventor and writer who works in a parallel innovation universe he calls Chindogu.
Chindogu translates as "strange tools," but a Chindogu invention isn't really a tool. It's a humorous insight into how two unrelated things might do something useful. Its visual punnery relies on a certain something two things have in common, a shared intersection. Crawling kids and mops have the floor in common, and floors get dusty...so why not a mop suit for baby? Silently, in our heads, we add the caption: "Hell, honey. Put the kid to work." Shazam! Baby as time-saving device.
What does Chindogu's absurd universe have to do with real world innovation? Well, think about it. The insight process is the same. What was the undiscovered intersection shared by music filesharers and early mp3 music players? Single song downloads. So not only did Steve Jobs launch the Apple iPod in 2001; he thought two sales ahead and had his team design the record store to go with it. Armed with rocketing i-Pod sales, Jobs was able to finalize deals with all the major labels the next year and launch Apple's iTunes music store in April of 2003.
Get it? Catching links and intersections, like dusty floors and single-song downloads depends on the same kind of insight. It makes no difference whether the resulting invention is absurd, like Chindogu, or highly strategic, like the iPod/iTunes-store disruption. The point is to keep exercising the mental muscle that crosses wires, tries absurd combinations, and associates the previously unassociated.
Some artists and designers (like yours truly) use tools to spark these happy collisions. Randomizing oracles, lists, cards and computer programs can all be used to force pairs and triads of things together that wouldn't normally be near each other. And once the muscle is working, no aids are needed at all.
The visual pun long predates Kawakami. Dadaist Meret Oppenheim did it in 1936 with her Objet: dejeuner en fourrure (Luncheon in Fur).
Magritte, Dali, Man Ray - the list is huge. Rock bands, too, have collided words absurdly since the sixties. And the inventions in Philip Garner's 1982 Better Living Catalog, now out of print, were as funny as Kawakami (and debuted more than a decade earlier).
Try giving yourself a regular absurdity workout. For a few minutes, just stop making sense, collide two or three unconnected things and see what impractical AND practical ideas arise. Think of Chindogu-like thinking as yoga for keeping the creative mind flexible, receptive and original.
You'll have plenty of company, by the way. Kawakami's two Chindogu books have sold close to half a million copies in Japan alone.
Oh, before you go (and while our increasingly spammed comments are still open): What's your favorite absurd band name? Let us know. We'll add it to this post. And if you're already into Chindogu, drop us links to pictures of your favorite and funniest Chindogu inventions. I'll share a few in future posts.
Posted by Tim Moore at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2007PERSONAS:
Creative Thinking Technique #1
Do you know why Halloween is such a popular holiday in America? People get permission to be somebody else for a night. Wearing a costume makes it easier to act differently, to let go of one's normal self -- perhaps the simplest and most socially approved way to change perspective.
And so, if you are feeling stuck or bound by old perceptions, why not declare TODAY your own, personal Halloween? Try on a different mask. Be someone else for a change. The more you can look at challenges or opportunities through the eyes of another, the easier it will be for you to have a creative breakthrough. In other words, ACT AS IF!
WHAT TO DO
1. Select a new persona -- anyone who inspires or intrigues you.
2. Close your eyes and imagine you actually ARE this new persona.
3. Brainstorm your biggest challenge or opportunity through the eyes of this new persona. How would he or she approach it?
4. Based on your persona's new approach, what compelling new ideas come to mind about what YOU can do differently to get a big breakthrough?
"Personas" is one of 35 creative thinking techniques included in AWAKE AT THE WHEEL: Getting Great Ideas Rolling in an Uphill World.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:56 PM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2007Here, Sonny, Catch!
Sitting here watching the World Series (LET'S go RED Sox, bom, bom, bom-bom-bom -- and how about that ca-razy percussion section in the bullpen?), I was struck by the now-common sight of a fielder flipping a foul ball into the stands. It's routine now, of course, but it wasn't always so.
It's one of those things that, once you see it, seems so obviously right. What kid who goes to a big-league game doesn't dream about being able to bring home a real, Major League baseball? And it doesn't matter how old that kid is.
When you compare the money that is spent on putting a team on the field to the Costco-like price of a baseball (I mean, I assume they buy them in bulk), and the public relations value of donating a dozen or so during the course of the game, it's the very definition of a no-brainer.
But I don't remember ever that seeing that when I was growing up watching the game. One day, someone in some ballclub's management saw it happen -- perhaps a ball was tossed by a player who remembered when he was a kid at the park himself -- and said, hey, why don't we do that all the time?
It's a nice example of picking the low-hanging fruit when you're looking for ways to innovate (which simply means, thinking differently to change things for the better), and points up what may be its first principle:
Start by examining what resources you have immediately at hand. You may be amazed at what significant changes you can make with a very small amount of effort.
(We love baseball here at Idea Champions -- check out "Measuring Up," our foremost expert Mr. Vadeboncoeur's earlier post on how the Kansas City Royals have begun to "think outside the radar gun.")
uploaded to Flickr by vinceconnare
Posted by Bill Ross at 11:10 PM | Comments (1)
October 23, 2007Owning Your Own Knowledge
One of the guiding principles of Idea Champions is that any large enough group of people who work in any organization already has the requisite knowledge to deal with the majority of the issues and challenges facing them. There may be issues where they need additional information from outside experts but, in general, they know their business, industry, and market and what they have to do to grow their bottom line.
Why they can't easily access this knowledge on a regular basis and act upon it is another story, however, and why, I imagine, we are in the business we're in.
The issue of not being able to act on the knowledge one already has does not exist because of organizations, of course. It exists because this phenomenon is a major issue for many human beings, and has been, it seems, for as long as there have been human beings. I have a psychologist friend who once confided that when he came across a patient who embraced this syndrome, he recommended other therapists to them as quickly as possible because he found their denial of their own knowledge, and subsequent lack of corrective action, totally exasperating.
Books have been written about the phenomenon of the tragic characters of Shakespeare "disowning knowledge" leading directly to their inevitable demise. Hamlet knows what he needs to know in order to act very early on in that play, but does not, requiring ever greater "burdens of proof" which delay action until it is too late. King Lear knows that he will create a power vacuum if he abdicates his crown that will lead to strife and confusion among his daughters and discord in his kingdom, yet he does so anyway, etc.
Speaking of vacuums... a simple example of this phenomenon occurred to me only recently.
Fourteen years ago, I purchased a fine, expensive vacuum cleaner. This machine cost over a thousand dollars back then and it's been worth every penny, as it is so well made that it probably will outlast me on this planet. During those years, I've often come across a warning in manuals and brochures that if one persisted in dragging the machine around by its hose, or lifting it by same, one would eventually loosen the electronic connections that give signals from the body of the vacuum to its end attachments and it would cease to function properly. The result: $300 to replace the hose and attachments.
Well, after 14 years of dragging the machine around by its hose and lifting it by same, the inevitable has occurred. I need to replace the hose and attachments.
D'OH!
Why didn't I simply use the knowledge I had instead of ignoring it? Well, for the first 14 years everything seemed fine, reminding me of the joke about the guy who wanted to see what it was like to jump off a tall building and thinking to himself during his descent, "so far, so good."
The very same goes for organizations and the people within it.
What knowledge of our organization, its processes, its people, its products and services, our customers, our markets, and our society are we choosing to ignore because, "so far, so good?"
One good way to check this collective syndrome of disowning our own knowledge in organizations is to conduct regular brainstorm sessions that use a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis or Environmental Scan as a starting off point. This tactic forces us to see what's going on in and around our organization, assess the level of threat or opportunity, and to consciously go about doing something about it.
Look around you. Check all your mirrors. Exercise your peripheral vision. What's sneaking up on you in your environment that you hadn't noticed before? What is the market telling you about your products and services? What are your customers telling you every single day in their words and actions, and even more importantly, in what they don't say and don't do? What threats or opportunities right there in front of you have you not taken the time and effort to act upon?
What do you already know to be true that you haven't shared with others or acted upon yourself?
Don't end up in your own self-made tragedy like Hamlet or Lear, or be like that poor guy falling from the skyscraper thinking everything is going to work out just fine, or that dolt in upstate New York staring at a sea of dust bunnies armed only with an expensive vacuum cleaner which no longer works.
Act now on what you know to be true. It's why you're alive.
Posted by Val Vadeboncoeur at 07:28 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2007Just a Great Idea
(Occasionally we'll run little quickies like this one, examples of remarkably creative thinking that we found irresistible, just for the purpose of passing along a small flash of inspiration that may help raise your own efforts up a notch.)
Parent-Child Dancing Shoes
These shoes are meant to be worn by a father and a young daughter for dancing together.
Titled "Tanssitossut" or Dance Shoes, they were designed by Finnish artists Huopaliike Lahtinen and Haraldin Kenka. If you can think of anything sweeter than this (or "these"?), please let us know.
Found it on: Boing Boing
Who got it from: Neatorama
originally from Salakauppa / Secret Shop
Posted by Bill Ross at 04:18 PM | Comments (1)
October 13, 2007How do you view your customers?
Sometimes innovative, creative thinking -- in the ultimate service of increasing your business -- is simply about taking a step back to get perspective.
A recent post in the Endless Innovation blog, commenting on an entry in another, Futuristic Play, pointed to an observation that the latter's Andrew Chen made from his participation in a Web-oriented ad conference in New York. As the former put it, Chen found a "huge cultural gap between the East Coast and West Coast" when it comes to thinking about business. (Surprise!)
In New York, Chen reports, "people don't call things User Generated Content (aka UGC)," they call it Consumer Generated Media (CGM)." (The bolds there are mine.) He puts it down to your Silicon Valley types focused on attracting "users" to their sites, whereas, since the New Yorkers "are typically on the advertising side, they see these people as 'consumers.'"
(There are the similarities, too, of course: players on both coasts appear to suffer from the epidemic of acute "Acronymonia," the uncontrollable urge to reduce every human effort to three letters.)
As Chen says, it's "an interesting and subtle distinction." Endless Innovation remarks -- talking about the Web, but equally applicable to any business -- "The difference is a big one for any business hoping to expand its Web presence: Do you think of your customers as 'consumers' or as 'users'?"
To me (not to make too much of these particular terms), seeing people just as consumers is to think of them in a passive role; as mouths to be stuffed, you might say. "Users" casts them in an active role: mouths that also have something to say, to contribute. As a consummate user myself, I'm far more receptive to a company that addresses me as a person with something to offer, rather than as a receptacle they wish to pour products into.
It's just one more example of how we have to continually re-examine our basic assumptions and ways of thinking about our business, whatever it is. Naturally, a shorthand develops within any enterprise. Just make sure you continually remind yourself to listen to what you're saying to the people outside, your customers and prospects, and what it sounds like to them.
"Californians say 'UGC,' New Yorkers say 'CGM'" - in Endless Innovation,
referring to:
"5 differences between a NY ad conference and a SF web 2.0 conference" - in Futuristic Play by Andrew Chen
Posted by Bill Ross at 06:56 PM | Comments (1)
