Brainstorming Doesn’t Really Work In the late nineteen-forties, Alex Osborn, a partner in the advertising agency B.B.D.O., decided to write a book in which he shared his creative secrets. At the time, B.B.D.O. was widely regarded as the most innovative firm on Madison Avenue. Born in 1888, Osborn had spent much of his career in Buffalo, where he started out working in newspapers, and his life at B.B.D.O. began when he teamed up with another young adman he’d met volunteering for the United War Work Campaign. “Your Creative Power” was filled with tricks and strategies, such as always carrying a notebook, to be ready when inspiration struck. The book outlined the essential rules of a successful brainstorming session. Brainstorming was an immediate hit and Osborn became an influential business guru, writing such best-sellers as “Wake Up Your Mind” and “The Gold Mine Between Your Ears.” The underlying assumption of brainstorming is that if people are scared of saying the wrong thing, they’ll end up saying nothing at all.
Killing Creativity: Why Kids Draw Pictures of Monsters & Adults Don't | Moments of Genius What's the Big Idea? The Monster Engine is one of the best ideas I’ve come across. It’s a book, demonstration, lecture and gallery exhibition created by Dave Devries. The premise is simple: children draw pictures of monsters and Devries paints them realistically. According to the website, the idea was born in 1998 when Devries took an interest in his niece’s doodles. But Devries had a larger goal: he wanted to always see things as a child. Growing up, to be sure, has its benefits. Age doesn’t necessarily squander our creative juices, but when we make the leap from elementary school to middle school our worldview becomes more realistic and cynical. A study conducted several years ago by Darya Zabelina and Michael Robinson of North Dakota State University gives us a simple remedy. You are 7 years old. The second group was given the same prompt minus the first sentence. Next, the psychologists asked their subjects to take ten minutes to write a response. What's the Significance?
Hosting a Remote Whiteboard Session? Try These - BestVendor Whiteboard sessions are great for brainstorming and planning, and we love tools like IdeaPaint that make it easy. But what do you do if you’re, say, brainstorming new product designs but your team is spread across the globe? Face-to-face isn’t an option, so how can you collaborate visually? This is where virtual whiteboards come in. Jot! An iPad is practically a whiteboard already, so it’s arguably the perfect platform for hosting your session. When you tap the Live Sharing option, you’re given the option of hosting your whiteboard in real-time. Jot! Scriblink Need a quick-and-dirty Web-based whiteboard, no software or sign-ups required? Inviting others to join is easy: You click “Get URL” or “Email”, then share your room’s address with your desired attendees. When you’re done with your session, you can save, send, or print the whiteboard. Twiddla Like the other services mentioned here, Twiddla requires no downloads, registrations, or other hassles. Ready, Set, Brainstorm!
Strategic Questions for an Accelerating World - Colin Raney by Colin Raney | 11:21 AM April 9, 2012 If you feel like the pace of competition is increasing, you’re right. Tectonic shifts in culture and technology over the past decade have rapidly accelerated change in the market. As a result, business strategy today is less about conceiving and executing a brilliant master plan and more about shaping an organization that can quickly launch and learn from smart innovations. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Eight Rules To Brilliant Brainstorming 1. USE BRAINSTORMING TO COMBINE AND EXTEND IDEAS, NOT JUST HARVEST THEMAndrew Hargadon's How Breakthroughs Happen shows that creativity occurs when people find ways to build on existing ideas. The power of group brainstorming comes from creating a safe place where people with different ideas can share, blend, and expand their diverse knowledge. If your goal is just to collect the creative ideas that are out there, group brainstorms are a waste of time. ), SAP's (SAP ) Design Services Team, the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, the Institute for the Future, frog design, and IDEO -- brainstorming is treated as a skill that takes months or years to master.
The Making of an Innovation Master - Scott Anthony by Scott Anthony | 12:01 PM March 23, 2012 A workshop attendee asked me this seemingly simple question: “So, what else should I read to learn more about innovation?” It’s a hard question to answer because there is so much high-quality material out there. And specific recommendations depend on the specific topic about which you are most curious. But in thinking it through, I did eventually end up with a highly personal list I call “The Masters of Innovation” (which appears in my latest book). So what makes a Master? Do the individual’s ideas bring clarity to the quest of improving the predictability and productivity of innovation? These three questions lead to obviously biased selections. There were a ton of great thinkers that didn’t quite make the cut, such as Chip and Dan Heath, Geoffrey Moore, Constantinos Markides, Robert Burgelman, Henry Mintzberg, Gary Hamel, Michael Tushman, W. One natural question is, “Who is next?” 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Speed Meeting Icebreaker - Meet People Quickly With a Speed Meet Have you ever heard of speed dating? It's an opportunity for people to quickly meet a large number of people to potentially date. This speed meeting icebreaker provides a similar experience for participants at a training meeting or team building session. Looking for an icebreaker that will quickly allow your training session participants to meet fellow participants? Need an icebreaker that will warm up the group with action and movement? Plus, the speed meeting icebreaker enables your participants to succeed. Use the Speed Meeting Icebreaker With Strangers When your participants don’t know each other, ask them to number off by one and two; half your participants become ones and half become twos. Ask them to introduce themselves to the person sitting directly across the table. their name, what they do for a living, and why they attended the training session. Keep your suggested topics simple as two minutes is not a lot of time for both people to respond. More Icebreakers
Does Creativity Require Constraints? Research suggests you'd be more creative if I allow your mind to roam free. When people are given the task of imagining alien creatures, most use specific instances (e.g., joe the plumber) as their starting point. This effect is especially pronounced when creatures are described as being intelligent and capable of space travel. Even science fiction writers aren't immune to this effect: content analyses of creatures invented by science fiction writers show striking similarities to animals here on earth: bilateral symmetry, and the presence of legs and eyes represented symmetrically in heads at the tops of bodies. Most science fiction writers aren't all that imaginative! Creativity involves variability— different ways of doing things. In many domains, there are issues that have not yet been resolved, questions that have not yet been posed, and problems that have no obvious solution. What are these constraints? Stokes lists four such constraints.
KMO: Veranderen doe je zo | ubeon.com — Normaal 400 euro, dankzij Syntra Vlaanderen nu 50 euro! — Een veiliger kassasysteem. Glijdende werkuren. Een nieuwe productielijn. Overkoepelende ERP-software. Dus kost je verandering meer tijd en moeite dan voorzien. Krijg iedereen mee In deze opleiding leer je hoe de menselijke kant van verandering werkt en wat dat betekent voor de verandering in jouw KMO of bij je klanten. Wat leer je? Door welke 4 herkenbare fases gaat elke verandering? We passen alles toe op cases uit jouw KMO en bedrijven van andere deelnemers. Het effect van deze opleiding Je veranderingen slagen. Voor wie? Ondernemers, kaderleden van KMO's en zelfstandigen die willen leren hoe verandering werkt in de praktijk. In goede handen Wij zijn Dave Synaeve, Werner Küper, Pascal Vanden Bossche en Katia Van Belle, de 4 gedreven consultants van Propellor. Waar en wanneer? Dit leertraject is gespreid over zeven weken. Je kan kiezen tussen 2 parallelle trajecten. Jouw bijdrage Deze opleiding in jouw KMO?
Strategy, Context, and the Decline of Sony - Sohrab Vossoughi by Sohrab Vossoughi | 10:55 AM April 25, 2012 Sometimes it’s useful to be reminded that a great strategy is only great in context. From the early 1980s and into the 90s, Sony’s was great. The unrivaled master of the consumer electronics world, its name was synonymous with cutting-edge technology, sophistication, and desirability. That last statement is still true today, but everything else has changed. Both observations are correct, but they only hint at the underlying question: why is the strategy that once served Sony so well now failing so badly? Part of the shift is technological. This suggests a more fundamental explanation: consumers today care more about the experience, but Sony is still focused on the product. In the experience economy, these expectations are reversed. What’s tragic is that Sony still has all the resources to execute well on a new strategy. What’s missing is the strategic vision to emphasize the delivery of powerful and resonant user experiences.
Mental Nimbleness for Executive and How to Enhance It The more the business environment changes, the faster the value of what you know at any point in time diminishes. In this world, success hinges on the ability to participate in a growing array of knowledge flows in order to rapidly refresh your knowledge stocks. John Hagel, John Seely Brown, Lane Davison While new knowledge flows are important, they are not enough! The illustration below is a New System of Engagement. Seeing new possibilities requires a mindshift–a new way of envisioning what is relevant and meaningful to customers. Netflix, Zappos and Groupon are three great examples of companies who exploited the potential of technology and leveraged the growing number of customers online. The mindshift that underlies companies like Netflix, Zappos and Groupon are far from second nature for most executives. With the pace of change and innovation, especially disruptive innovation, executives with high adaptive potential are critical to their company’s future.
John Hagel on "Invisible Innovation" Some time Bloomberg Businessweek columnists John Hagel III and John Seely Brown have, with their colleague from Deloitte’s Center for the Edge, Lang Davison, written this year’s must-read book on innovation. Building on their work on The Shift Index, itself important reading for any executive looking to get to grips with innovation in the 21st century, the key to The Power of Pull is in its subtitle: “How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion”. The book is a smart analysis of why executives need to broaden their thinking about innovation—and take action, now. Recently, I caught up with John Hagel in New York City to discuss some of the book’s themes and examples, in particular the different approaches to innovation in different regions of the world. An edited transcript of our conversation follows. After the jump, a short video of Hagel and Seely Brown discussing the premise of the book. And where is that taking place? We’ve become efficient beyond our wildest dreams.
How to Avoid the Innovation Death Spiral Consider this all too familiar scenario: Company X’s new products developed and launched with great expectations, yield disappointing results. Yet, these products continue to languish in the market, draining management attention, advertising budgets, manufacturing capacity, warehouse space and back office systems. Wouter Koetzier explores how to avoid the innovation death spiral. Compounding the problem, fewer resources are available to invest in other initiatives that may prove far more innovative and fuel profitable growth. We call this the “innovation death spiral,” a cycle in which far too many firms find themselves today. Balancing innovation In contrast, companies taking a bolder, more far-sighted approach to innovation are on the opposite trajectory: becoming a high-performing organization. Financially, companies simply do not generate the growth premiums with incremental innovations that they do with platform or breakthrough innovations. Inside the death spiral Strategic impact