How to Use Generative AI to Turn Your Insights into Investable Ideas (Part 2)
This article builds on our previous write-up (Part 1) where we demonstrated how to transform your initial thinking into a compelling value proposition. We showed how you can increase your chances for approval and funding by using generative AI and CO-STAR to accomplish this critical first step in ideation and complete it almost instantaneously. To take the next step and enhance the quality of your value proposition and deepen your understanding of its potential, we suggest prompting your generative AI tool to address each component of your CO-STAR. We will repeatedly prompt the AI to produce research that both creates and informs the story of our value proposition. Successful prompts have clear instructions with strong verbs, keywords, and include [...]
A Yin-Yang Model for Global Sustainability: Moving Towards Rural-Urban Balance
This article employs a holistic, interactive East Asian framework—the ancient yin-yang circle—for presenting both defensive and proactive carbon control strategies in urban and rural areas. Given the recent wave of deadly wildfires in the American West, attention is focused here on the future significance of oceans as a massive carbon sink for fighting global climate change. Life probably arose in the sea, and the sea may end up having to save the planet.
Ideas from All? Try the Whiteboard Technique
By Bryan Mattimore “Creativity is contagious, pass it on.” Albert EinsteinIf you’ve ever had an experience with a suggestion box program – either running one, or more likely submitting a suggestion – the mere suggestion of having a suggestion box program at your organization might send your head spinning – and not in a good way. Truth is, with rare exceptions like Toyota, Frito-Lay and Dart industries, traditional suggestion box programs are – and continue to be -- one of the most dismal failures in business. How come? Suggestion box programs do not fail because of a lack of initial employee interest or enthusiasm. They fail because the process for managing, vetting, and developing submitted ideas isn’t as rigorous [...]
How Do You Uncover Unseen Problems?
Anyone who works in the problem definition space knows the pitfalls of hidden issues. Solving a problem is sometimes dependent on who is articulating the problem, the lens with which they view the world, and the space that they have at the table...
Five Reasons Why You Should Think Like a Criminal
Have you seen the movie The Day of the Jackal? In this 1973 film directed by Fred Zinnemann, Edward Fox plays a professional assassin, the "Jackal," who is hired to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle. It is a compelling thriller in which it is hard not to admire the cunning and guile of the ruthless killer. In the end you feel disappointed that he did not succeed with his audacious plan. It is an example of a genre of storytelling in which the main protagonist is a clever criminal. We seem to find them fascinating. Breaking Bad is about a chemistry teacher who becomes a master drugs dealer. The Sopranos is about a Mafia family. Ozark concerns a money [...]
Four Traits Your Next CEO Must Have For Your Organization to Thrive
Want to ensure your organization will thrive over the long run? If so, then your next CEO must have these four traits – 1) relentless focus on the long-term future; 2) inherently entrepreneurial mindset; 3) solid grounding in reality and the fundamentals of business; and 4) behavior of a consummate diplomat.
How Can Enterprises Think and Execute Like a Startup?
Around the world and across industries, enterprises are facing tremendous market upheaval. Transformation and disruption were the new normal well before the pandemic, but the coronavirus crisis accelerated certain trends toward innovation and digitization and led to the fundamental rewiring of old business models.
The Biggest Adaptations We Need to Make to Accommodate Climate Change
In 2020, for the first time ever, solar and wind made up the majority of the world’s new power generation. In 2021, the US alone committed to protect 30% of terrestrial and marine ecosystems by 2030. And as of Earth Day this year, more than 30% of the Fortune 500 have made commitments to a carbon-free future.
Whitepaper: Stimulating and Measuring Open and Cross Innovation
As two intermediaries from Hamburg that foster open and cross innovation processes, Science Scout (an initiative of Hamburg Innovation) and Cross Innovation Hub (Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft) joined forces to start a discussion around the stimulation and measurement of open and cross innovation processes.
Create a Team of Master Problem Solvers
Problem-solving is an essential skill as an innovator. If problems stump your employees, how can your organization ever innovate for customers? Luckily, problem-solving skills can be learned, and as a leader you can create a team of master problem solvers and innovators.
What is the New Model for Innovation Success?
In this series I’ve been critically examining the significant changes impacting the corporate innovation competency, which leads to how organisations drive future growth and impact.
In Search of the Perfect Brainstorm: An Update of Collaborative Ideation
Imaginary scenario: you have been invited to a meeting to explore new approaches to a wicked problem. Loudmouth Number 1 describes his solution. Loudmouth Number 2 vehemently disagrees. A heated argument ensues. Some people take sides. Others remain silent. There are bruised egos. You are not the only one who feels frustrated. All that time just one single idea has been considered. Have you ever experienced such a meeting? Have you ever wondered why brainstorming came to be? Brainstorming Today: Why It Needs an Update These days the noun “brainstorming” and the verb “to brainstorm” are used (and misused) extensively and in many different ways. Our working definition in this article is that brainstorming is a “process to enable purposeful, [...]
What are the Challenges to Government Intrapreneurship?
Government innovators face specific challenges: regulations, compliance issues, cooperation with numerous other branches of government...but they also access some of the most technical and influential trends of our time.
Unleashing Virtual Creative Collaboration at The Sonophilia Foundation: What Can a Nonprofit Teach Us About Virtual Creative Collaboration
Does creativity suffer in our virtual world, or could working virtually actually lead to more collaborative environments, better ideation and heightened interaction?
Is South Africa the Next Silicon Valley?
When you think of the most innovative places in the world, what do you picture? Silicon Valley and its array of tech startups? Tokyo, because it has the highest number of patents filed worldwide? London, where over 15% of the workforce is employed in the tech sector? Or are you imagining somewhere else?
Trending Questions
What is a trend, and other questions answered by Sébastien Van Laere, Co-founder of Superframe, an agency using insight and foresight to develop brand-, innovation- and business strategy for some of the biggest global brands.
Five Questions to Answer Before Crowdsourcing
As the director of the IdeaScale Crowd community, I recently had the opportunity to share some insights and best practices for innovators who are new to crowdsourcing, and may not have conducted their first campaign yet. We discussed five questions to ask as you prepare for your first campaign, why those questions are important, and some examples of good and bad answers to those questions.
Why People Buy Innovation Management Software
Every year, IdeaScale analyzes our system and customer data and releases a report on crowdsourced innovation trends and benchmarks. You can find this year’s report here, but one of the questions that we pay a lot of attention to is why people are looking to purchase an innovation management platform in the first place.
Who Are the Creators Among Us?
For a long time, the prevailing theory was that the creators, ideators, or innovators among us were a special type of person that had an innate gift for inspiration. The idea that creativity could be taught was much debated, but it is also one of the most commonly debunked myths in the innovation space.
Building an Imagination Machine: Exclusive Interview with Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller
Imagination is one of the least understood but most crucial ingredients of success. It’s what makes the difference between an incremental change and the kinds of pivots and paradigm shifts that are essential to transformation — especially during a crisis.
SWICH – The Six Week Innovation Challenge
The Six Week Innovation Challenge is becoming the method of choice in corporates. And it's not only innovators who love the sprint - leaders embrace it just as much.
Leveraging Alien Thinking: Exclusive Interview with Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade
For the past decade, Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade, professors of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School, have studied inventors, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, and artists. These people, or “aliens,” as the authors call them, are able to make leaps of creativity, and use five patterns of thinking that distinguish them from the rest of us.
Let’s Settle the Debate – Innovation Both Is & Is Not Everyone’s Job
Is ‘innovation’ everyone’s job – as so many claim it is? Or is it not everyone’s job – as the counterargument goes? The reality is not quite so simple. Dive in as we examine the three cases of significance here – two in which innovation is everyone’s job, and one in which it isn’t.
DNA of an Innovative Business: Is It Yours?
With the acceleration of modern economic, societal and environmental changes, new opportunities are created everywhere, and often where we least expect them.
Breaking the Innovation Stereotypes: The Case of Curry Express
We often hear about the concept of innovation and its importance in enhancing the competitiveness of an organization---however, the excessive use of this term has distorted its true meaning and content.
The Secrets to Making Open Innovation Projects Work
Open innovation often requires global teams with national culture differences to work together, which presents some challenges. Here’s how to navigate them.
How to Ensure Crowdsourcing Works for Product Innovation
Many enterprise organizations use crowdsourcing to find ideas in their blind spots - but how do you launch your first crowdsourcing challenge, and what sorts of questions do you ask? IdeaScale Crowd is hosting a webinar for first-time crowdsourcing innovators who want to engage a large group of collaborators in solving their problems.
The Three Horizons of Innovation Training
What if everyone in your organization came to work believing they could shape the destiny of your company? Learn more in this new post, and find out how it's possible with a 30-minute consult.