15 Foundations for Facilitating Creativity in the Workplace
Here are lessons learned from 12 years of creative facilitation in business, from creativity expert Michelle James.
Changing times –preparing for the ‘New Economy’
Perhaps your company’s product innovation process is one of the casualties of the Great Recession. Yet, you know that a steady release of new products or services into the marketplace remains the only way to stay strong and grow in an increasingly competitive world. Companies need to produce more with less, to make it faster, and to do it with reduced personnel. What do you do? Read more in this article by Dr. Scott J. Edgett.
Personal Innovation: We Need to Stop and Think
Innovation experts love to make lists of obstacles to innovation. These lists include issues like lack of time, resistance to change, poor communication, middle management and so on. Employees like to cite obstacles such as these in part because they place the blame on the organisation and their mangers rather than on themselves. And, indeed, can you imagine a middle manager responding to a questionnaire on obstacles to innovation with the answer: “Why, I believe I am a major obstacle to innovation in this firm.”? But the truth is, possibly the biggest obstacle to innovation is simply that people do not stop and think!
Intellectual property rights
The theme headlined, often abbreviated IPR, could provide almost unlimited contents, so my essay will necessarily just attempt to indicate some interesting resources in a field not without controversy.
Seizing the White Space- Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal
In this book review Paul Hobcraft looks at “Seizing the White Space”- Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal, a book by Mark. W Johnson, published by Harvard Business Press.
Business Model Generation
In this book review Paul Hobcraft looks at Business Model Generation- a book written by Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur, along with 470 co-authors, published in two editions, one self published the other by John Wiley & sons.
Clues to Innovation Risk Management
In today’s societies where science and technology are becoming more and more important, risk is seen as inevitable. At the same time risk has negative connotations and creates anxieties. It must be managed in order to achieve desired goals and for companies to survive. But how can you do that? Read more in this article that gives you some clues to innovation risk management to achieve sustainable innovation.
How Thinking about your Business as a Collection of Franchises can Unleash Innovation
Fostering a sense of ownership among employees can unleash tremendous capacity for innovation, says Edward Glassman. Like franchisees, who own their independent businesses but operate within a well-defined structure or system, empowered employees tend to be more entrepreneurial and committed to helping the organization to thrive.
Gamestorming Takes the Visual Thinking World by Storm
Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers and Changemakers, the new book by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo, is a great source of inspiration for any executive who seeks to invigorate thinking in their workplace.
Empowering People Through Innovations
Innovation is a powerful tool, not only to create competitive organizations, but also to improve the daily lives of people in developing countries and emerging markets. Innovations can in many cases make a critical difference and contribute to empower people and make the world a more equitable place to be.
From Science to Business – How Firms Create Value by Partnering with Universities
In today’s “knowledge-based” society, it is becoming increasingly imperative for companies to “mine” knowledge and technology generated by universities. Why? Because the outcome of such industry-university collaborations help companies create new activities and jobs.
How social media tools are invigorating creativity: George Por
Social creativity is on the rise, driven by tools that enable us to create value through tweets, blogs, wikis, videos and other empowering technologies, says George Por.
10 Steps for Boosting your Firm’s Innovation
Here are 10 steps you can take to turn your company into an innovation leader that races forwardswith new products, services and improved processes while your competitors remain far behind with outdated products, limited services and inefficient processes.
How do Innovation Intermediaries Help you to Implement Open Innovation?
Up to now, several innovation intermediaries have assisted managers to transgress the boundaries from closed to open innovation and facilitated the access to opaque and highly difficult to connect technology markets. Examples such as NineSigma, Innocentive, Innovaro and Yet2.com have been specificaly helpful for technological problems requiring solutions fromom distant and distinct innovation actors. This work aims to address the lack of continuous effort to study the content, structure and governance mechanisms of these intermediaries as well as other less publicized forms such as incubators, innovation agencies, science and technology parks that further complement innovative practices. How do innovation intermediaries help you to implement open innovation?
Creativity: How to Retrain Your Inner Censor
If you want to make the most of your creative potential, you need to learn how to override your inner censor so that it does not stifle your most imaginative ideas. Here are several techniques you can use to do this.
Innovate to Thrive – No Risk …No Innovation
Part two in a series of articles by Robert Brands discusses the need and importance of taking risks to achieve successful innovations. Since the high failure rate, organizations pursuing the practice of Innovation must have a tolerance for failure. The material is based on 25 years of hands on experience in the innovation space and the recently published book “Robert's Rules of innovation”.
Visual Meetings is a field guide to visual techniques for group creativity
In his fascinating new book, Visual Meetings, David Sibbett makes a convincing case for why teams ought to use visual techniques for group facilitation.
Do you encounter resistance to creativity at work? Try guerrilla creativity
Have you ever been on a course, say project management, leadership or even assertiveness and then wondered why you had such a hard time dealing with colleagues or perhaps loved ones when you returned?
Tony Ulwick on Innovation Management
InnovationManagement spoke to Tony Ulwick, founder and CEO of Strategyn, Inc., and publisher of numerous articles on innovation management in the Harvard Business Review and the Sloan Management Review. What are his views on innovation management, what does he like about his job and what should the newly appointed innovation manager who is having a hard time getting the much needed support and buy-in from the top management do?
A more creative approach to educating future leaders
In economically and socially advanced societies, education is the leading industry going forward. Yet it continues to operate as if it is still 1950. If education is the imperative in our societies, it needs to use new techniques, new methods, new tools, and creativity to make the educational experience more rewarding. It is time for education to catch up with society once again.
Stephen Shapiro explains why open innovation is the new paradigm of work
Stephen Shapiro explains the thinking behind open creativity and why he wrote a book and created a card deck called Personality Poker.
Clinic of Innovation – Where Ideas are Born, Nurtured, and Grown
Health clinics are a common feature of most urban health care landscapes treating ailments and illnesses not serious enough to be treated by hospitals. But when was the last time you ran into a “clinic of innovation” – a clinic that treats ideas rather than patients? Chances are pretty low, unless you happened to be in Norway recently.
Improvement is NOT innovation
Improvement is not the same thing as innovation. Unfortunately, the media and even many business leaders tend to use the terms almost interchangeably. Patrick Lefler explains the significant differences between the two concepts.
The Future of Innovation: GE’s Ecomagination Challenge
GE got their share of the headlines in the innovation community last month. I think it is well deserved as they gave us a very good example on how innovation is shaping up in the corporate world with their Ecomagination Challenge.