Chuck Frey Archives - InnovationManagement

CHUCK FREY

Chuck Frey founded InnovationTools.com and served as its publisher from its launch in 2002 until the partnership with Innovation Management in 2012. He is the publisher of The Mind Mapping Software Blog, the definitive souce for news, trends, tips and best practices for visual mapping tools. A journalist by trade, Chuck has over 14 years of experience in online marketing, and over 10 years experience in business-to-business public relations. His interests include creative problem solving, visual thinking, photography, business strategy and technology. His unique combination of experience and influences enables him to envision new possibilities and opportunities.

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The 7 All-time Greatest Ideation Techniques

Which brainstorming techniques should you use to attack your next innovation challenge? Here are the "super seven" that innovation consultant Bryan Mattimore says have the advantages of being easy to learn, flexible to adapt to different types of creative challenges and are diverse enough to deliver different types of ideas.

Ideascale2021-12-20T16:30:21-08:00May 30th, 2013|Categories: Strategies|Tags: Best Practices, brainstorm, brainstorming, Ideation|

How to Clear your Mind of Distractions and Free it up for Creative Thinking

Do you ever find that distractions get in the way of your creative thinking time? Is your mind buzzing, heading off in many different directions, sapping your energy for brainstorming? Tom Wujec, author of Five Star Mind: Games & Puzzles to Stimulate Your Creativity & Imagination, offers a clever solution to this common problem.

Ideascale2021-12-05T16:57:36-08:00May 29th, 2013|Categories: Strategies|Tags: brainstorm, creative thinking, Creativity, distraction|

How a Decision Room Can Enable Change and Innovation

One of the challenges leaders face in times of uncertainty and rapid change is helping senior managers to engage in bigger-picture thinking. To enable this process, a growing number of companies are creating “decision rooms” – dedicated areas that help them visualize challenges and opportunities from a number of perspectives and make better decisions.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:13:43-07:00March 15th, 2013|Categories: Enabling Factors, Leadership, Open Innovation|Tags: Best Practices, big picture, case study, complex problems, decision making, decision room, incremental gains, innovation portfolio, memory theater, portfolio management, Problem Solving, R&D, Teamwork, visualization|

Unlocking Talent is a Key to Organizational Agility and Innovation

Nilofer Merchant, in her excellent new book, 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era, points out that in order for companies to be fast, nimble and innovative enough to survive in today's Social Era, leaders must meet their workers' desire to contribute to a mission that matters.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:41:03-08:00March 1st, 2013|Categories: Leadership, Organization & Culture|Tags: Collaboration, community, Employee Engagement, employee satisfaction, leadership, mission statement, talent, team building, top talent, value|

Cultivating Innovation Champions

In order for innovation to flourish in your organization, your innovation champions must be supported through properly structured responsibilities, goals and resources. Otherwise, they will leave to pursue other opportunities, taking their energy and ideas with them. That’s one of the core messages of Gerard J. Tellis’ new book, Unrelenting Innovation.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:33:17-08:00January 30th, 2013|Categories: Enabling Factors, Leadership|Tags: goal setting, innovation champions, Innovation Culture|

The Surprising Connection Between Simplification and Innovation

Matthew E. May, author of the new book The Laws of Subtraction, believes if we would take a more minimalist approach to our work, seeking ways to get maximum impact with minimum effort, there would be much less waste - and much more innovation.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:29:52-08:00January 23rd, 2013|Categories: Enabling Factors, Idea Management|Tags: choosing ideas, Creativity, simplification, Teamwork, vision|

Random Word Brainstorming: A Simple, Powerful and Effective Ideation Technique

Word lists, because of their simplicity, are often overlooked as a tool for brainstorming. That's too bad, because they can be quite powerful and are very easy to use. They leverage the mind's awesome associative powers to help us uncover new connections, insights and ideas.

Ideascale2021-12-20T16:28:12-08:00December 26th, 2012|Categories: Strategies|Tags: brainstorm, brainstorming, Ideation, innovation tool, innovation toolbox|

Making Your Idea Matter

For many innovative people, the problem is not coming up with enough ideas, but getting attention for those ideas we decide to implement. To solve this problem, we need to invest more time developing persuasive stories that make an emotional connection with the people we're trying to influence. That's the message of Bernadette Jiwa's terrific book Make Your Idea Matter: Stand Out With a Better Story.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:12:44-07:00December 9th, 2012|Categories: Book Review|Tags: Book Review|

Steal Like an Artist: A Concise, Inspiring Guide for Creators

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon is a wonderful little book that is designed for anyone who is ever has had a desire to create something amazing, but doesn't know where to start.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:12:45-07:00December 5th, 2012|Categories: Book Review|Tags: Book Review|

Thinking About Starting Your Own Venture? Read Hugh MacLeod’s Book, ‘Evil Plans’

Are you a cubicle slave who longs to be their own boss, to take their Really Big Idea and run with it, unencumbered by the shackles of the corporate world? Then you need to pick up Hugh MacLeod's new book, Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:12:45-07:00December 5th, 2012|Categories: Book Review|Tags: Book Review|

6 Mega-forces of Change that Affect Innovation

Today, there are six essential forces that are driving the changes that are occurring across much of today’s world. While these may not be the most pressing issues for your company, chances are that some combination of them will have a significant influence on your situation, on the strategic choices you make and thus on your approach to innovation.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:12:27-08:00November 28th, 2012|Categories: News, Strategies, Support for SMEs, Trend Alert|Tags: 24-hour news cycle, acceleration, business development, Business Model Innovation, business strategy, business trends, Change Management, commoditization, Competition, digital innovation, digital revolution, digitization, enterprise innovation, global business trends, global market, global markets, global trends, globalization, information distribution, innovation trends, manufacturing, outsourcing, social media, speed of innovation, wikileaks|

Partnering with U.S. Universities in the Era of Open Innovation

Today’s University is a rich resource for companies seeking game-changing technological breakthroughs. In this in-depth article Melba Kurman looks at the benefits of open innovation partnerships between companies and American university researchers.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:12:21-08:00November 28th, 2012|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Open Innovation|Tags: academic innovation, agility, business innovation, Collaboration, corporate innovation, cross industry innovation, data, ecosystem, enterprise innovation, idea exploration, innovation landscape, innovation merchants, intellectual property, licensing, new technologies, Open Innovation, patents, Product Development, product ideation, R&D, research, research and development, research lab, royalties, universities, university research lab|

The Dynamic Duo of Innovation: Ethnography and Big Data

The combination of Big Data and ethnographics can be a potent toolset for uncovering innovation opportunities, as a growing number researchers are discovering.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:12:14-08:00November 28th, 2012|Categories: Trend Alert|Tags: algorithms, analytics, big data, confirmation bias, consumer trends, customer challenge, data analysis, data sets, databases, demographics, dirty data, enterprise innovation, ethnography, focus groups, marketing, pain points, problem identification, Problem Solving, product assessment, Product Development, product research, sociology, statistical analysis, trends|

Mind Mapping Software: A Simple Approach to Idea Management

Small to medium-sized businesses typically don't need an enterprise-level idea management system. What they need is a simple tool that enables them to capture, improve, evaluate and take action upon their best ideas. Mind mapping software is a tool that can help.

Ideascale2020-07-07T19:40:23-07:00November 28th, 2012|Categories: Idea Management, Support for SMEs|Tags: action plan, attribute listing, brainstorming, challenge, evaluation criteria, idea evaluation, idea filing, idea grouping, idea implementation, idea improvement, idea scoring, Ideation, innovation tool, lateral thinking, mind mapping, mind mapping software, problem causes, problem definition, problem identification, SCAMPER, SME, visual thinking|

How R+D Can Build Marketing Support for its Ideas

Last week, we introduced the topic of R&D's frequent lack of marketing support for its ideas and some culturally ingrained attitudes that can contribute to this. This communication gap is frustrating, especially for those in R&D whose role it is to develop and sell-in new initiatives. This week, we continue this discussion and describe strategies to help overcome resistance.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:33:41-08:00October 21st, 2012|Categories: Idea Management, Organization & Culture|Tags: Collaboration, Communication, Competition, competitive advantage, consumer benefits, credibility, Ideation, marketing, opportunities, R&D, research and development, target customer, target segment, technical features, trust|