Creativity

Focused on creativity, creative thinking, brainstorming, ideation, and similar subjects

6 Innovation Exercises to Try With Your Team

Creative thinking and innovation don’t come naturally to everyone, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good at them. Sometimes, teams need practice and routine to improve their creativity skills. This article will highlight some popular innovation exercises you can conduct with your team to get your creative juices flowing. These will be a combination of workplace exercises and ice-breakers. Let’s get started.

Sarah Vandenberg2022-05-25T10:03:59-07:00May 25th, 2022|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: brainwriting, collaborative ideation, creative thinking, market adjacencies, mind mapping, online whiteboards, solution laddering, structured collaboration|

How to Create a Competitive Advantage Through Innovation

In the modern world of business, innovation is both an equalizer and a differentiator. It can give tiny startups an edge over global conglomerates and enable industry leaders to develop competitive advantages.

Sarah Vandenberg2022-04-06T18:28:20-07:00April 6th, 2022|Categories: Strategies|Tags: business development, Business Model Innovation, competitive advantage, continuous improvement, design thinking, incremental innovation, innovative thinking, radical innovation, remote work, ten types framework|

The 4 Golden Rules of Brainstorming

When innovating with your team, there are a few rules that are important regardless of the ideation session you’re conducting. In this article, we’ll outline the four golden rules of brainstorming and talk about how following them can improve your team’s innovative capabilities.

Sarah Vandenberg2022-03-14T13:23:50-07:00March 14th, 2022|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: brainstorming, Collaboration, Ideation, note taking|

Innovation Management Data Trends from 2021: What Can We Learn About 2022?

Many people have said that 2021 was 2020 Part II, but IdeaScale looked at some of our system data (as we do every year) to see what we could learn, and there are a few key trends we think are different from 2020, and that we think bode well for a creative 2022.

Sarah Vandenberg2022-01-31T16:30:05-08:00February 16th, 2022|Categories: Trend Alert|Tags: cost savings, Creativity, Ideation, innovation trends, process improvement, Product Development, product improvement, social initiatives, sustainability|

Interdisciplinary Innovation: Being Innovative is a Way of Imagining, Perceiving, Expressing, Inventing & Inspiring

Innovators present creatively disruptive traits, disrupt old ways, and inspire better ways to do things. They are passionate to connect, to learn, and to explore by understanding commonalities and appreciating uniqueness. Being innovative is a growth mindset and a proactive attitude. You cannot wait for something to happen---keep curious, always think profoundly, learn fresh knowledge, and acquire new capabilities.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-23T08:57:22-08:00January 3rd, 2022|Categories: Innovation Psychology|Tags: anthropology, breakthrough innovation, Collaboration, collaborative innovation, Communication, conflict, continuous improvement, creative thinking, Creativity, culture, culture of innovation, curiosity, ecosystem, growth mindset, humility, idea generation, Ideation, incremental innovation, innovation philosophy, innovative culture, innovative personalities, intertia, logic, motivation, organizational structure, performance, philosophy, philosophy of innovation, psychology, self-reflection, Teamwork, Technology|

How to Break the 5 Habits That Hurt Ideation

Many companies find it hard to prioritize ideation. Here are five ways to break the pattern and gather a wealth of ideas for your organization.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-08-24T18:17:04-07:00August 24th, 2021|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Idea Management|Tags: brainstorming, chaos, creative thinking, Employee Engagement, employee recognition, idea evaluation, idea generation, idea management, Ideation, incentives, motivation, proactive, structure, value creation, variety|

Five Reasons Why You Should Think Like a Criminal

Have you seen the movie The Day of the Jackal? [...]

Sarah Vandenberg2021-08-13T13:38:36-07:00August 13th, 2021|Categories: Innovation Psychology|Tags: ambition, breaking rules, Failure, lateral thinking, risk, risk-taking, weakness|

In Search of the Perfect Brainstorm: An Update of Collaborative Ideation

Imaginary scenario: you have been invited to a meeting to [...]

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T14:32:13-08:00July 26th, 2021|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Front End of Innovation, Idea Management, In-Depth Article|Tags: brainstorming, breakthrough ideas, co-creation, Collaboration, convergence, convergent thinking, creative problem solving, critical thinking, divergence, divergent thinking, diversity, emergence, idea generation, idea refinement, Ideation, incremental innovation, problem definition, Problem Solving, solitary work, Teamwork|

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.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-06-08T11:11:37-07:00June 16th, 2021|Categories: Innovation Psychology|Tags: Creativity, Ideation, ideators|

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.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-06-08T10:19:32-07:00June 14th, 2021|Categories: Book Review, Interview|Tags: artificial imagination, causal thinking, collective imagination, Competition, imagination, innovation fatigue|

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.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-06-08T10:19:28-07:00June 8th, 2021|Categories: Book Review, Interview|Tags: alien thinking, beginner's mind, big picture, breakthrough innovation, design thinking, digital technologies, disruption, hypothesis, innovation framework, intrapreneur, introspection, lean startup, originality, pattern, Problem Solving, problemstorming, questionstorming, reflection|

Remote Innovation – A Method to use over Zoom

Paul Sloane discusses ways to collaborate remotely over Zoom, drawing on inspiration from the musical duo The Postal Service, in this new article.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T12:11:31-08:00August 12th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: Collaboration, postal service, remote collaboration, zoom|

Human Creativity: The Critical Survival Skill of the 4th Industrial Revolution that Cannot be Automated

While 4th Industrial Revolution technologies are fast becoming the way to go in the world of the "new normal," they are driven by something far superior to robots: human creativity. Let's have a look at the importance of creativity in this article.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T12:02:51-08:00July 3rd, 2020|Categories: Innovation Psychology|Tags: 3D printing, 4th industrial revolution, AI, artificial intelligence, Business Model Innovation, covid-19, creative problem solving, doctor who, Internet of things, IoT, machine learning|

How Mind Mapping Boosts Your Creativity

Everyone has the power to be creative, but how can you bring your innovative thoughts to life? Discover how Mind Mapping can unlock your creative potential in this article.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:55:09-08:00May 22nd, 2020|Categories: Strategies|Tags: brainstorming, innovation tools, mind mapping, Problem Solving, visual thinking, visualization|

How To Confront Your Office Creativity Vampire

You won't find your office's creativity vampire hiding in the dark supply closet or hanging from the ceiling for a snooze.

Ideascale2021-12-20T11:18:36-08:00January 3rd, 2020|Categories: Organization & Culture|Tags: creativity vampire|