|
|
|
Creative Thinking versus Critical Thinking
The process of creative thinking is often, mistakenly, intertwined with critical thinking. There is a tendency to write and edit simultaneously, couple hypothesis generation and evaluation, combine problem identification with solution. To increase...
Innovation Management – Status Games
One of the dynamics leaders should be looking out for is the propensity of certain personality types to be more interested in maintaining a high status within the group as opposed to working to arrive at good decisions.
Creativity can...
Innovation Management – the value of due diligence
One consideration innovators should be wary of in the rush to market is to not forego due diligence. That is, the temptation to forego, among other things, investigation into an idea’s feasibility, adequate market analysis and the questioning of...
The Micro View
Last time in “The Macro View” we dealt with the big picture, what the INTERNET could do for you. This week we are going to look at what YOU can do on the Internet. You may remember that you were left with these instructions: Here's what you need...
Top of the Mind Awareness in Equine Marketing: Familiarity Breeds Sales
One of the large challenges you face as an equine marketer is
achieving what marketing professionals call "top of the mind
awareness" of your horses and business.
What is Top of the Mind Awareness?
Top of the Mind Awareness, or...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Innovation: The Life Blood Of Your Business
If you're running or managing a business and want it to be around for a good while longer, you need to spend at least 15% of your time innovating. That's because, in a fast-moving world, where people expect things to get better and better, and cheaper and cheaper, innovation is your route to getting ahead of your competition. And 15% is the minimum amount that giant packaging company 3m expect their own staff to spend on innovating.
So, to help you put new life blood into your organization, here are 7 ways to innovate.
1. Create An Innovative Climate. Goran Ekvall of Lund University in Sweden has defined three conditions needed for a climate of innovation. They are: trust, dynamism, and humour. Ekvall came to this conclusion as a result of his research into the most innovative businesses in Sweden. One of Ekvall's case studies was a Swedish newspaper where the team working on the women's section consistently outperformed all the other teams. The reason? Quite simply, this group trusted one another, had a high level of energy and shared a common sense of humour.
2. Develop Washing-Up Creativity. According to the Roffey Park Management Insitute, most flashes of inspiration come to people when they are away from work and not forcing their conscious brains to find solutions to their problems. For some, ideas come while mowing the lawn or taking the dog for a walk or playing golf or waiting on a railway station. For Isaac Newton, it was an apple on the head while sitting in the garden. For Archimedes, it was in the bath. For others it's while doing the dishes; that's why Roffey Park calls it "washing-up creativity".
3. Make New Connections. Making new connections between existing features of your product or service is a popular way to innovate. Akio Morita, chairman of Sony, said that he invented the Walkman because he wanted to listen to music while walking between holes on his golf course. His team simply put together two seemingly incompatible products: a tape recorder and a transistor radio.
4. Find Out What People Need. Necessity is a great spur to innovation. Take, for example, writing paper. The Chinese had already made paper from rags around the year 100 BC but because there was no need for it, nothing came of it. When it did reach Europe in the Middle Ages when writing became all the rage, the supply of rags and worn-out fabric soon dried up. That's when a French naturalist made the discovery that wasps made their nests by chewing wood into a mash that dried in thin layers. Within 100 years, all paper was made using the idea of wood pulp.
5.
Associated Websites
Test, Test, Test. Product testing is the way most inventors and organizations go about innovation. It may not be the quickest route to success, but it is often the surest. Jonas Salk, for example, discovered the polio vaccine by spending most of his time testing and testing and continually finding out what didn't work. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the filament light bulb, recorded 10,000 experiments that were complete failures. But he was able to keep going because, as he said, he knew 10,000 ways that it wasn't going to work.
6. Adopt and Adapt. One relatively easy approach to innovation is to notice how others deal with problems and then adapt their solutions to your own. It's known as "adapt and adopt". It's what watchmakers Swatch did when they realized that the more reliable their watches became, the less people needed to replace them. Their solution? Borrow an idea from the world of fashion and collections by turning their watches into desirable fashion accessories. Now people buy Swatch watches not just to tell the time but because it's cool to do so.
7. Take Lessons From Nature. If you really want to be inventive, you can't beat nature. The world of nature gives us an endless supply of prototypes to use in our own world. Take Velcro, for example. Velcro was patented by Georges de Mestral in 1950 after he returned from a hunting trip covered in tiny burrs that had attached themselves to his clothing by tiny overlapping hooks. De Mestral quickly realized that here was an ideal technique to fasten material together. A whole new way of doing things was suddenly invented.
The history of the world is the history of innovation. Thomas Kuhn called each acceptance of a new innovation a "paradigm shift". For once a new innovation becomes accepted, the world has changed for ever and can never go back to the way it was.
About the Author: (c) Eric Garner, http://ManageTrainLearn.com.
For instant solutions to all your management training needs, visit http://www.managetrainlearn.com and download amazing FREE training software. And while you're there, make sure you try out our prize quiz, get your surprise bonus gift, and subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter. Go and get the ManageTrainLearn experience now!
Source: www.isnare.com
|
|
|
|
|
|