Category: Creativity
Over the past several years, I’ve had the good fortune to be able travel around Europe. I’ve taken tens of thousands of pictures.I love this shot below.Terra cotta roof tiles, and lush, greens hills a patchwork alternating vineyards and olive groves. This is Vinci, Italy. Where Leonardo was born and grew up – you know – Leonardo da Vinci (of Vinci).However, in the middle of this great shot – is a mark of the late 20th Century – the satellite dish. You can also see mid-century old-school antennas.[Fig. 1 Vinci, Italy View]You can click the image above for a larger view. Take out the tv equipment, convert to black and white, and you’d enjoy the same view from over 200 years ago.Environmental IntegrationWhile it’s not perfect, I spotted this solution to disguise dishes in Amsterdam. They’ve covered the dishes with a ‘picture of brick’ to blend into the building. This … Continue reading
Brilliant thinkers and innovators are very comfortable with ambiguity – they welcome it. Routine thinkers like clarity and simplicity; they dislike ambiguity. There is a tendency in our society to reduce complex issues down to simple issues with obviously clear solutions. We see evidence of this in the tabloid press. There have been some terrible crimes committed in our cities. A violent offender received what is seen to be a lenient sentence. This shows that judges are out of touch with what is needed and that heavy punishment will stop the crime wave. The brilliant thinker is wary of simple nostrums like these. He or she knows that complex issues usually involve many causes and these may need many different and even conflicting solutions.Routine thinkers are often dogmatic. They see a clear route forward and they want to follow it. The advantage of this is that they can make decisive … Continue reading
Which Is Better?A recent article in The New York Times discussed the innovation process at Apple. Clearly the process begins and ends with Steve Jobs. And clearly Mr. Jobs is a creative genius. He also has a lot of help with top notch design engineers. As a result, Apple is perceived as one of the most innovative companies on the planet.If you have visionary leadership at your company, this might be a good way to go. But companies like Procter & Gamble (P&G) also have strong leadership and they have taken a different route to innovation. P&G has been a leader in Open Innovation, and many of the new products they have launched in the past few years have come from outside the company.Which approach is better? Some say that Crowdsourcing produces a lot of good ideas, while “home grown” innovation is capable of producing bigger breakthrough ideas.I love Apple … Continue reading
There’s a simple reason why so many brainstorm sessions are a waste of time. The problem statement being pitched to participants is the wrong one. This is not surprising – especially when you consider how little time most facilitators put into preparing for a session. Here’s what happens: The person who calls the session is usually scrambling – overwhelmed, over-caffeinated, and running from one meeting to the next. Out of breath, they pitch the topic to the group, but the topic is either vague or secondary to a more essential challenge that remains unspoken.G.K. Chesterton, one of the most influential English writers of the 20th century, distilled the phenomenon down to 13 words. “It’s not that they can’t see the solution,” he said. “They can’t see the problem.”Then, of course, there’s also the phenomenon of perception bias. Pitch a challenge to an IT person, and it will be seen as … Continue reading
Being in the transportation industry (as I was) meant a lot of time spent thinking about balance, and not being too heavy inbound or outbound. In moving things (or people), the ideal state is the same number arriving and departing. If you’re too heavy outbound, it means you have lots of things going out, but very few coming in. Heavy inbound is the opposite – many things arriving, but few leaving. Within the economy, there are distinct geographic and industrial patterns in the movement of goods and people. As a result, transportation providers are constantly trying to achieve balance within their networks.All of this has a direct tie to creativity. It’s not difficult to find yourself in creative imbalance, with a disconnect between the amount of creativity you’re producing and the creative elements you’re taking in to fuel your own pursuits.Typically, I run heavy on the outbound side of creativity. … Continue reading
Innovative ideas – the kind that can transform your company – are inadvertently being demolished. When first presented, many ideas meet wrecking-ball comments such as:”How’s that going to work?” “Good luck getting that done!”"We don’t have time for something like that.” And the classic, “Doesn’t work… Trust me… We tried that years ago.”We’ve all heard (or perhaps said) killer phrase comments like these. These are offered as a “public service” to the team to prevent us from going off track and wasting time.But, what have we really accomplished?Yes… we’ve kept the meeting on schedule.But we also,have made the suggester feel stupid, are causing people to hold back their creativity, and may have destroyed the next big idea.Instead of immediately leveling them, what if we built on new ideas? Ninety-nine percent of innovative ideas aren’t simply blurted out in their final form. They need development to reveal their full potential.Instead of … Continue reading
