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 Make 2008 a year of great ideas
Use questions to create big insights this year.
The Idea Factory published 'Seven Rules For Designing More Innovative Conference'.
Click here to order this book
Welcome!
The innovation world is filled with tools to create ideas that could solve the challenges we face. I find that the best tool involves a simple question that cracks open a problem. Questions are powerful tools if we explore them. Some times a simple yes or no provides the extra push to act on something. Other times, a question makes you say, "I never thought of that before!"
2008 will be a year of significant challenges for our organizations, our society and our environment.
Here are some of the important challenges you will face. You can download extra articles to learn about what it means to be innovative. Some say innovation is a journey rather than a destination. Perhaps it's a journey but I prefer to believe it can be a destination as well. The sooner you can become an idea factory, the sooner you will able to solve the challenges you face with the conviction to act on your ideas. If you are ready to act you can order some of the unique books and navigator journals produced by The Idea Factory.
Here are some questions to start your journey toward being a more innovative thinker.
1. When do you make time to think?
Thinking is crucial to solve problems, develop new strategies, deal with customers and so on. It fuels creativity. It creates value. So when do you think? A recent US study found that half of senior executives say they are most effective in their thinking in these places:
- 58% say they think at home.
- 50% say they think while commuting to work.
Only 45% say they think at the office. If this is true, it's clear we need to manage our ideas that solve our challenges. Forget electronics and invest in a quality journal. Adopt a personal innovation strategy that involves:
- Capturing your ideas whenever and wherever they come up.
- Take advantage of whatever free time you can to think more about these ideas to move them forward. You could be stuck waiting in traffic or at the dentist's office. Use this time to think!
The Idea Factory is about to launch an Idea Navigator Journal. This tool is ideal to help you capture your ideas and then lead these ideas into results. For now you can read an article I wrote in New Zealand: when do you make time to think?
2. Why do people go to conferences, take notes and never look at them again?
Here it is: my new book to help people design more innovative conferences: Seven Rules for Designing More Innovative Conferences. You can learn more and order a copy at www.innovativeconferences.com
Canada's Globe and Mail management writer Harvey Schachter placed Seven Rules on his list of the top management books in Canada in 2007. I recently wrote this article on the key ideas in the book that was printed in various business and meetings industry magazines across Canada.
Conferences by Design
People do not deliberately design conferences badly. They simply leave too many opportunities to engage participants unfulfilled. As a result about two-thirds of the people in every audience admit that they rarely (if ever) look at their notes again. The first step is to develop a Conference Learning Strategy.
The second way is to change the way people participate in conferences. This may sound impossible yet the Conference Navigator Guides can do this for many people. The American Society of Association Executives hosts the "Great Ideas Conferences" each year. In 2006 it used the Conference Navigator Guides with great success:
- 86% of the people who attended said they would keep the guide for reference, and
- 46% said it changed the way they participated in the conference.
This is an example of a deliberate effort to tackle the thorny issue…how can you make conferences more effective? In 2006 several thousand people have used Navigator Guides at events ranging from the Washington Bankers Association and student leaders in Canada to National Corn Growers and 'Excellence in Government', a senior level public sector event in Washington, DC.
3. Does your organization kill Ideas….and the people who create them!
If 'kill' is too strong a word, replace it with 'suppress', 'stifle' or 'smother'. Admit it. How effective is your organization in harness the diverse nature of people's ideas? The most interesting aspect of my innovation journey involves the work of Dr Kirton and his study of differing styles of solving problems with the KAI Centre.
The challenge is: while it's easy to work with people who think like you, can you work with people who don't think like you?
This is about managing cognitive diversity. The Idea Factory offers a full day workshop on this tremendous insight for building more effective teams: engage people in a way that best fits their style, not necessarily the 'bosses' style. You can read these articles for insights. Afterward, you can book a full day Diversity Workshop and Strategy Session.
4. If Manufacturers invest in R&D for new ideas, what does your service organization invest in for new ideas?
The Idea Factory is creating new tools to make service organizations more innovative in how they provide services and manage staff. It will launch a new program based on helping service organizations to foster innovation by creating an equivalent to the traditional "R&D" department. If the purpose of R&D is to create new profitable ideas for manufacturers, what is the equivalent function in the service sector? This means building a capacity to innovate defined in terms of three phase of service innovation: Insight, Design & Execution. In brief, the three elements of the capacity to innovate are:
- Harnessing Insights - great new ideas start with great insights into your many stakeholders.
- Designing Solutions - with a base of great ideas, design a complete experience and solution for your stakeholders.
- Execution for Results - great ideas need great execution to become innovations for an organization.
This model can be used for a basic workshop or to establish a multiyear innovation strategy. This is the essence of a new book expected in 2008. To get more insights on innovation for the service sector, you can link to these newsletters, read:
- Lessons from the Idea Factory Issue 3: Public Sector Innovation.
- Lessons from the Idea Factory Issue 4: Service Sector Innovation.
For a FREE poster to stop killing creativity, download BANNED Creativity Killers
Let's make 2008 a year of ideas by focusing on our questions!
Ed Bernacki
The Idea Factory
If you want to talk about these initiatives right now,
call (1) 613 263 0046 or email info@wowgreatidea.com
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innovation