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How To Identify Ideal Money Making Web Opportunities
I was winding my way up the levels of a very crowded parking garage the other day. The line of cars desperately seeking a spot ahead of me kept turning to the right.
So, of course, it occured to me that perhaps there would be less...
Six Disciplines for Excellence
Too often, the majority of business improvement books are long on theory and short on practicality. The ideas are good (or great), but most business leaders do little to incorporate the ideas in their businesses long enough for positive change to...
The Cure for the Highway Hi-Fi Blues
The other morning I was driving to an appointment, inserting a
CD into the player, and I couldn't help smiling. I was thinking
about my father and his career as a mechanical design engineer
for RCA. After the war, he helped design the innards of...
The Ten Pillars of Leadership and Business Development
Leadership is any influence relationship that brings about change…this can be a teacher/student relationship, a parent/child relationship, a politician/citizen relationship, a business owner/employee relationship, a community leader/volunteer...
What's the difference between successful businesses and struggling businesses?
Copyright 2005 Attractioneering
Have you ever noticed how some businesses seem to do extremely
well, and go from strength to strength, whilst the majority just
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Since starting my own business I've met many small...
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Effective Brainstorming
Most managers simply herd some people in a room with a flip chart and call it a brainstorming session. Yet there is a definite process that maximizes the size and quality of the idea pool. While there are hundreds of valid techniques for doing this, below are just some of the important concepts leaders should consider.
a) The sum of ideas produced by individuals acting alone is greater than the sum of ideas produced by those individuals acting as a group. Further, the diversity and novelty of ideas produced by individuals acting alone is greater than produced in a group. This means that asking group members to think of a set number of diverse and novel ideas before the session and then repeat the process during the session results in greater total output. Be sure to insist that individuals think of new ideas in the group session.
b) Individuals are prone to competency traps and path dependency. This means that it is hard for them to rapidly frame break unless new experience, stimuli or knowledge is introduced. One solution is to import competencies. Bring in new and dissimilar individuals. Try and ensure these new individuals score high on expression, tacit knowledge and status.
c) Brainstorming usually implies that the solution to a problem is being sought. Thus one good principle is to break the session into three parts – problem identification, idea generation and idea selection. It is amazing how many different perceptions of a problem often exist. Each problem definition generates its own set of ideas. This stage-process allows the separation of creative from critical thinking. Writing and editing are two very different processes.
d) Set incremental goals. Incremental goals produce more output than “do your best.” Further, they force output and trigger prolific production; it can be said with great certainty that quality is closely connected with quantity – the single best creative product tends to appear at that point in the career when the creator is being most prolific.
There are at least two types of incremental goal: 1) short term – this forces production of output and 2) long term – this allows problems to incubate at various cognitive levels and results in the required insight.
e) Foster collaboration instead of
competition. Competition causes people to shut down, restricts the flow of information and creates core and peripheral groups. On the other hand, collaboration allows the intellectual cross-pollination that is the raw material for the idea generation process.
f) One of the top idea generation killers is slow or non-existent implementation. People just will not take idea generation seriously if nothing tangible resulted from the last brainstorming session. Ensure direct links to decision makers and visible progression through the innovation process – idea selection, development and commercialisation.
g) Don’t rely on “creative types.” Everyone can generate large numbers of diverse and novel ideas. Whilst there are assertions that there are creativity traits such as lack tolerance for conformity and tolerance for ambiguity, these theories are questioned on the basis that traits are hard to identify, isolate and are not stable or transferable across situations. Further, other criteria such as motivation and competencies are critical.
h) Think beyond brainstorming. The concept of brainstorming as the only effective method of good idea generation is questionable. Some brainstorming negatives include: 1) dilution of ideas, 2) lower rates of participation from individuals who score low in expression and 3) evaluation apprehension. Idea boxes, idea intranets and knowledge bases are just some methods of maximising the contribution of every individual.
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These and other topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased at http://www.managing-creativity.com
Kal Bishop, MBA, http://www.managing-creativity.com
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You are free to reproduce this article as long as the author's name, web address and link to MBA dissertation is retained.
About the Author
Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller.
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| DTI - Welcome to the DTI's Innovation Home Page |
| The DTI is working to stimulate a significant increase in innovation throughout ... It covers Living Innovation, web streaming of a series of high profile ... |
| www.dti.gov.uk |
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| Innovation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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| en.wikipedia.org |
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| National Innovation Website |
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| Innovation, creativity and brainstorming resources from ... |
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| Innovation Weblog - Trends, resources, viewpoints from Chuck Frey ... |
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| www.innovationtools.com |
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| CORDIS: Innovation Portal: Home |
| This Innovation Portal is supported by DG ENTR of the European Commission, ... European Commission adopts new Communication on Innovation: on 13 September ... |
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| CORDIS: Promotion of Innovation: Home |
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| Innovation Network... leveraging innovation, creativity and ... |
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| Business Innovation : Car Reviews, Online Gaming, and Product Branding |
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| Innovation.org - Welcome |
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| The Tech Museum of Innovation | Welcome |
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| innovation |
| Publication highlighting the research activities of NUS. The site provides snippets of selected articles online, and provides a subscription form online. |
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| Canadian Innovation Centre |
| Services includes invention evaluation, technology due diligence, market research, and education programs. |
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| London INNOVATION :: Home |
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| Eric Von Hippel's Homepage |
| Downloadable Books. Democratizing Innovation (2005) ... The Sources of Innovation (1988). Free download of the complete book. Permission granted by Oxford ... |
| web.mit.edu |
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| Intel Innovation in Education |
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