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JOB TALK--THE HEART OF PRODUCTIVITY
Read the word "productivity" and chances are you envision assembly lines, warehouses stocked with goods, even space-age machinery performing tasks at faster-than-human speed. Or if you are in corporate management, your mind recalls the U.S....
Small Business Q & A: Choosing A Business That's Right For You
Q: I really want to start my own business, but I have no idea what business would be best suited for me. I'm also eager to get started, but I don't want to pick the wrong business just because I'm impatient. How should I go about deciding what...
Smart Choices: How to Hire the Best
Your organization’s continued growth and success depend on making smart choices and hiring the best. Today’s economy is exploding with talent, allowing you to be selective about the staff you hire. Yet, the crucial step to filling a position...
Stepping Into Possibility Thinking
Our thoughts really belong to the collective consciousness of the world in all of time. Our individual minds process the cumulative database recorded on the physical and subtle levels and devise interesting combinations, unique interpretations,...
The 10 Natural Marketing Advantages of Small Business - Small Is the New Big
Copyright 2005 John Jantsch
Large organizations are beginning to wrestle with the reality
that their markets want something more personal, more honest and
real, from the companies they buy products and services from.
It's obvious that small...
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Managing Creativity an Oxymoron! Not.
Interrogated on a beach in Barbados by friends insistent that there was little validity to my speciality, I have felt compelled to come up with the most common objections in the field of Managing Creativity and Innovation.
a) Managing Creativity and Innovation is an oxymoron! When ideas are required, leaders tend to herd people into a room with a flip chart and conduct (usually an ineffective) brainstorming session. Implicit in this action is an acceptance that certain techniques and processes can increase problem identification, idea generation and the elicitation of tacit knowledge.
Structures such as the Hero's Journey are accepted as increasing creative output when idea streams (such as in screenwriting) are needed.
Product development theory has proven innovation strategies that allow better idea selection, development and commercialisation. Frameworks such as the S-curve and idea funnels allow the efficient monitoring of ideas through a pipeline and effective go or kill decision-making.
b) Creativity cannot be managed because ideas occur out of the blue. Ideas are the result of the mind working on particular problems at various cognitive levels. Though you cannot predict what an idea will be, where it will occur and what form it will take you can increase the likelihood of ideas occurring. Further, you can increase the number of ideas produced, the rarity of those ideas, the diversity of those ideas and the frequency of their production.
c) Creativity is not a process. If you analyse the behaviour of people who are used to generating many ideas regularly, you will find that common patterns emerge. There is a definite process that triggers creative activity on multiple cognitive levels, resulting in the required insight. The process includes identifying and intensely investigating a problem, forcing production of ideas using creative versus critical thinking and other techniques; seeking stimuli and allowing the unconscious mind to take over by engaging in rest and unrelated activities.
d) Creativity is not tangible;
creativity cannot be measured. Analysts can measure (and therefore make tangible) creativity by quantifying a wide number of criteria. For instance, idea generation can be measured according to the number of ideas produced, their novelty, their variety and the frequency of their production. The DIY Creativity and Innovation Audit that comes with the MBA dissertation lists more than 150 benchmarking criteria, allowing holistic measurement.
e) Creative people will be creative whether they are "coached" or not. Perhaps. Consider the infinite number of people who have been working on half finished manuscripts for months and often years. Management techniques increase creative output enabling completion in much shorter periods. Further, management techniques encourage targeted prolific activity, thus allowing the building of competencies and improvement.
f) Managing Creativity is not a useful activity unless it results in economic gain. Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation. Innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation. First use creativity to generate an idea pool and then use innovation to select feasible ideas, which can be developed and commercialised.
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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 |
| An innovation in this light occurs whether or not the act of innovating ... A convenient definition of innovation from an organizational perspective is ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| National Innovation Website |
| The Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources has developed this website to raise awareness of the importance and benefits of innovation and ... |
| www.innovation.gov.au |
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| Innovation, creativity and brainstorming resources from ... |
| A comprehensive site designed to provide busy entrepreneurs with a focused collection of the best resources on innovation, creativity, and brainstorming. |
| www.innovationtools.com |
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| Innovation Weblog - Trends, resources, viewpoints from Chuck Frey ... |
| The Innovation Weblog - Valuable trends, resources and viewpoints in innovation, creativity and brainstorming from Chuck Frey at InnovationTools. |
| 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 ... |
| cordis.europa.eu |
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| CORDIS: Promotion of Innovation: Home |
| This programme stands at the cross-roads of the Community's policies on Research, Innovation and SMEs. |
| cordis.europa.eu |
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| Innovation Network... leveraging innovation, creativity and ... |
| The Innovation Network is an association of companies and employees committed to innovation. The site features some interesting articles as well as some fun ... |
| www.thinksmart.com |
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| Business Innovation : Car Reviews, Online Gaming, and Product Branding |
| If your in need of great Online Gaming material, we carry up to the minute news and reviews for all of your favorite games and gaming systems. |
| www.businessweek.com |
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| Innovation - Life, Inspired | PBS |
| Learn about fascinating innovations, explore interactive features, submit questions to our experts, investigate resources and lesson plans, and more. |
| www.pbs.org |
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| Innovation.org - Welcome |
| Impact of Innovation Saving & Improving Lives Controlling Healthcare Costs Strengthening ... Future of Innovation New Medicines in Development Next Wave of ... |
| www.innovation.org |
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| Innovation: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
| See all blog posts tagged with innovation on Technorati. |
| www.technorati.com |
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| Innovation Relay Centres - The World Largest Network for ... |
| Innovation Relay Centres giving advice on Innovation, Technology Transfer and Exploitation. Major European source for innovative technologies or new ... |
| irc.cordis.lu |
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| The Tech Museum of Innovation | Welcome |
| The Tech Museum of Innovation - Welcome! The Tech Museum inspires and educates the innovators of the future. |
| www.thetech.org |
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| Pages tagged with "innovation" on del.icio.us |
| CoDev 2007 - Co-Development for Business Growth: Open Innovation and Alternatives ... PDMA & IIR's 5th Annual Front End of Innovation ... |
| del.icio.us |
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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. |
| www.innovationmagazine.com |
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| Canadian Innovation Centre |
| Services includes invention evaluation, technology due diligence, market research, and education programs. |
| www.innovationcentre.ca |
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| London INNOVATION :: Home |
| Maximise your business potential through innovation. Learn the secrets of successful business innovation in London. |
| www.london-innovation.org.uk |
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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 |
| www.intel.com/education/ - 3k - Cached - Similar pages |
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