Innovative Brain Food from New & Improved

Announcing the First Great Innovative Brain POINt CONTEST!

Ladies and gentlemen, gather round. You could WIN one of three fabulous prizes, or at least have a great time trying.

And even if your entry doesn’t win an actual prize, you will master a valuable formula for innovative thinking that you can use right away at work and in your personal life.

So EVERYONE’s a winner. (Except Gators. NO GATORS allowed.)

The Great Cookie Caper

Just because your work is important doesn’t mean that you have to take yourself seriously. Lighten up. You’ll soon observe what research has indicated--that a backdrop of playfulness at work yields greater levels of innovation. That's the premise behind our recent cookie caper.

 

From blah to brilliant...this isn't your father's coffee vending experience

 

“We all know that big payoffs come from big risks,” say our favorite authors, Bob Eckert and Jonathan Vehar, but it’s not easy to take those risks. Our instinctive reaction to “something new” is most likely to fight it or run from it. That’s why courage and curiosity are such important components for building a culture of innovation. (Get more on that in our free white paper, “Courage in the face of the status quo: An essential value for Innovation Leadership.”)

 Consider the risk UK-based Costa Coffee faced when approached by Coffee Nation about forming a new and innovative brand alliance.

Innovation's chain-saw massacre

Do you wake up screaming from a recurring nightmare where your competition is chopping your company to bits, Texas chain-saw massacre style, with their innovative new ideas?

New & Improved tapped to support Turkey’s quest for innovation

New & Improved CEO Bob Eckert and New & Improved Turkish consulting partner Pelin Urgancilar are both featured in the April 2013 issue of Turkishtime, Turkey's leading economic magazine. The issue is all about Turkey's rapid economic growth in recent years, its current status as an innovative country, and what it will take for Turkey to become increasingly competitive in the future. Pelin explains that she and Bob were consulted because of New & Improved's global reputation for its expertise in helping organizations build cultures of innovation. Here are some highlights of the conversation.

A question posed to both Bob and Pelin: "What mindsets are needed for an innovation process?"

Bob's answer: "It all starts with humility, or the opposite of arrogance. Arrogance does not beget innovation because it kills curiosity. Curiosity creates new connections, and it is that connecting previously unconnected things which is the source of all innovation."

Pelin's comments, in part: "Creating an innovation culture starts with changing mindsets. It starts with the belief that people are resourceful in nature and all ideas are valuable. In that regard, diversity fosters innovation. If people learn to build on each other’s ideas without judging, then many breakthroughs can happen."

To read Bob's take on innovation tactics for positive results, Pelin's assessment of the current state of innovation in Turkey, and how to get a copy of the entire text, read on.

What Really Drives Innovation: The Top 10 List

If you’ve been exploring how to drive innovation for any length of time at all, you’ve run into a shipload (yep, more than a boatload) of systems, processes, procedures, and tools, all claiming to be the one best route to creating a culture of innovation. So how can you sort through the methods available and make wise decisions to guide you across that dark and stormy sea and get you safely to your destination?

We encourage looking into any approaches that make sense to you, but keep in mind the single most important driver, and resister, of any innovation effort—people.

It’s mighty difficult to produce innovation without people, and yet, people are the biggest resister of innovation as well. Check out our Top 10 List for tips to help you keep people first and foremost among your priorities, every nautical mile of the way.  Read more here.

Cost vs. ROI in achieving and sustaining a culture of innovation

Most leaders agree that creating a culture of innovation is a must for achieving a competitive edge in the marketplace. But when budgeting for innovation, hard questions arise. What moves should we make? How much should we spend?  What's the risk? What could be the return?

Innovators, should you be willing to compromise?

Keep reading and learn what you may wear for your workout in the future.

The answer from this wildly successful entrepreneur might surprise you.

In 1996, a football player named Kevin Plank didn’t like the way his cotton tee-shirt felt as it soaked up sweat underneath his uniform. So, he decided to try to build a better shirt. Starting out in a row house with one partner, Kevin started marketing his new tee-shirt under the brand name Under Armour. That same year, the company grossed $17,000. Today its sales are well over $1 billion.

We like  Kevin’s approach to building such growth, including his determination to base Under Armour on a “foundation of innovation.” We also like his mantra: “Smart enough to be naïve enough to not know what we could not accomplish.”

Microtasking crowd plays key role when disaster strikes

It’s 7:50 a.m. and you’re grabbing a latte at Starbucks when you suddenly feel the first tremors. You become aware that the overhead lights are swaying and you notice the sounds of items sliding off display cases onto the floor. You rush out onto the street where you see a jagged crack opening up in the concrete at a nearby intersection. People are screaming and running in every direction as debris begins to rain down.

So what do you do?

Could your innovation efforts use more strategic thinking?

Are you curious about the answers to these tough questions? 

 - How is strategic thinking related to innovation?

 - How do you deal with the chaos of everyone thinking strategically?

  - As a senior leader, what's in it for me to have many employees skilled in strategic thinking?

 

In today's ever-changing world, there's a lot of talk about the desperate need for improved strategic thinking.  However, the fear associated with sacrificing "control" paired with the uncertainty of how to actually help people to be better strategic thinkers – well, that worry may be keeping you up at night.  That’s where we can help (in a non-pharmaceutical way, of course).