New and Improved Innovation Blog Site

Out of, Inside, And About "The Box"

Props to Puma for working to think outside of, inside, and about the box to reinvent it. And I'm speaking literally here, not metaphorically or in the manner of a trite expression.

Puma spent three years working to re-create the traditional shoe box to make it cheaper and less wasteful while still protecting the shoes in transit and while being stocked.   The clever new cardboard-frame-in-a-reusable-PET-bag solution saves 60% of manufacturing costs, 275 tons of plastic bags, and 132,000 gallons of diesel fuel in shipping.

Read more about it at: http://bit.ly/95E4DK

Core Principles of Innovation for Results – Free Webinar!

Thursday, May 6th at 11:00 PST, 1:00 CST, 2:00 EST

To register for the webinar click here.

In this interactive webinar, we’ll go over the core principles of creative thinking that leads to innovation.  While our face-to-face trainings focus on learning while creating real work solutions that yield positive return-on-investment, for this webinar we’ve distilled the essence of our two-day training in creative thinking and innovation into one easily digestible hour that should be education, informative, and perhaps a bit of fun. 

The webinar is useful for people who’ve taken our training in creative thinking as a reminder of some of the most applicable points, as well for people who have not taken it but are interested in the topic or the course.  Some of the key points we’ll cover:

• How we normally treat new ideas (and why we do) versus how we SHOULD treat new ideas
• The creative thinking process
• Creative thinking tools & techniques
• Your questions about creating innovation for results

Truly Great Minds DON'T Think Alike

There's an expression that says, "Great minds think alike."  It's usually said when two people say the same thing at about the same time.  I've been known to say it myself.

However, after two decades of studying creative thinking, I've come to the conclusion that it's simply not true, and the expression is talking about the phenomenon of "thinking inside the box" (see photo). 

The people who are thinking alike don't possess truly great minds, they are falling in with the masses.  The very definition of conformity.  The very opposite of creative thinking, and a great example of how to stifle innovation.

According to a magnet on my file cabinet, General George S. Patton said, "If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking." I'd phrase it even more strongly, "If everybody is thinking alike, then only one person is thinking."

The Five Minute Creative Thinking Training Program

Nathan Schwagler, a creative thinking powerhouse at the University of Southern Florida, was kind enough to mention a paper we presented at the Creativity and Innovation Management conference at the Center for Studies in Creativity.  Given that the conference was sponsored by a journal and a university, the paper was academic in nature.  So Schwagler did a great job of boiling it down to its essence (and without all the distracting citations).

The Secret of Creating Change in Your Organization (Hint: It's not just about the business case.)

The McKinsey Quarterly  recently interviewed Chip Heath, co-author of Made to Stick, who spoke about his new book, Switch: How to change things when change is hard.  Heath is proving himself to be a master at taking important concepts and boiling them down to their essence.  The interview is remarkable for how many key concepts he puts into a short conversation (including the myth of best practices). 

Dramatic Breakthrough in Strategic Planning!

It's been said (by poet Robert Burns) that, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley" (since he was a Scot writing in 1785, what he meant was that the plans go often awry). 

Regardless your language, you may have noticed this pattern yourself when working with innovation teams to put together compelling plans of action.

After years of research and number crunching, the results are in on a new technique that results in a dramatic improvement in the effectiveness of strategic planning and goal implementation.

New & Improved^®,  LLC, has recently completed a five-year longitudinal study where we tracked the goals created with two different approaches.  After facilitating creative strategic planning sessions, we had the group create their plans of action and then we checked in with them regularly to determine how effectively their plans had been absorbed by the organization.