Posts Tagged ‘creative’

Try a Virtual Failure to help build Success

Saturday, June 19th, 2010

Jurgen Wolff

I heard this story from creative thinking expert Jurgen Wolff.   Steve Loranger, CEO of ITT Industries, shared this technique with Business 2.0:  ”If you’re working on an important contract, a ‘must-win’ program, give your team a much shorter deadline than actually exists.  Afterward you tell your team, ‘I just got a phone call from the buyer today and he told us that we lost – he didn’t tell us why.’  You ask them why they think you lost.  You’ll be amazed at how they come up with things that they hadn’t thought about before…as soon as you capture what your team is guessing, you use those points to rework your proposal.”

You might consider this idea to be somwehat underhand but it does seem to be very lateral and it might be highly effective in improving your bid.  It works on the basis that after a failure we can critically and constructively examine what went wrong.  You can adapt this idea and apply it to any project even if you’re working on it on your own.  Imagine the project is done and released to the target audience.  Now imagine that this group or person turns it down.  Why might that happen?  What features might he or she want that aren’t there?  Make notes of the ideas that occur to you and use them to strengthen your project.  Anticipate all the ways in which you could fail and then mitigate or eliminate them.

Paul Sloane

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Innovation | Comments Off

Freewriting – a method for unblocking creativity

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Freewriting is a personal creativity technique that is particularly useful when you have hit a mental roadblock.  You simply write the challenge or topic at the top of a large piece of paper and then start writing.  You can write anything related to the topic.  Here are the rules of freewriting as given by Natalie Goldberg: 

  • Give yourself a time limit. Write for ten minutes say, and then stop.
  • Keep your hand moving until the time is up.  Do not pause to stare into space or to read what you’ve written. Write quickly but not in a hurry.
  • Pay no attention to grammar, spelling, punctuation, neatness, or style. Nobody else needs to read what you produce here. The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter; the act of writing does.
  • If you get off the topic or run out of ideas, keep writing anyway. If necessary, write nonsense or whatever comes into your head, or simply scribble anything to keep the hand moving.
  • If you feel bored or uncomfortable as you’re writing, ask yourself what’s bothering you and write about that.
  • When the time is up, look over what you’ve written, and mark passages that contain ideas or phrases that might be worth keeping or elaborating on in a subsequent free-writing session.  

The idea is that the process overcomes apathy, fear, hesitation and other blocks to creation and action.  Once you have reached your time limit, read over what you have written and circle any points of interest.  You can use these as starting points for action, for brainstorming or for further freewriting.  Although this is designed as an individual activity it can be done in groups with people sharing the key points after an agreed time.  Once again the most important thing is that everyone keeps writing.

Paul Sloane

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Innovation | Comments Off

100 Ways to get Ideas

Monday, October 26th, 2009

saitchisonIdeas are the seedcorn of innovation. We need a large supply of them. Are you sometimes stuck for ideas? Here is an interesting blog by Steve Aitchison in which he gives 100 ways to generate ideas for articles for a blog. The principles work for almost any other requirement to generate ideas. So the next time you need to kick start innovation you now have 100 ways to get going!

Paul Sloane

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Innovation | Comments Off

Run Creative Ideas Events

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

lightbulbIf there is an important issue that needs some creative ideas then set a specific challenge for it and run an ideas event. A regular brainstorm or ideation meeting is fine but why not add some excitement with a different approach?

Here are the sorts of events you could run:

• A lunchtime brainstorm with pizza and drinks.

• A team contest where teams post ideas on an intranet site and everyone can vote for their favourite.

• A reality TV game show where people vote out the worst ideas and the number of contestants is whittled down to a winner.

• A party where people have to contribute ideas to get treats such as snacks and drinks.

• An ideas event where you bring in some external people to get diversity of thinking. They could be suppliers, customers, students or relatives of employees.

• An offsite event at a zoo, art gallery, museum, stately home or other interesting venue (but not a hotel – they are too dull)

Announce the challenge in specific terms and the criteria that will be used to select the best idea and then let the proceedings begin. Place a deadline on when ideas have to be submitted. That will help concentrate the mind. Also, show ideas that have already been submitted so as to avoid duplication. This also allows contributors to build on other people’s ideas.

The event needs proper facilitation with good brainstorming disciplines; no criticism, divergent thinking, going for quantity etc. Then the ideas need to be evaluated and the best ones actioned.

By running an event you focus attention and energy on the issue. People know that it is important and therefore they will make an effort. The event registers in their subconscious minds and the result should be a wealth of ideas. In addition the event will often be motivational, team-building and fun.

Paul Sloane
Destination Innovation

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Innovation | 4 Comments »