Gregg Fraley

Guerilla Innovation Chapter Six Ideas Aren’t Innovation Ideas are not Innovation — and it’s interesting how often “idea people” think that having a good idea is enough. Ideas need development and implementation — get that done and you’ve still got to run the business. If you’re a start-up you’ll need to hire a team of people, raise funds, market your idea, sell it, and somehow profit from it. Team building, fund raising, operations — these are all essential and they all contribute to the innovation puzzle. I’ll touch on them later in Guerilla Innovation (this online book) but, this book is primarily about innovation — that component of a business where value is created. And creation is an awful lot

Read More..

The buzz around Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The power of Introverts in a World That Just Can’t Stop Talking continues to build. Watching her speak here in London last week it’s clear she’s hit a cultural chord. As of today, #33 on the Amazon chart. Introverts clearly have a tough time making themselves heard. She’s also quite right that extroverts tend to dominate the group processes we see in various organizations. Cain emphasizes solitary work and reflection, and no doubt, there is not enough of either. I’m not sure she understands that with proper training and facilitation, and just good listening skills, a lot of the challenges she identifies for introverts can be overcome. The value of group work and collaborative

Read More..

I don’t plug a lot of videos on this blog — how many video’s are all that relevant to creativity and innovation? This is the exception, I have one I’d really like you to watch, after you read this Jay Leno style “set up”. Growing up in anti-communist America the world was black and white. You were either pro-democracy capitalist, or a commmie pinko. There was no middle ground (gee, not so different than now). The “Domino Theory” had the USA fighting a communist insurgency in a tiny country in south east Asia that had no strategic value. The Vietnam war tore the country apart. I’d also rather forget the McCarthy era and blacklists. Which is what makes this new

Read More..

I’ve been reading Steve Faktor’s Econovation, The Red, White, and Bllue Pill for Arousing Innovation. It’s been out since November, but I’ve avoided it because Steve’s an economist and I have bad memories of nursing hangovers in my 8:00 am Economics class at University of Cincinnati. I wish I had picked it up sooner because it’s a fascinating, erudite, bitingly funny, well researched, and I think important book. Americans — Buy one now and send it to your Congressman. Tell him or her that if they don’t read it you’ll lash them with wet Chinese noodles at the door to their office. European readers, there’s plenty to learn from Faktor’s manifesto about how to reinvent an economy. As the title

Read More..

As in-flight entertainment luck would have it, I’ve now seen the film Moneyball twice within a week. On the surface Moneyball is a true-story film about baseball — but it’s really an innovation story. I enjoyed the film but nothing about it struck me as profoundly good in terms of story, or character development. I always like the charming Brad Pitt, and he’s good here in a tailor-made part as Oakland Athletic’s General Manager Billy Beane. He keeps you interested, but this doesn’t feel like an Oscar worthy role. Same with Jonah Hill as the nerdy statistician and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the disgruntled coach — good work — and not notably so. We don’t quite see enough about what

Read More..

Jeffrey Phillips is a respected innovation consultant and a noted blogger (Innovate on Purpose). I saw him speak at the MindCamp conference and it’s clear he has an uncommon breadth of knowledge about innovation and a focused results orientation. He’s just released an impressively good book. Relentless Innovation, What Works, What Doesn’t–And What That Means For Your Business is the somewhat lengthy title. Now, I didn’t really read this book — I studied it — highlighter in hand. This book is the perfect primer for those who wish to change a corporate culture into a more innovative one. It answers, in a comprehensive way, the complex question of: How does a company consistently innovate? In this well analyzed, logically written, well-paced

Read More..

You have to love a guy who walks his own talk. Stefan Lindegaard (@lindegaard) is a well-known advocate for Open Innovation. I’ve been following him on Twitter for ages and have read several of his well written articles. We’ve actually met In Real Life at the Front End of Innovation conference in Berlin. Lindegaard has made his new book, Making Open Innovation Work available free to anyone who wants it. I’d call that open, and, an innovative way to market his expertise. He’s invited people like me (i.e. other gadflies in the innovation space) to help him distribute by letting people know. I’m happy to do this because it’s great content. So, below you’ll see some links to where you

Read More..

Innovation isn’t the exclusive domain of big companies and rocket scientists. People with passion can create good things anywhere. Even in the countryside, and in a tiny village like Sawyer, Michigan. Sawyer, Michigan is just big enough to contain my subject here — Fitzgerald’s Restaurant. Why is Fitzgerald’s Restaurant notable enough for a creativity and innovation blog? Many count themselves out of the innovation game because they feel they lack sophistication, or a cutting edge technology. Innovation is a certain kind of sophistication, but it doesn’t require that you live in a top 20 market, or write the latest iPhone app. The restaurant game is notoriously challenging. What’s the difference between one that works and one that doesn’t? At the

Read More..

I have to admit that I’m a bit jealous of Jeff DeGraff. He’s written an excellent book — so good I have author envy. DeGraff is an impressive innovation expert, consulting and coaching high level executives, but his book is really not targeted to that elite group. As the title suggests, it’s for You. Innovation You: Four Steps to Becoming New and Improved is quite simply a very useful book. Personally useful. Most books with the word Innovation in the title are not terribly exciting, particularly for someone who is not say, a VP or CEO of a major company. Sadly, for average people, or small business owners, most innovation books are quite overwrought with innovation from a large corporation

Read More..

Ideas can make you sick. Okay, not sick exactly, but a word many of us would associate with new and different — high quality ideas — is “vomit.” It’s not pretty this new idea business. A Cornell University study was published recently that I feel compelled to share. The study reveals our deep and nearly unconscious reaction to new ideas. The link here is not to the actual study but a summary article written by Mary Catt for Chronicle Online, a Cornell blog (thank you Mary). In People are biased against creative ideas, Catt reveals the studies key results. Essentially the study says: * creative ideas make us feel very uncomfortable (think vomit) * people rule out creative ideas and

Read More..