Gregg Fraley

Guerilla Innovation Chapter 10 In the previous post/chapter of Guerilla Innovation we talked about “amping ideas.” I reviewed two tools for doing so. They’re good tools. And…there’s more to it than those techniques. Idea amping is a way of life for an entrepreneur — and especially so for a small business one. Nobody will do the hard work of making something special for you. Something in our culture encourages you to quit when things become unreasonable. Yet, entrepreneurship is in many ways being unreasonable with yourself — and accepting the lemons people give you and making lemonade. Being an entrepreneur is a contrarian state. Unreasonable, in the sense that you go beyond what reason or logic would dictate to you is

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Guerilla Innovation Chapter Nine You have to amp those ideas before you start marketing and selling. If you are in before-start-up mode, even more reason to AMP like mad. The refined or amped up idea might just get you to that elusive Point of Difference we talked about. It’s not enough to have a great idea. I’m not making light of the effort one must make to get to a breakthrough idea, but if you’re an entrepreneur, really, a great idea is only what you need to get to the starting line. The early going in the business race is about “insanely great” ideas (thank you Steve Jobs). Good ideas are  normally “out of the medals” at the end of

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I’ve been involved* these past two years with a creativity conference in Oklahoma, now called the State of Creativity Forum. This conference has energy to spare, it feels like an accelerating fire of innovative energy. Last year’s event (for a summary look at this post) exploded with dynamic speakers, cultural, and artist happenings. Even the governor, Mary Fallin, was there to support the notion that creativity and innovation is how Oklahoma moves forward. This year features Sir Ken Robinson and Peter Diamandis of X Prize fame — and that’s just the start. It’s all taking place November 13th in Oklahoma City. By all means, if you want a great taster, or even a major feast of creative stimulation, this is

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At the heart of it, much of my professional work revolves around facilitation. Mostly I facilitate innovation projects. I do other things of course (speaking, writing, coaching) but I am often to be found, on my feet, creating innovation magic — facilitating idea generation sessions, aka ideation, aka brainstorming. And Yes, It Works. They work! Because it’s so much a part of my daily work life I sometimes forget what a challenge facilitation can be for others. It also occurs to me that if you’ve never had a good facilitator you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s interesting that I often hear, after my sessions, that they’ve never had such an “active” or productive session. Apologies for a bit of

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Can we just Get the Innovation Party Started already? One of the most frustrating things about being an Innovation consultant is watching organizations get stuck in a mud pit of inaction around innovation. Call it procrastination, lack of corporate will, a culture of bureaucracy — they all amount to the same thing: no productive innovation work done. I see it over and over, it’s as common as a head cold and just as unpleasant. I’ve written about this before — today’s post has a bit of a new wrinkle. Here’s the message: Have a party and get started. I mean it literally. Make innovation an ongoing company party. The common suggestions around how to circumvent this…innovation infarction…are many. They include:

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I believe that one of the most fundamental choices a human being can make relates to creativity. The choice is: do I wish to be a creative person or not? It would seem to be a no-brainer, but it’s interesting that at least half of people I talk to make the choice to Not be a creative person. This is done without a lot of thought, but sometimes it’s deliberate. Oh shame! For a long time I’ve taken for granted that people would want to be creative, but now I’m getting that there are reasons why folks might go the other way. Here are those reasons:   I don’t want the pressure of people looking to me for creative options

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When In Doubt, Do The Mash Not so many people remember his name anymore — Philo Farnsworth. The very short bio of Philo Farnsworth is that he created the first working all-electronic television. He conceived the basic idea at the age of 14. Understand, this was leading edge electronics of the time. He made his idea real in his early 20’s. He went on to have 165 patents. The coolest part of the Philo Farnsworth story, to me, is how his thinking evolved and worked in creating the television display tube. First of all he had an “intense preoccupation” with the idea of pictures over the air. Philo was a farm boy, raised in Utah and Idaho and you’ll see

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Guerilla Innovation Chapter Eight Everything is Stimuli for Scaffolding to Better Ideas In my last post I introduced you to the concept of “Scaffolding”. For those who are starting here, it’s essentially a thinking tool to take your mind to a new place — an aid in the objective of coming up with an innovative idea for your small business. It might even be The Innovative Idea that starts a new business (hopefully with the clear point of difference I talked about in Chapter One (Even a Pizza Shop Has a Point of Difference) of this online “blogged book.” In order to take your innovation thinking (particularly in this idea generation phase) to the next level, you need to combine

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Guerrilla Innovation Chapter Seven Scaffolding — Thinking Monkey Bars for Small Business Small business people, aka, Guerrilla Innovators, you’re now looking for a unique business idea. This ain’t brainstorming, it’s Scaffolding. Just for fun maybe we call it Idea Generation Monkey Bars for Small Business. It’s a method to get to great ideas one thinking notch up at a time. I’ve been told that the term “Scaffolding” is used in the psychology and education fields. I first heard the term used by my partner with regard to idea generation — and it immediately struck me as a helpful way to look at things. Let me explain how Scaffolding works. Innovators, get out your Notebooks and start Notebooking. Breakthrough ideas are

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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

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