Gregg Fraley

It’s March 5th 2012. Nearly 20 Percent of 2012 is already behind us. How are your 2012 Innovation efforts going? Are you “hanging-ten” or barely hanging on? The only purpose of this post is to have you look at your operation and simply admit to yourself whether you’ve wasted two months or you’ve got a good start. Of course, if you’ve wasted two months I would urge action, now! I’ve been reminded as of late just how much companies get in their own way. They spend so much time fussing over the Four Pessimist P’s* of Non-Innovation: Process — “We’d love to start an innovation project but we haven’t made up our mind how to move forward yet, we must

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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

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I posted not to long ago about organizations that don’t stay fit with regards to innovation. This, I said, would lead to an innovation infarction when an emergency crops up. Consider this post a “Yes+AND” as I’ve spotted a great piece by Scott Anthony that looks at that problem through a slightly different lens. Do read his excellent piece Negotiation Innovation and Control. Anthony’s point, in essence — leaders are geared towards minimizing mistakes. Nothing wrong with that, but it does run counter to the need for experimentation if you’re trying to build an innovation culture. Leaders have to allow mistakes, encourage experimentation if they want an innovative environment. In some areas of operation “no mistakes” is just where you

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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

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Smokey Robinson and Barry Gordy, 1981I’ll briefly note here the passing of Motown Records founder, Barry Gordy, and make four points about creativity along the way. I never met him, but I certainly experienced, and continue to experience, the results of his prolific creativity. In his amazing career he created songs, records, stars, companies, good will, and films. First lesson in creativity from Barry Gordy: Create a lot and keep creating a lot. Perhaps his greatest creative skill was simply finding and developing talent. He had a hand in the careers of Jackie Wilson, Mary Wells, The Jackson 5 (and Michael Jackson), Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, and many

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  Sir Richard Branson, the uber entrepreneur of Virgin fame, contributed a provocative editorial to Sunday’s edition of The Independent. Essentially Branson is making some strong suggestions about how to put the 1 million unemployed young people in the UK to work. Radical ideas Sir Richard. They make so much sense it’s almost guaranteed they won’t happen. Why I think so: They upset the status quo. They require quick action from government. They require big business to step up and help young people for the good of society. So, call me a cynic, but great big radical ideas like his are usually tough sledding to get done. However, the good news is things are so desperate right now common sense

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There is growing attention to the idea that innovation is supported, or not, by that amorphous beast organizational culture. It’s not a new idea, Mel Rhodes defined “Press” as one of his “4 P’s” of group creativity in 1953 (the others being People, Products, and Process). Who knows where Rhodes came up with “Press” — Press is really culture. Stop yawning! The wrong kind of organizational culture can kill innovation. If you’re an individual, consider that you have a personal culture you’ve built up around you (some might call it your life) so in a way the following applies to You to. Get the best engineers and managers and marketeers, have great product ideas, and great process…and you can still

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When I was a young boy I drifted in and out of my imagination. I day dreamed about sports fantasies, the future, space, the nature of God, angels, the lives of movie stars and famous people like JFK, games of my own making, and inventions. And no surprise, I was routinely punished for day dreaming. In order to escape the browbeating I made efforts to stay focused and pay attention. I also started thinking of that “state” as a bad thing and to be avoided. It got me into trouble with those women wearing the Catholic version of a burka. I reminisce here because I want to make the point that imagination is a practice. Like yoga, meditation, guitar, or

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Some organizations are in a state of procrastination about Innovation. They really mean to do it…someday. “It’s really our intention, next quarter, err, actually, we mean next year,” says the beleaguered innovation director. This is “Innavoidance”. I’ve coined this term. Inavoidance defined in Fraley’s Funky & Wagnally New School Dictionary: INaVOYdanz — a persistent cultural lack of innovation work, process and action, nascent creativity, like procrastination, except specific to new product, service, or business development. Note that inside the new word is “navo” which in Latin means “to do with zeal,” and “dance” — the joyful act of doing the peppermint twist, or watusi. Sadly, both of these positive connotations are negated by the “void” in the middle. Bottom line,

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I participated earlier this week in the Oklahoma Creativity Forum 2011. It was an impressively well staged event, as professional a creativity/innovation conference as I’ve seen anywhere in the world. Beyond event management, I have to say the conference had a great feeling, a gusher of creative spark and soul. Let me tell you why I liked it so much: 1. For what it symbolizes, commitment to creativity — The state of Oklahoma is actually doing something about it’s own future. Not many states, countries, or cities move so boldly into action on the resource that is the well-spring of all innovation. The conference — and the state — clearly understand that you don’t get innovation without it’s pre-requsite, creativity.

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