Gregg Fraley

The Front End of Innovation 2011 conference was last week in Boston. A few comments and impressions for your consideration. * It would be hard to imagine a more serious group with regard to innovation. This is probably the most concentrated group of pure corporate innovators you’ll find. These are the folks who are working hard to make innovation happen at the biggest organisations in the world. And they are desperate to find ways to improve. I don’t have a count on numbers, but it’s not Mac World, it was a focused group. In a way, this group is almost an ad hoc innovation industry association. * Which is not to say these folks are “too serious” — there were

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In my TEDxNASA speech I sought to ‘get back to the very basics’ of innovation — personal creativity. That was November 09 and since then I’ve heard many times that what struck many watching the video was the statement I made that “creativity is the spring, innovation is bottled water.” Not being the kind of person who ever wishes to preach, I must admit that I held back from saying something even more direct. Something which I strongly believe, and that is, innovation has a spiritual component. Okay, now, I’m not talking a religious component, or even an ethical component, although religion and ethics can be inspirational places to come from. What I’m talking about is creativity and it’s connection

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There is a growing realization that brainstorming (aka ideation, aka idea generation) sessions are set up for failure. This is arguable, and I expect I’ll hear how I’m wrong about this.  Many facilitators have a religious belief in the power of brainstorming. While I believe they can be truly productive, I do think brainstorming “works”, I think the formula for success is very tricky. I believe most brainstorm session plans are fundamentally flawed. Sadly, it’s mis-directed creativity that does not lead to innovation. What normally happens is usually not absolute failure.  Typical results are… mediocre, with incremental ideas as the result. Sometimes this is good enough, incremental ideas are often exactly what you want, and are under-valued. If that’s your

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As I suspected would happen a lot of additional information has come in regarding creativity conferences. Here are a few more, with very little data, but to add to the list: The Australian entry: The Amplify Festival — Sydney, Australia, June 6 – 10 Looks interesting!  Follow them on Twitter at @AMPlifyFest — Can we give this conference the award for actually having a creative name?  Would somebody hire me in Australia so I can go? The Idea Festival, Louisville, Kentucky, September 21 – 24, 2011 I’ve heard good things about The Idea Festival, my friend Doug Stevenson has been and he reports an interesting mix of content, and, a real sense of fun. This would appear to be more

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Spring, Summer and Fall are the seasons for creativity AND innovation conferences. The guide I’m posting here isn’t meant to be comprehensive — but a quick glance at what’s on and why or why not you might want to go. Everybody has different criteria, so, take my thoughts with a grain of salt. And if you have additions, please comment and let everyone know. Guide to what’s happening in 2011: CREA 2011, Sestri Levante, Italy, (April 13-17, 2011) For those with the shekels and the time, a trip to Italy for the 9th annual CREA Conference might be in order. Imagine if you will a creativity conference with good food. In a hotel that is really an old seaside castle.

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Aye, it’s St. Patrick’s Day, and on this day of saints, I cannot tell a lie. There is a pervasive and growing cliché in the innovation business, and it’s starting to drive me a bit nuts, ready? “Ideas are a  dime a dozen” and it’s usually coupled with the thought “it’s not about ideas, it’s about execution.” If you do a Google search on those phrases you’ll find many current links to blogs, business articles, and famous quotes pages. At a recent innovation conference in Berlin (FEI 2011) I heard this thinking echoed in several speakers presentations. Patrick Lefler, clearly a bottom line guy, wrote this recent piece, which was posted on the Blogging Innovation site, but there are many others

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My writing partner in sales literature is a wonderful and talented guy, Tim Dunne. We’ve been colleagues at the CREA Conference (coming up soon, April 13-17) and also CPSI — so we’re both bona fide creativity and innovation types. We share a common history of being bag carrying salesmen. We’ve both thought for ages that bringing applied creativity concepts to the sales world is needed — and we’re working on that.  In the meantime, check out his post today: The When, Why and How of Credibility. Well worth a quick read, and check back with Tim now and again for more thoughts on creative selling. The essence of his post is simply all about how to build enough credibility with

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While trying to escape the business world for a few hours last evening (aka “male channel surfing”) I happened upon a Heston Blumenthal TV program on Channel 4. Kudos to Channel 4 for producing Heston’s Mission Impossible. It’s a must watch for those interested in innovation. Period. The program is all about Heston’s efforts to dramatically improve the food on British Airways.  Wow, a good start, it’s an iconic brand, and a brand in trouble. The program concept is not new; Blumental made a similar effort to update the menu at Great Britian’s classic diner, Little Chef. What is new, and very worth watching if you are an innovation person, hell, a business person, is the clarity of the program

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Communities have creative souls. Some blossom in the spring of harmoniously shared lives, others whither in the cold winds of isolation and fear. The communities that blossom, that “work” in more simple language  — are creative communities — because the collective “team” has chosen to appreciate and even encourage diversity. The bad news/good news about diversity is that there is usually more conflict on diverse teams, but if normalized, those teams are almost always more innovative than homogenous teams. You only have to examine the work of Richard Florida to understand that creative and diverse communities evolve into economically prosperous communities. Case in point: Buckinghamshire, UK. I volunteered as a graphic illustrator yesterday at an extraordinary event. I promised to

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Heads-up! There’s a great creativity post on Mike Brown’s excellent blog, Brainzooming. It’s a listing of 37 articles on ways to be more creative.  I’m kicking myself because I’m not on the list! I realize that even though I’ve written about 300 posts related to creativity, and a book — I haven’t written a piece that explicitly takes on that challenge.  I would argue that my “Magic Jacket of Creative Behavior” post comes darn close!  Well, never mind, no time like the present to make a change — I’ll make the next list with this post! There are a lot of ways to be more creative, in my list below I’ve tried to focus on fundamental Ways of Being that lead to

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