Gregg Fraley

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 Three Small Biz Creative Problem Solving Small business innovation is simply this: one problem after another. It’s a gauntlet. It’s a series of hurdles you have to jump over, and lots of them. Sometimes you intuitively know what you have to do, so you adjust and go and do it. Other times, it looks like Mt. Everest — it just looks impossible. This is where many wanna be innovators, and wanna be entrepreneurs simply give up. Don’t give up. When the going gets tough, the tough get creative. Deliberately creative. The mountain of problems is not an obstacle, it’s an opportunity. What stops everybody else is exactly where you want to be — because if you can

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I participate when I can in a Twitter-based chat session, called Innochat. It happens every Thursday around noon USA eastern time. Most of the participants are innovation geeks like myself, consultants, writers, company innovation directors, professors, etc. — tune in, it’s interesting. Last Thursday we were chatting about innovation books. There are a ton of innovation books out there, some of which I’ve reviewed here. The insight that seemed to dawn on several of us at the same time is that there really isn’t a great innovation book geared for small business. Scott D. Anthony’s recent Little Black Book of Innovation comes close, but, forgive me for saying so, there is a certain “MBA-speak” (and just MBA ‘think’) even in

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Very simple post today about two interesting creativity bloggers I follow. Creative Something is a consistently rich source. Today’s post features a review of a new iPhone app for creativity called Oflow. I’m downloading it now, looks interesting. I would never have seen this app, thank you Tanner Christensen for helping me keep tabs on new creative tools — and the other stuff you keep tabs on. I’m also following Kate Gardner’s frequent CreativeActs Posts which are typically very short, pithy, optimistic tips about creative thinking. Today she muses about the value of returning home from vacation with fresh eyes so you will Sea Differently. I think Kate does the hipster illustrations that accompany her writing. Imagine that, a creative

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Ask John Sculley, the man who fired Steve Jobs — would he do it again? Probably. As Michael Corleone once said about a fellow mobster taking sides against him just as he took power — “it’s the smart play.” MBA’s are trained to manage, and that usually doesn’t mean disrupt. Let’s be frank, people who think different (high innovators on the KAI scale, a measure of cognitive style) are a pain in the ass. Even those who are very self-aware and have trained themselves in social graces eventually show their true colours in classic corporate settings. They can’t help it. They are less problem solvers than they are problem finders. Many of you know that I recently posted a piece

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Virtual idea generation is a growing trend in innovation. A trend I wholeheartedly endorse because it widens the cohort that normally contribute to “brainstorming” efforts. It gives people time to think and then post ideas as time allows in the nooks and crannies of their day-to-day jobs. It’s a great way to make idea generation and innovation part of the culture of an organization. It’s usually done with an Idea Management System (IMS) but in a pinch, it can be done with something like GoogleDocs or even email. Basically, you put out a focused innovation question and you ask for ideas. The virtual session could be as short as a few days, or as long as a few months. In

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I find it amazing how much people are absorbed in “the news” and it’s political slant or bias.  All of it is pretty much useless to innovators beyond basic awareness of current events. The news I’m referring to is information that is relayed to us by the mainstream media; the TV and radio networks, and newspapers. Web news, such as you might find on Google or Yahoo also is in this category of general news providers. I’ve got no issue with someone who scans these outlets now and then to see what’s being reported, in fact, I think to be culturally literate, one must. But focusing on this stuff too much will clutter your brain with useless poop. News is

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I was in France a couple weeks ago and was delighted to help someone learning English. They asked what is the most useful phrase in the language. I knew immediately. The phrase? “It depends.” It’s the answer to nearly any complex question. It buys you time to think, and actually, it’s nearly always true. And of course it allows you to pretend to know something you don’t. So, when I am asked how to begin an Innovation Initiative, the ultimate complex question, this is my answer — it depends. If I know context I can do better than It Depends, but it takes time, effort, and money to know context well enough to give a good answer. What does it

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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. The scaffolding I’m talking about is the kind of structure required to help you arrive at better ideas. Essentially it’s exploration and baby steps for the brain. Let me explain! Breakthrough ideas are rarely the result of logical thinking. Instead, they pop into our brains after we’ve had some time to think about a challenge or problem. Sometimes this process happens in moments. At other times it might take years. Einstein is said to have pondered the

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