Gregg Fraley

If you are a creativity and innovation freak, you probably have already seen the excellent Newsweek article titled “The Creativity Crisis.” It’s rapidly becoming one of the most shared FaceBook links I’ve seen. If you haven’t read it, by all means do, it’s the best piece I’ve seen in recent years related to creativity, education, and it’s impact on the American economy.  For those of us in the field, it’s somewhat old news, we’ve been screaming this for years, but nothing like a major news publication to get it on the radar. The recent research is a real eye opener, especially the part that says creativity scores are a better indicator of eventual success than IQ. Wow — that’s a

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Something happened to me yesterday that I’m still processing. Think of trying to blend peanut butter and sand –it’s a sticky and abrasive emotional mess. Sparing you the gory details, it has to do with someone not doing what they said they would do.  Now, they said they would do this thing without any pressure, they made a committment.  Well, as we all know, situations and feelings change, and, my friend and associate reneged. I said I understood, and I do, but its left a hole in my project and frankly, in my heart. We’re still friends but now it’s a bit different, sadly. I’ll get over it, people aren’t perfect. I still love my friend. Beyond the emotional upset,

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I was in London for a meeting last week and due to my “on time” compulsion, arrived quite early. I was killing time window shopping, and I spotted a cool looking linen walking hat on display at a men’s store.  On impulse, I went in and bought it. I had a nice conversation with the clerk at T. Fox & Company. They had some high quality hand-made knit ties — got one of those as well.  I resisted the lovely leather baggage, but was delighted to hear all their goods are made in the UK. Made in the UK means jobs in the UK.  The UK and the USA certainly need more brands like this.  Started me thinking, again, about

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Call me a Johnny-come-lately but I’m suddenly enamored of what’s going on with electronic book readers (or “e-readers” as they are sometimes called) and the potential for a whole new kind of reading experience. This is an area of exploding innovation. I’m talking about devices like the Kindle, and the iPad.  And there are others — from Sony and Barnes & Noble — that I’m less familiar with. I’m going to leave it to others to do a cross compare of features and functions, this post is more about the potential for innovation in this space. Apologies to Sony and Barnes & Noble, I may try to do you justice in a future post. Up until now I’ve thought of

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When I’m traveling one of my rituals is to drop by an airport bookstore and pick up something entirely new. I do a quick survey of what’s hot, and poke around for some hidden gems. It’s often quite difficult to pick out a book; there’s just too much to choose from. Last week, under the gun to get to my gate, I begged help from a shop person and, I’ll be damned if she didn’t pick a winner.  ShopClass As Soulcraft is a newish book by Matthew B. Crawford. The subtitle is “an inquiry into the value of work”.  I guess it wasn’t too much of a risk, it’s a “notable” book by the New York Times, and a best

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Walking down a street in North London last week, I spotted this chair in a store window. Ice cream for the eye!  It had me wondering why we “hold back” on color so much.  I’ve often resisted the urge to wear colorful clothes for example.  Why are we sometimes color restrained?  And, what does this chair suggest to us in terms of ways to use color more effectively in everything we do? In our innovation projects? This picture goes into my “forced association” picture deck, so, I can use it as a tool for ideation, but what else? I recall that Motorola once had a huge success with pagers with color. By simply adding color it opened up the consumer

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When IBM says it you have to listen — Creativity is the new management Kool-Aid. In a study just released they  say that the “creative” management style — which is marked by taking calculated risks and communicating in new ways — will lead to more success as companies struggle to find their way in an increasingly complex world. The study, titled Capitalizing on Complexity is a synthesis of interviews from 1,500 CEO’s and senior public sector leaders.  This is what these CEO folks now believe — that creativity is more important as a skill, now, than it has ever been before.  Creativity is Now More Important than other qualitites like management discipline, rigor, or operational acumen. Personally, I think this

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I was on the phone last night with Joe Miguez, (an authority on the use of Labyrinth’s as a creative tool).  Joe was pitching an idea at me and it was fun the give and take we  had talking about it. Ultimately, he didn’t sell me on the idea, but as I hung up the phone I was smiling and I had warmth in my heart. Such is the chemistry between some idea people, even when you disagree, you don’t argue so much as you explore possibility.  That’s not so easy to do all the time is it? Is it your experience that some people are great natural, organic idea people?  And some people are totally not?  It sure is

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I tweeted this morning that I had the don’t-have-an-idea-for-a-blog-post-blues.  It’s true.  Mr. Creativity himself does occasionally run dry!  (Note to self: see if Peter Lloyd might write a song with that title). I got some humorous ideas and encouragement tweeted back at me. Gary Murning (author of If I Never, @GaryMurning) suggests an author interview.  I’ll take him up on that, but not today. @ReetaLuthra suggests that the aforementioned blues are a topic in of itself.  Yes, but a bit “movie within a movie” — not today! Mark Abrahams (@Mark_Abrahams) pushes my own advice back at me and advises me to put on my Creative Coat (see my TEDx talk). Ding! That’s it, I’ll post about The Creative Coat Concept

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I found a compelling book while running to catch the train. Picked up 59 Seconds, think a little Change a lot on the run and have devoured it in just a couple days. The author is a British professor, Richard Wiseman. In the spirt of the book, this will be a 59 second analysis. What this book is all about is untangling the myths around self-help. As a self-helper in my own right I found his research to be thorough, and his insights to be significant. Actually there a goodly number of eye opening insights in 59 Seconds, and delivered in highly digestible, non-academic, bite-size bits. Further, Wiseman provides actions steps that can be done in less than a minute,

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