Gregg Fraley

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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I’ve heard some rather direct and harsh criticism of President Obama’s recent comment about the USA being a “bit lazy” the last few decades. I’ll agree his comment is a bit unfair from one perspective: The USA has had nearly non-stop increases in productivity, and this for many years. Americans are working harder and doing more with less people, that’s true. And most workers are also doing it for less money. This squeeze is creating a tension that runs parallel to, and resonates with, the Occupy movement — but that’s another discussion. The fair part of Obama’s remark is that in the last 30 years the USA has watched it’s manufacturing base, and many of its competitive advantages, such as

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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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Innovation isn’t the exclusive domain of big companies and rocket scientists. People with passion can create good things anywhere. Even in the countryside, and in a tiny village like Sawyer, Michigan. Sawyer, Michigan is just big enough to contain my subject here — Fitzgerald’s Restaurant. Why is Fitzgerald’s Restaurant notable enough for a creativity and innovation blog? Many count themselves out of the innovation game because they feel they lack sophistication, or a cutting edge technology. Innovation is a certain kind of sophistication, but it doesn’t require that you live in a top 20 market, or write the latest iPhone app. The restaurant game is notoriously challenging. What’s the difference between one that works and one that doesn’t? At the

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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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I have to admit that I’m a bit jealous of Jeff DeGraff. He’s written an excellent book — so good I have author envy. DeGraff is an impressive innovation expert, consulting and coaching high level executives, but his book is really not targeted to that elite group. As the title suggests, it’s for You. Innovation You: Four Steps to Becoming New and Improved is quite simply a very useful book. Personally useful. Most books with the word Innovation in the title are not terribly exciting, particularly for someone who is not say, a VP or CEO of a major company. Sadly, for average people, or small business owners, most innovation books are quite overwrought with innovation from a large corporation

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I’ve been in and out of a lot of board rooms in the last few months. I’m in selling mode, but also, in listening mode. Nearly every conversation I’ve had has me more firmly believing that one of the problems with large organization innovation is it simply moves too slow. Now, I realize that’s a fairly obvious thought. Still, why is it that organizations are accepting of the fact that their “cycle” of innovation turns over once or twice a year? I don’t see a lot of urgency around changing this, I see a lot of acceptance. This is an opportunity to improve many are overlooking. Here’s why I think so. I’m focused, as is Kiln (I’m a partner in

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I’m stealing the title of Stephen Shapiro’s new book to do a short post — about his new book, Best Practices Are Stupid. It’s launching today and I wanted to post about it in case you’re one of those innovation book junkies. This is not a review, although I plan to do that with my Kiln partner Kate Hammer. My new company Kiln is on the cutting edge of innovation practice, so, we’ll be reviewing the book and possibly suggesting “and one better” ideas on some of his. This pseudo-review is more about the book concept — and about Stephen Shapiro. Given the title Best Practices Are Stupid — we have a good idea of where he’s going with this

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I just caught UK Labour party leader Ed Milliband’s speech at the Labour annual conference. In the talk he made a distinction between those who produce value and those who are simply predators. “Producers train, invest, sell…Predators are just interested in the fast buck, taking what they can out of the business.” In my view this is a crucial distinction and of utmost importance with regard to the world economy — and innovation. It’s not my role or my desire here to debate free market versus regulated markets. I’ll simply say that when it comes to innovation, it’s not really an innovation at all if it doesn’t provide actual value. Value means useful. Example: Is value created by mortgage derivatives?

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Elizabeth Warren made a very interesting comment at a recent campaign stop. The video and quotes from it are “going viral” — I’ve seen at least 4 re-postings on Facebook, and numerous tweets. Warren is seeking to be the new Senator in the State of Massachusetts. I wish her well, she’s a very intelligent woman with a heart. Her statement can be viewed on video here, but to sum up, she’s saying that wealthy people don’t do it alone. She says those who make a lot of money did it with the support of the society around them, including roads, educational systems (educated employees), police and fire protection. These are things that aid an entrepreneur to innovate and make money,

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