Gregg Fraley

An “out of the blue” telephone call has me appearing on cable tv in Chicago tonight at 7 PM CST. It’s the National Speakers Association program on cable channel 21, or “CAN TV”. The title of the show is “Speakers on Speaking” with host Johnny Campbell. Campbell is the Chicago chapter NSA President (technically it’s NSA Illinois). Yes, it does feel a bit like “Wayne’s World” — Party on Johnny, Party on Gregg. We’ll have some fun but we’ll talk substantially about creativity, innovation, and public speaking. Please tune in if you have time. Watch it live: http://www.cantv.org/live/ Post Mortem: It was great to meet Johnny Campbell and do the program. It was the fastest 23 minutes I’ve spent in a

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My illustrious partner at KILN, the subtly dynamic Mr. Indy Neogy, MBA, has penned a very insightful piece on how research and analytical intelligence actually hoses innovation. Hoses, a term I’ve borrowed from Bob & Doug McKenzie, means “screws up” or “ruined”. To read the full piece click here. I did an illustration to go along with the words, which I’m posting below because it’s a bit of fun.* By the way, KILN is an innovation services company — I’m proud to be a founding partner. Indy’s article and my illustration are to be found in KILN’s newsletter Kindling — brain food for your innovation efforts (sign up here to get it via email). That’s all for today folks, but read

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As a Michigander I’m always looking for some good vibes on the economy. I found it last night on NBC Nightly News, an inspirational story about Detroit Soup.  It’s not a restaurant, but it does serve soup — and something a lot more precious for down-on-its-luck-Motown — hope. Here’s the concept: Detroit Soup is a monthly dinner to fund creative and entrepreneurial projects. Micro grants are awarded at the dinner. Five dollars ($5.00) is the entry fee and it gets you a simple meal — soup, salad, bread — and a vote. They hold the dinner in an old warehouse. Click over to their site and read their backstory, it’s interesting. Apparently this concept has been happening for over three years.

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Emma Collins writes a guest post for me today with an article on sustainable innovation — in education. Innovation in education has been slow to arrive, but recently there have been some significant shifts, for instance the free courses Stanford is offering. i’ve heard amazing things about the virtual course conducted by Tina Seelig.  As Emma notes, getting a good idea off the ground is often harder than it looks — even under ideal market conditions. Emma works for a web company that just released an MBA schools report 2012 on distance programs, and her expertise is in education; this article focuses primarily on ed-tech initiatives, but the lessons learned should apply to a much broader range of startups. So,

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Guerilla Innovation Chapter Fourteen Run to the Jungle I’ve written what amounts to a short book on innovation for small business these last couple months. I’ve called it Guerilla Innovation (the starting post is here) and I’ve targeted those who want to create a start-up, or, are internal innovators at companies who have little experience with innovation (and innovation-speak). This is a basic, but I think highly useful, field-guide-like innovation book for small business. Every business starts as a small business, so, I’m not limiting the book to those who don’t have much ambition — I merely wanted to provide a more readable, more practical, approach to innovation without all the “MBA-speak”. In the spirit of providing real value in this

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Guerilla Innovation — Chapter Thirteen Isn’t it weird that this post on small business innovation survival is Chapter Thirteen? I didn’t plan it that way, but folks who go belly up usually didn’t plan that either. One of the most telling statistics about starting a business is that the longer you can hold out the more likely it is you’ll survive and do well. The literature will tell you that many fledgling new companies die due to lack of capital. Fair enough, but the reason behind that reason is that there was not a survival strategy that worked. A start up is a bit like that journey across the desert in Lawrence of Arabia — you know it’s going to

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Guerilla Innovation- Chapter 12 Having a Healthy Money Mindset One major factor that stops people from making the jump into business ownership is their relationship with money. Before I get into ways in which entrepreneurs (aka ‘guerilla innovators’) can get funds, a blurb on the whole money mindset is in order. Money, because of its importance, is deeply entwined with our thinking. It is often an emotional relationship. These emotions about money can inhibit creativity and put a damper on innovation. Before you go out fund raising, think about these statements: Do you have a problem with asking for money? Do you have a fear of rejection? Do you worry you can’t prove or persuade others you and your concept are

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Guerilla Innovation – Chapter 11 Birthing the Baby Until now the focus of this online-blogged-book on small business innovation has been a guerilla innovation mindset. This includes thinking, idea generation, creating, amping, and planning for getting a new business going. I hope by now you’ve got a specific business idea in mind. The thing is, at some point, you actually have to start. You’ve got to pull the trigger, birth the baby, take the leap (add your own cliche here) but you must, jungle plan firmly in hand, get officially started. It’s the first step in creating momentum. It might be the single hardest thing you’ll ever do. I recall the words of the late, great comedienne, Lucille Ball who

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Guerilla Innovation Chapter 10 In the previous post/chapter of Guerilla Innovation we talked about “amping ideas.” I reviewed two tools for doing so. They’re good tools. And…there’s more to it than those techniques. Idea amping is a way of life for an entrepreneur — and especially so for a small business one. Nobody will do the hard work of making something special for you. Something in our culture encourages you to quit when things become unreasonable. Yet, entrepreneurship is in many ways being unreasonable with yourself — and accepting the lemons people give you and making lemonade. Being an entrepreneur is a contrarian state. Unreasonable, in the sense that you go beyond what reason or logic would dictate to you is

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Guerilla Innovation Chapter Nine You have to amp those ideas before you start marketing and selling. If you are in before-start-up mode, even more reason to AMP like mad. The refined or amped up idea might just get you to that elusive Point of Difference we talked about. It’s not enough to have a great idea. I’m not making light of the effort one must make to get to a breakthrough idea, but if you’re an entrepreneur, really, a great idea is only what you need to get to the starting line. The early going in the business race is about “insanely great” ideas (thank you Steve Jobs). Good ideas are  normally “out of the medals” at the end of

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