Gregg Fraley

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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It’s easy to understand why many managers are not interested at all in heading up an innovation team. Saying no is the sane choice. The truth is Innovation Team Leadership is usually a thankless job. It’s often a job on top of another job. In other words, a lot of extra work spent on innovation initiatives means it’s a killer to keep up with the business-as-usual-operational job. So, that’s usually enough to kill innovation leadership motivation. But wait, there’s more! Not only is it a ton of work, it’s high risk. Many, even most, innovation efforts fail. Failure doesn’t look good come job and salary review time. People spout a lot of happy talk about learning from failure but the

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Oh my, it’s summer. Officially. Two seasons of 2012 are now history. This is the perfect time to take a half-year checkpoint on your innovation efforts. On July 1, you’ll have six months left to get something done, or, complete something already underway. Here’s the checkpoint survey, suitable to print and take to your next meeting: What have you accomplished so far this year? How many “cycles” have you accomplished? How many ideas generated? How many promoted? How many prototypes done, how many concepts put in front of management?  Don’t know? I’d call that a red flag. Kudo’s to those who have efforts underway and are pushing the envelope. For those who have nothing to show for the first half of

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I had an interesting conversation recently about innovation culture. Comparing notes of various organizations with a friend, one of us remarked about organization X — “they never say yes, they never say no, it’s always…maybe.” We both concluded that maybe is a bad place to be as a culture looking to innovate. I wrote in a blog post last year about the one question survey to assess innovation culture — Are you having fun?” If I had to ask a second question, it would now be, “Is your organization a Yes, a No, or a Maybe?” The answer is telling. A Yes organization likes to try new things, is open to ideas and possibilities, and holds back from saying No. Ideas

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When I was a young boy I drifted in and out of my imagination. I day dreamed about sports fantasies, the future, space, the nature of God, angels, the lives of movie stars and famous people like JFK, games of my own making, and inventions. And no surprise, I was routinely punished for day dreaming. In order to escape the browbeating I made efforts to stay focused and pay attention. I also started thinking of that “state” as a bad thing and to be avoided. It got me into trouble with those women wearing the Catholic version of a burka. I reminisce here because I want to make the point that imagination is a practice. Like yoga, meditation, guitar, or

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I really have to say something about this notion that brainstorming / idea generation / ideation can be made into an efficient process. I’ve read a couple of interesting pieces on this lately, this idea it can be made more efficient, so you only get “good” ideas. If only it were so… I’ll grant you that sometimes the questions posed for an “idea campaign” are too generalized and therefore rake in a lot of useless ideas. I’ll also grant you that converging on a few good ideas when you have thousands to wade through is a challenge. I totally understand why an organization would be seeking a more efficient way to arrive at a nice small batch of really good

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It occurred to me that as a cultural trend spotter and scanner, I’ve not posted about current trends in my own field of Innovation.  No time like the present!  Like any industry or concept things fall in and out of fashion. This is just my view, but a fairly well informed one. So, here are my 10 thoughts about innovation trends, in no particular order: (see below for more thinking about each item) 10 Trends In Innovation (March 2011) 1. Creativity is getting more lip service but less action. 2. Risk Aversion is still very much part of the big company scene. 3. Lack of Resources is the number one excuse for not innovating. 4. Idea Management Systems and Product

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How do we get more companies on board to do the new dance, the Idea  Management Adoption Slide?  It’s Holistic! I wrote an article two years ago that stated managers will lose their jobs, at some point, for not adopting Idea Management Systems (IMS).  Those who read this blog know I’m an advocate and believer in IMS, and I’ll point you to the original article (Idea Management, the Measure of Innovation) for all the good reasons and concrete benefits. I’m not the only one who thinks this, I found a more recent blog post by Ron Shulkin, who wrote comprehensive piece on the topic. I haven’t heard of anyone losing their job yet, and there is anecdotal evidence of more adoption

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