Gregg Fraley

A holistic approach to innovation is often missing in organizations that can’t create break-through new offerings, or innovate consistently. I’ve rapped about “holistic innovation” before, it’s one of my keynote talks. When audiences ask what I  mean, I explain the “4 P’s” of organizational creativity: People, Process, Product, and “Press” (code for internal culture or environment).  The 4 P’s concept was developed by Mel Rhodes many years ago. If an organization can gets its arms around the 4 P’s they’ve got a pretty good start on holistic innovation. But it’s only a start, there’s more. And many won’t like to hear it, but the additional things required to be more holistically innovative boil down to touchy-feely, artsy, trendy things. Things like

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If you’re a US citizen a political Tsunami is on its way to your shores. I could be wrong, but I predict here that the USA will have its own “hacking scandal.” The hacking scandal is currently happening in the UK, it’s the press run amok — snooping, lying, bribing, and corrupting everything in its path. To be fair, it’s not all the press/media — it’s mostly press owned by the Rupert Murdoch empire. For my British friends, this prediction might seem obvious. Every day that goes by there are new and ever-more-horrifying revelations about the violation of privacy rights of ordinary citizens (in addition to celebrities and government figures). Today’s headline informs us that Gordon Brown’s family was hacked,

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“If you’re gonna brainstorm… please do it like it’s 1999″…(sing this to the tune of Prince’s 1999). I’ve been busy lately doing a training course for salespeople called SalesStorming. My course is not rocket science, it’s just applied creativity concepts focused on selling challenges. I’ve been in front of about 50 sales reps in recent weeks and although they are regularly involved in highly complex sales challenges (the kind that are difficult to win, with long sales cycles, and require a team effort) virtually none of these sales professionals had any idea, really, about how to brainstorm. It was fun to bring them into the new century of creative thinking. In two days we were thinking up breakthrough ideas and

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If you are interested in the big picture of global innovation, you might want to download this report from INSEAD — the 2011 Global Innovation Index. It ranks 125 countries by measuring various indicators, both inputs and outputs to the innovation process. INSEAD is essentially a global business school with points of presence all around the globe. INSEAD has a number of partners in putting together this information rich report, including: Alcatel-Lucent, Booz and Company, the Confederation of Indian Industry and the World Intellectual Property Organization (a specialized agency of the United Nations). Don’t confuse this ranking with size of economy, that’s not what’s being measured here. The “winner” Switzerland has a population of 7.6 million and an economy of 492

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Into the stadium he strides, resolute. A raw-boned Scottish man, fire in his eyes — and flaming hair to match. Armed with a gut-strung racket, like William Wallace sword in hand, he’s ready, today, to take his place as champion in the high temple of tennis, Wimbledon. Yes, it’s Wimbledon time and I can’t resist writing a post that revolves around a sports analogy. Forgive me Grantland Rice. I’m a tennis fan. I particularly like watching the big Grand Slam matches. If you follow the game you are aware we are in a kind of golden age of tennis, with two of the best ever at the top of their game, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. One could wax poetic

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How many of us lose any sense of our creative selves and never recover? Between the schools, soul crushing jobs, and the myths that surround creativity, it’s hard to find your creative self. And there is no lost and found for creativity. Well, maybe there is… I’m thinking about this because The Creative Problem Solving Institute just concluded in Atlanta, Georgia. Also known as CPSI (“sipSee”) it’s an amazing event and it’s been happening for over 55 years. Normally I’d be there but work has conspired to keep me away. CPSI, was my creativity lost and found, really, an inflection point in my life. Trust me, you are creative, and there are lots of ways to “get it back.” In 1987

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It’s a mixed blessing to be a sometime book reviewer.  The good news is people send me books, and I love books. The bad news is I have a stack of books that would make a good start on a new wing at the Tower of London, it’s overwhelming. There are some duds in that stack, but I soldier on. Pardon the windy introduction, but I’ve found a real jewel recently. Let me make a direct statement here: Michael Michalko’s new book Creative Thinkering — is a real gem. Just finished reading my advance copy in one go on a flight across the pond — and it was a mind-bendingly delightful and informative read  — Chicago to London has never

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CPS really works. Entrepreneur’s and Innovators, learn it and prosper. I had the opportunity and pleasure of co-teaching a class this week with Silicon Valley wiz Randy Haykin. We did a Team Problem Solving course for the MBA program at Cambridge’s Judge Business School. It was a dynamic week and mostly due to a clever cadre of international students. The course featured  “CPS” (aka Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving process) as the primary method/tool.  Students processed an entrepreneurial challenge using CPS and presented solutions — business plans — on the final day. What amazed me most about the course was how well CPS worked even with inexperienced users, with no neutral facilitator, and in a very compressed time frame. The final presentations

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I don’t pay any attention to business school rankings. It’s one of those vague bits I gloss over because I’m not shopping for a school. I’ve always assumed that the rankings were some kind of measure that indicated “success”.  Not really! Only one kind of success is measured. I’ve recently discovered that the rankings are heavily weighted to favor starting salaries, and, the opinions of top recruiters. So, a school that graduates a lot of young brilliant people who start businesses actually gets a lower ranking than one whose graduates opt for safe, high-paying corporate jobs. There is no factorial for those who graduate students who do start-ups or help grow small companies. Not everybody gets an MBA to enable

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The Front End of Innovation 2011 conference was last week in Boston. A few comments and impressions for your consideration. * It would be hard to imagine a more serious group with regard to innovation. This is probably the most concentrated group of pure corporate innovators you’ll find. These are the folks who are working hard to make innovation happen at the biggest organisations in the world. And they are desperate to find ways to improve. I don’t have a count on numbers, but it’s not Mac World, it was a focused group. In a way, this group is almost an ad hoc innovation industry association. * Which is not to say these folks are “too serious” — there were

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