Gregg Fraley

If It’s Not a Creative Solution, I’m Not Interested. The tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has me thinking about political discourse in the USA. My heart goes out to the families who have lost loved ones, and my heart goes out to all Americans. Once again we grieve over guns and politics. As a “Boomer” it takes me back to another time, in a sad way.  I am once again sitting in grade school and hearing over the loud speaker that John F. Kennedy, my hero, our President, had been shot, and once again, I’m re-living the shooting deaths of Robert F Kennedy , and Martin Luther King. Dead hero’s all, it’s not a proud legacy. I now pray

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Some people have no idea what it means to have a “Generative Discussion.” A generative discussion is when people talk, and in the process of discussing something, use a bit of vision, imagination, and ideation. Entrepreneurs and inventors are good at this; they tend to always be looking for the opportunity in what’s being talked about. “What If…” or “Wouldn’t it be Cool If…” or “How Might We…” are phrases you often hear. Now dig, I’m not talking about brainstorming (in any of its many forms and definitions).  I’m talking about, well, talking — but with a creative twist. Creative talking, Innovative talking (aka a Generative Discussion) is more than debate — which is usually about proving how right you

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I’m not the best promoter in the world. I’m not the worst either. As a writer, I often feel like a doctor who complains that all the paperwork “isn’t practicing medicine.” Promoting my book is like that for me, it doesn’t feel like what I do, or what I should be doing. In spite of what I feel, however, I would be wrong.  As an author it is part of the gig to promote, flog, expose, market, and sell the living hell out of your own books. For those of you who aspire to publish a book — and make lots of money — let me tell you some hard truth’s about the writing game. But first, please, go to

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Am off tonight to do a Pecha Kucha presentation at an event organized by Simon Strong of Human Zoo. It looks like a fascinating line-up of tasty Pecha’s. It’s good fun to create something as scaled down as 20 slides at 20 seconds each.  It forces you to get to the essence of things.  In preparing for tonight, I put together what I think is an insightful set of 20 statements about innovation that I’m calling “Innovation in a Nutshell” or less PC, “No BS Innovation”.  Sharing my work with you here… So, please, tell me what you think of the following.  My intent is to take Innovation back to the absolute basics — if you follow this guide, you

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There is a memorable scene in Godfather III where Michael Corleone laments his inability to stay out of the mob game, he screams —  “Just when I thought I was out of it, they pull me back in.” This is something like my relationship with start-up companies. I’ve been involved with several, and whether they were successes or not, at the time, I always felt that this ‘was the last one.’ I don’t know why exactly. Perhaps because of the intensity of the work, or the roller coaster ride of high high’s and the low low’s. Maybe just because it’s a bit scary.  At times, back in the day, I was ambivalent about my own motives. That ambivalence is probably what

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There’s a new wave of poker madness about to start.  I’m not talking Texas Hold-em.  I’m talking about Stephen M. Shapiro’s new book, Personality Poker, the playing card tool for driving high performance teamwork and innovation. Personality Poker is being released on Thursday, October 28th, 2010. This book is innovative in several ways.  First, it’s a truly novel way to assess yourself, teams, and companies. The built in assessment reveals your personality preferences, but perhaps more importantly, it’s been designed to tell how your traits fit into the innovation process. Second, it’s not just a book, it’s also a deck of cards, a card game, which comes packaged with the book.  I’ve never seen this kind of packaging done before

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If you are interested in Creativity, but have avoided creativity conferences, I have an idea for you — go on the first ever Creativity Cruise. Most creativity conferences are held at hotels, and in a way, this is where the problems start. I’ve already said too much in my blog about the why’s and why not’s of Creativity Conferences, but one I didn’t mention in the Not column is the plastic, antiseptic, and expensive aspect of hotel locations. With the exception of Toronto’s MindCamp, nearly all the conferences are hotel-based. Eileen Doyle and Bruce Baum — two noted creativity practitioners — have decided to change all that, with the Creativity Cruise. Before I go into the details I’ll simply say

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I am often asked about how improv can be used in Idea Generation. I’m asked because I’ve done improv in Chicago at the schools there (IO and Players Workshop of Second City) and I do Idea Generation as a business.  While I’m not a serious candidate for Whose Line Is It Anyway, I have learned, and integrated, the basics into how I think. As for Idea Generation/Brainstorming/Corporate Problem Solving it’s practically all I do these days, so, I’d likely make that All Star team. Call me the spitballer who mixes pitches like structured problem solving — that’s my fastball, and improvisation — that’s my curve. Let me state it simply:  You can adapt classic comedy improvisation games to help solve

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I don’t profess to be the foremost expert on all things UK Government budget. Still, I feel like I have to comment on yesterday’s announcements regarding support for higher education tuition in the UK. In a nutshell, tuition for higher education will be allowed to float free, and, loans to students will shift to a longer payback period.  There’s more to it than that. It claims to be “fair” because the loan repayment will be graduated and progressive. That is, if you make a lot you pay more, if you make very little you might not have to pay it back at all. And…if you pay it back early you might incur a penalty! To use an old phrase where

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Was sad to see the news about Blockbuster — they’re filing for bankruptcy.  It’s a Chapter 11 situation so they’ll reorganize, square away a lot of debt, and try again.  So, they are not dead yet.  I’ve been a long time customer, and did a tiny bit of work for them about 8 years ago, so, love the brand and company. I wish them the best of luck, but frankly, I don’t see recovery happening.  I see a slow and painful death.  You might ask why? Well, to put it frankly, this is a company with a history of being afraid to change, afraid to respond quickly to market shifts. Their initial path to glory was simply renting movies. They

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