Gregg Fraley

If you are a creativity and innovation freak, you probably have already seen the excellent Newsweek article titled “The Creativity Crisis.” It’s rapidly becoming one of the most shared FaceBook links I’ve seen. If you haven’t read it, by all means do, it’s the best piece I’ve seen in recent years related to creativity, education, and it’s impact on the American economy.  For those of us in the field, it’s somewhat old news, we’ve been screaming this for years, but nothing like a major news publication to get it on the radar. The recent research is a real eye opener, especially the part that says creativity scores are a better indicator of eventual success than IQ. Wow — that’s a

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Something happened to me yesterday that I’m still processing. Think of trying to blend peanut butter and sand –it’s a sticky and abrasive emotional mess. Sparing you the gory details, it has to do with someone not doing what they said they would do.  Now, they said they would do this thing without any pressure, they made a committment.  Well, as we all know, situations and feelings change, and, my friend and associate reneged. I said I understood, and I do, but its left a hole in my project and frankly, in my heart. We’re still friends but now it’s a bit different, sadly. I’ll get over it, people aren’t perfect. I still love my friend. Beyond the emotional upset,

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Continuing my current trend of writing about personal experiences related to Innovation. I’m currently on a diet and fitness program.  The reason: I’ve let my weight creep up very slowly and now my clothes don’t fit, except for the stretchy waisted “fat” clothes.  I’ve made half-hearted efforts for a few months and decided last week to accelerate progress and quit fooling around.  So, I’m on a regime of daily exercise, no alcohol, and moderate (but not starvation) eating. It’s been challenging, my body is resisting, I’m sore all over, and very tired at the end of the day. As Rocky Balboa once said “I need to call a Taxi to get to the bathroom…” And, what I’ve noticed, after only

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I was in London for a meeting last week and due to my “on time” compulsion, arrived quite early. I was killing time window shopping, and I spotted a cool looking linen walking hat on display at a men’s store.  On impulse, I went in and bought it. I had a nice conversation with the clerk at T. Fox & Company. They had some high quality hand-made knit ties — got one of those as well.  I resisted the lovely leather baggage, but was delighted to hear all their goods are made in the UK. Made in the UK means jobs in the UK.  The UK and the USA certainly need more brands like this.  Started me thinking, again, about

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Pecha what?  Pecha Kucha (sounds like “peh-cha koo-cha”) is a pithy presentation format, 20 slides, 20 seconds each.  You have six minutes and 40 seconds to get your point across.  People all around the world are doing Pecha Kucha. My friend Simon Strong of Human Zoo is organizing a series of Pecha Kucha events in the suburbs of London, and stay tuned for more information. Be looking for Rhyme Not Reason, later this year, in: Guildford Woking Farnborough London High Wycombe (I’ll be helping organize this one!) Oxford Reading Simon’s events won’t be focused on innovation per se, but I’m thinking this public speaking format/phenomena is a great innovation stimulant — no matter what the subject.  Why?  Well, first of all

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Call me a Johnny-come-lately but I’m suddenly enamored of what’s going on with electronic book readers (or “e-readers” as they are sometimes called) and the potential for a whole new kind of reading experience. This is an area of exploding innovation. I’m talking about devices like the Kindle, and the iPad.  And there are others — from Sony and Barnes & Noble — that I’m less familiar with. I’m going to leave it to others to do a cross compare of features and functions, this post is more about the potential for innovation in this space. Apologies to Sony and Barnes & Noble, I may try to do you justice in a future post. Up until now I’ve thought of

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When I’m traveling one of my rituals is to drop by an airport bookstore and pick up something entirely new. I do a quick survey of what’s hot, and poke around for some hidden gems. It’s often quite difficult to pick out a book; there’s just too much to choose from. Last week, under the gun to get to my gate, I begged help from a shop person and, I’ll be damned if she didn’t pick a winner.  ShopClass As Soulcraft is a newish book by Matthew B. Crawford. The subtitle is “an inquiry into the value of work”.  I guess it wasn’t too much of a risk, it’s a “notable” book by the New York Times, and a best

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The big news coming from the World Cup play this weekend was the “howler” score allowed by the English goalie. By all accounts the British team fairly dominated the US team. The USA allowed a goal very early and it appeared as though they might get steamrolled. However, they hung tough, and a fairly weak shot at goal slipped through the fingers of Robert Green. It wasn’t a tough shot to block, it was right to him, he had it, then he lost it. As I watched the replay I could only feel for Green, this is an embarrassing moment he may live with for the rest of his life. It had me thinking about the concept of failure. First

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Walking down a street in North London last week, I spotted this chair in a store window. Ice cream for the eye!  It had me wondering why we “hold back” on color so much.  I’ve often resisted the urge to wear colorful clothes for example.  Why are we sometimes color restrained?  And, what does this chair suggest to us in terms of ways to use color more effectively in everything we do? In our innovation projects? This picture goes into my “forced association” picture deck, so, I can use it as a tool for ideation, but what else? I recall that Motorola once had a huge success with pagers with color. By simply adding color it opened up the consumer

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Simple concept here.  In my view this is how BP turns this oil spill situation around. First, stop the freakin leak.  Second, become the world leader in environmental clean-up and prevention technology. BP has done irreparable harm to the Gulf of Mexico. How irreparable remains to be seen, and, it depends on BP’s commitment to making things as right as they can be.  Now. BP will forever be known as the evil, money-grubbing #¢#∞¡!itches  who befouled the Gulf of Mexico if it doesn’t do the right thing by humanity and invest billions in learning how to prevent and manage disasters like this.  BP, listen!  Hire the scientists, spend the money, partner with governments, other oil companies, NASA, anybody who can

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