Gregg Fraley

Alright, maybe it’s not that different, but I swear, Jimmy Fallon is pulling out all the stops to innovate and entertain on his late night show.  Let’s face it, being a big late night star is a high risk business, witness Conan O’Brien’s crash and burn — and Conan was funny!  Fallon is an SNL grad with a couple of interesting movies under his belt (my favorite being Fever Pitch). I’d seen Late Night just after he’d started the gig (March 2009), and at the time, to me, he was trying a bit too hard.  Accidently revisited these last few weeks, and things have changed, Fallon’s at the top of his game. On the one hand, he’s doing some old

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There is quite a bandwagon rolling right now about Creativity. 5 years ago it seemed that Creativity was a bad word. You could never say it aloud at a corporation because what it meant wasn’t new ideas, it was interpreted as “lack of control” or, even worse, those touchy-feely things that have nothing to do with business. Alright, you could say the word, IF, you coupled it with “…and Innovation.” This is still something you nearly always have to do. When you think about it, it’s kind of silly. Creativity is a bigger concept than innovation, in fact, innovation is a subset. So, saying Creativity AND Innovation is a bit like say, I like Music AND Raggae. Now, every few

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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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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 IBM says it you have to listen — Creativity is the new management Kool-Aid. In a study just released they  say that the “creative” management style — which is marked by taking calculated risks and communicating in new ways — will lead to more success as companies struggle to find their way in an increasingly complex world. The study, titled Capitalizing on Complexity is a synthesis of interviews from 1,500 CEO’s and senior public sector leaders.  This is what these CEO folks now believe — that creativity is more important as a skill, now, than it has ever been before.  Creativity is Now More Important than other qualitites like management discipline, rigor, or operational acumen. Personally, I think this

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I found a compelling book while running to catch the train. Picked up 59 Seconds, think a little Change a lot on the run and have devoured it in just a couple days. The author is a British professor, Richard Wiseman. In the spirt of the book, this will be a 59 second analysis. What this book is all about is untangling the myths around self-help. As a self-helper in my own right I found his research to be thorough, and his insights to be significant. Actually there a goodly number of eye opening insights in 59 Seconds, and delivered in highly digestible, non-academic, bite-size bits. Further, Wiseman provides actions steps that can be done in less than a minute,

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I really hate to post about politics. I am not a pundit. I am a citizen. And the focus of this blog is creativity and innovation. Still, I’ve got something to say. Glenn Beck is Not Thomas Paine. Nor is he an innovator. Nor is he a conservative. While visiting the holocaust museum in Berlin my big takeaway from the experience was simply that when lies are allowed to stand unchallenged, very bad things happen. Let me state for the record here, Glenn Beck is a dangerous man. He is an insidious liar, and, he is not at all like Thomas Paine. Last evening he claimed to be the Thomas Paine of our time. The fact that he is an

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Briefly noted, a quick from-the-field pop culture report. How many lives can a show biz cat have? I was shocked, and delighted, to see Mickey Dolenz featured on a poster in the London Underground.  Apparently he has the part of Wilbur Turnblad in Hairspray. Dolenz is well on his way to becoming the Mickey Rooney of his generation, at least in terms of longevity. He’s 64 and still doing new things. Mickey (now known as Michael) Dolenz is most famous for being the drummer and a singer in 60’bubble-gum pop group, The Monkees. The Monkees were crassly commercial but had some nice moments in spite of it.  Mickey became a decent drummer and a very good song stylist — The Last

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