Gregg Fraley

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Lessons a Forager Can Lend Business Relax, Stay Hopeful, Keep Looking I’m a mushroom hunter. I wander the woods foraging, especially in the fall season. Southwest Michigan has a lot of edible varieties but there is one particular delicacy I love. It’s called a Hen-of-the-Woods. It’s a unique shape, something like a cauliflower, and about that size or larger. Very safe — not one of those “eat once” mushrooms. They are not rare exactly, but one can wander for miles and not find one, even in season. They hide under a brownish leaf-like surface. I have a lesson here for business people. Let me start with this story. Know that “Hens” are simply delicious. A hearty, meaty, solid texture, with a

The Innovators Monologue with profound apologies to William Shakespeare by Gregg Fraley To innovate or not to innovate — that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to stagnate or create while feeling the slings and arrows of peers and loss of fortune or to take up arms against inaction and seek to disrupt or improve and if I fail to find sweet perfection or green fields, I die — no more to market, sell, deliver, enrich, enable — the end of the enterprise, alas rarely mourned but the heartache, the thousand friends who lose jobs and life stations that families, tribes, regions, spirits, depend on. ‘Tis a grand frustration devoutly we pray to avoid, the death, and

Creative Effectiveness 2017 What if 2017 turned out to be the most creative year of your life? More than creative, what if 2017 was the most creatively effective year of your life? There’s a difference. You can be incredibly creative in terms of self-expression and ideas — without being creatively effective. What good is creativity if it doesn’t get done? Doesn’t find an audience? Doesn’t get put into play? Let’s make 2017 the year you put projects over the goal line. That is, finish projects. There are a lot of horror stories when it comes to great creativity but no finish. A heart breaking example is that of John Kennedy Toole, who wrote the incredible picaresque novel, “A Confederacy of

Story Fluency and Innovation Every time I blink these days I see another article on story. It’s something of a too popular buzzfad, but for good reason. Clearly, story is important in many aspects of marketing, communication, and innovation. The current literature tends to focus on understanding story, and, aligning a story with a brand, or an organization. There is also the related trend of story telling, ala The Moth. I’ve been involved this last year with a similar regional group, Indigan Storyteller here in Michiana, and its been a transformative experience. I’ve written a business novel (Jack’s Notebook) and I can tell you this, I’m still learning to create and tell stories. Story is a saw we can all sharpen. What doesn’t

I had the pleasure of participating in the debut performance evening of the Indigan Storytellers group last Friday night. As Rocky Balboa once said “you shoulda been there.” It was an intimate evening of exquisitely told stories coupled with fine hand-crafted whiskey. The location was Journeyman Distillery in Three Oaks, Michigan. The room was packed and a good time was had by all. I report on the event here for two reasons. First, because Storytelling as an art form is creativity of the highest order. Innovators of all kinds have much to learn about the craft as a method to elaborate new inventions, messages, and brands. Learning how to write and then perform a 10 minute story is an exercise

People ask me what I read. I think this question is inspired by my citing some arcane fact or that I make a weird connection now and then. I am a voracious reader, but I think what I actually read might surprise. Most of it is NOT directly about creativity and innovation (that’s a way to guarantee you’re boring!) Reading widely provides more dots to connect. Broadly, I’m thinking I’m improving my database by reading a lot of varied and weird content. There is some science to this; one can make more conceptual blends if one has more to blend. And, concept blending, new connections, are where innovation comes from. So, this is a snapshot of what I’m reading, for

I was just named as one of the Top 50 Innovation tweeters by Innovation Excellence. A tweeter is one who uses Twitter. It’s a fairly informal sort of top 50 list — I don’t think there is a great deal of analysis around content or reach, but still, it’s nice to be recognized. I crossed the 10,000 follower line about a month ago, and weirdly, it felt like a real accomplishment. Then I saw that my friend and colleague Dr. Cindi Burnet (@Cyndiburnett) is over 50,000 followers and I didn’t feel quite so glamorous. And, you get out of Twitter what you put into it. I’m happy with my results at my current time-investment level. 10,000 feels like a “very

I’m in Cincinnati visiting for Christmas and coincidentally have been invited to the First Annual Cincinnati Comedians Homecoming Show. I’ll be going to Funny Bone Newport, KY tonight and hope to see a few of my old colleagues from the early 80’s, back when I was doing stand-up. People often ask me what doing stand-up was like, so, here’s the story, but with a twist. I’m going to relate it to starting anything creatively challenging. In the late 70’s and early 80’s comedy went from a somewhat quaint and staid art practiced mostly in the Catskills and New York City to something more akin to rock and roll. The influence of Saturday Night Live and the late, great, seminal comics