Scaffolding is THE Key to Learning AND Innovation Learn to Play Piano in Days Control Shift Piano to Launch January 27th Steven Jenkins and I have something in common. We’re both frustrated piano players. I took lessons as an adult for several years and never achieved fluency. Traditional lessons teach music theory. I can read music but I’m so slow I can’t really keep a song flowing without practicing for months. Not much fun. I didn’t have the time or patience to continue; instead I took to singing at piano bars. Steven, on the other hand, took his frustration and innovated. He decided to invent a way to learn piano, and play songs, faster. He’s created a system (Control Shift

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Creativity is a Choice and a Habit Join the Creative Flow Challenge Starts Jan. 11th — 18 Days to Creative Power Learn How to Apply Creativity to All Your Projects Yes, you can improve your creativity. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re creative or not. It doesn’t matter if you can’t draw, write poems, paint lovely pictures, play guitar like Eric Clapton, sing like Joni Mitchell, or improv like Robin Williams. You have more creative power than you know, Click through for details on The Creative Flow Challenge. You can improve your creativity, through attitude, tools, methods, and daily practice. Experienced “creatives” can up their game. Those who believe they aren’t creative at all might just transform their lives

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18 Day Challenge Builds Creativity Create An Amazing 2021 Register now for a transformative experience The Creative Flow Challenge is an 18 day adventure in personal self-expression. The benefits of better access to your creativity AND consistent creative effectiveness are achievable. You’ll create daily, inspired by prompts to get you into flow. Don’t wait for lightning to strike. Join the challenge. Learn how to light your own candle. The challenge starts December 14th and goes through December 31. It requires at least a half hour of daily creative work. Every Day during the challenge. Register now. Benefits of the Creative Flow Challenge Strengthen your belief in, and access to, your creative power Gain fluidity in generating better ideas Get perspective

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Adjust Innovation Project Roadmaps Now Fraley Oracle Predictions for 2020 & 2021 Like everyone else innovators have been thrown a loop during Covid19. Strategic plans so carefully developed now look like Napoleon’s disastrous return from his invasion of Russia (see graphic). Napoleon didn’t adjust his plans. He lost his army and his empire. Our businesses are in Moscow now. We’ve got decisions to make with how to get home. How organizations return from Covid19 determines their futures. This Covid19 disaster is an opportunity. More uncertainty will freeze some of your competition. Survivors prosper. Things will get better eventually, but the time is now to prepare for that lovely day when the sun comes out again. My key advice is in

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Six Steps For Newbies Learn As You Go, Get Formal Training Later It’s easy to understand why many small and mid-sized businesses are intimidated by innovation. Scroll through LinkedIn and you’ll see posts on Agile, Lean, Design Thinking, TRIZ, or Osborn-Parnes CPS. It’s not a bad thing, these are useful methods — but if you don’t know those methods one could believe you are hopelessly behind in innovation. You might indeed be hopelessly behind in innovation. Or, you may simply be disorganized, and, actually doing innovation, albeit organically. Start With Your Big Problems and Concerns Consider the case of a recent client I served in financial services. Not a large firm, less than 10 people. But a smart group. The

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Digital Technology Remains An Unharvested Field There is so much innovation potential being left on the table, right now, that our future could truly be that shining city on the hill. The potential, much of it, lays in digital technology. Your future could be that company that thrives amidst chaos. Your future could be that person who surfs above the waves of massive change. But there’s a big IF isn’t there? You won’t get any results if you don’t invest in innovation now. That phrase “city on the hill,” thanks to Ronald Reagan, has come to represent American exceptionalism, but, here, I intend it to mean something bigger, and more akin to the biblical source it comes from. What it

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We Still Can Learn From “The Ken” Sir Ken Robinson Leaves a Legacy That Still Inspires Educators, Creators, and Innovators, Revisit His Work! The creativity and innovation world has lost one of its finest just this last week. Sir Ken Robinson was the most articulate speaker and author in the field of applied creativity we’ve ever known. His insights are profound, and his unique verbal delivery is simply unparalleled. His sense of humor colored his work and is the secret sauce of his success; he had the wit of a natural born comedian and the incisive insights of a brilliant satirist. His original TED talk (“How Schools Kill Creativity) is without a doubt the most influential 18 minutes of video

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Pack a Lunch Mail-in voting is already problematic. Like many Americans I’m appalled at the use of the Post Office to suppress votes. If you don’t agree this is happening, you can skip the rest of what I say here. In my view, the Post Office and Mail-in voting is already compromised, with some exceptions. For those of you who read my blog for innovation, this blog is not about that, I’ll return soon with more writing on creativity and innovation. But the stability of our elections and our government does impact innovation in the long run, and maybe the short run. Too Late To Fix This It would be great if this problem of mail-in voting could be fixed

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Intensive Program Helps Small Business Owners in Indiana Survive and Grow Indiana Business Owners: Sign Up Now, It’s FREE, Starts August 12th. MoshPits, those crazy human-smashing dance scenes at heavy metal concerts are deliberate chaos. Those who participate dive in because they want that wacky experience. They Choose to Dance. What business leaders are going through to survive the economic chaos of Covid19 is a MoshPit nobody really chose to be a part of, but, we’re stuck with the situation. Make no mistake, these are tough times, and they cause business leaders anxiety and fear. But, they can Choose to Take Control. Control means thinking your way out of this crisis. Did you know there’s another kind of “MoshPit” that

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Coronavirus Crisis an Ideal Time To Leverage an Underutilized Technology Idea Management Systems: A Solution for Effective Innovation Remote Work What if this Coronavirus crisis could be turned into a positive for your innovation program? Who said “never let a good crisis go to waste?” With innovation there definitely is an obvious opportunity at hand right now. An Idea to Help You Maintain Momentum Do a virtual idea campaign while your people are away from the office. It is entirely possible to have the best idea generation session you’ve ever had, and done virtually. A well-executed, carefully facilitated, virtual session, using a modern Idea Management System (IMS) could drive innovation projects for the next year or more. Wouldn’t this be

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