It might be the most obvious innovation infarction of all. Nonetheless, quite deadly. The latest innovation self-suicide factor is simply avoiding hard work. People, innovation is Never easy. You might be fooled now and then when something goes smoothly, but I’ll bet you a dime to a dollar (a pence to a pound) it’s an incremental innovation. Nothing wrong with that, but breakthrough’s require hard work — blood, sweat, and tears. Cue Paul Robeson  singing Old Man River. Or maybe we recall the famous words of Ringo Starr “Got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues, and you know it don’t come easy.” Innovation — it don’t come easy. I’ve observed recently an organization that has done

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The buzz around Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The power of Introverts in a World That Just Can’t Stop Talking continues to build. Watching her speak here in London last week it’s clear she’s hit a cultural chord. As of today, #33 on the Amazon chart. Introverts clearly have a tough time making themselves heard. She’s also quite right that extroverts tend to dominate the group processes we see in various organizations. Cain emphasizes solitary work and reflection, and no doubt, there is not enough of either. I’m not sure she understands that with proper training and facilitation, and just good listening skills, a lot of the challenges she identifies for introverts can be overcome. The value of group work and collaborative

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Do you remember the scene in Mary Poppins where they sang the song “I love to laugh?” It was Ed Wynn, a Disney film stalwart and old vaudevillian who played Uncle Albert. When Uncle Albert laughed he rose into the air. Laughter does make us lighter, and being lighter changes our thinking. There is a real value to “going goofy” if you want to shift perspective, if you wish for heightened creativity. Goofiness is an applied creativity tool, and make no mistake, it’s serious business. The subject of my drawing looked vaguely liked Ed Wynn. Like Wynn, he had a wry smile, almost smug, on his face as we rode the train into London. His secret wish is a projection

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I had the pleasure last week of hearing the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. For those of you whose “woo” detection meter has just started clicking, well, hang in there, I think you’ll see the business relevance in a moment. The experience of meditating with 3000 people at Royal Festival Hall was refreshing and energizing. The focus, even before the man spoke, was on breathing. The guided meditation we all did together had us simply being mindful of the breath going in and out. When you do this, it’s actually difficult to not be “in the moment.” Thich Nhat Hanh’s comments were amazingly simple. And yet, the elegance of his poetic and wise words almost masked how deeply practical

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It comes like clockwork, once a week, an HTML email letting me know about the latest edition of Innovation Tools.  As I was thinking about what to post today related to innovation and reading Innovation Tools at the same time, I got one of those lovely “aha” moments (or maybe it was just an obvious but good idea hitting me over the head with a sledge hammer). Everyone should know about Innovation Tools. It’s probably the largest ezine/portal related to business innovation. Just as important, it’s a site you can trust has no hidden agenda. If you haven’t checked it out yet, and you are at all in the creativity and innovation space, either as a supplier or on the

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One of those wacky underlying myths about creativity is that it’s impractical. I don’t know how it got started. Perhaps it stems from that other myth, that creativity is all about art, and of course, art is impractical (and yet another myth). Some say they don’t have time for a “process.” I suspect that the expression of divergent ideas related to a problem might feel impractical, might feel like a waste of time. But it’s not. Even on garden variety complex challenges, taking a bit of time to jam a short list of ideas and selecting the most promising candidate, ultimately saves a great deal of time. Creative thinking is actually a powerful time saver and highly practical for efficient

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Readers of this blog know that I advocated for the passage of  the JOBS Act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) in the USA. This is H.R. 3606. The good news is that the bill has passed the US Senate. It was amended to provide a bit more disclosure and safety for investors, but it’s done, and this is a very good thing. Here’s a nice summary of what’s happened from the New York Times. It still needs signed by President Obama, but he will, he was behind this effort. Can the right please refrain now from calling him a socialist? This is possibly the most “free market” law in recent memory. This is a very pro-business bill and it shows Obama

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Andy Warhol’s famous quote from 1968, that everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes has come true hasn’t it? I just watched a YouTube of a 12 year old dancing to the Maverick’s “Dance the Night Away” — 38,000 views and counting (authentic if nothing else). The democratization of the media has happened, for better or worse. However, if you’ve not quite gotten your 15 minutes yet, I wouldn’t worry so much about it. A secret wish for fame may mask some other need. Peel back that onion before you attempt to break the world’s record for eating ostrich omelettes. Because… Creativity does not require fame. Innovation does not require fame. Full self-expression, in any of its many forms,

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I had an interesting conversation recently about innovation culture. Comparing notes of various organizations with a friend, one of us remarked about organization X — “they never say yes, they never say no, it’s always…maybe.” We both concluded that maybe is a bad place to be as a culture looking to innovate. I wrote in a blog post last year about the one question survey to assess innovation culture — Are you having fun?” If I had to ask a second question, it would now be, “Is your organization a Yes, a No, or a Maybe?” The answer is telling. A Yes organization likes to try new things, is open to ideas and possibilities, and holds back from saying No. Ideas

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CEO Peter Voser of Royal dutch Shell admits his own industry has trouble thinking out of the box. He’s looking for big advances in electrical storage, among other things. Read the article, but the bottom line is innovation cycles of 30 years, which are typical in the energy sector, just aren’t fast enough. We agree at KILN. We have some ideas on how to get a faster front end of innovation. Essentially, a different and more frequent approach needs  to be taken in order to develop better questions for idea generation. Simply put, better questions = better answers. Peter, give us a call.  

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