Elizabeth Warren made a very interesting comment at a recent campaign stop. The video and quotes from it are “going viral” — I’ve seen at least 4 re-postings on Facebook, and numerous tweets. Warren is seeking to be the new Senator in the State of Massachusetts. I wish her well, she’s a very intelligent woman with a heart. Her statement can be viewed on video here, but to sum up, she’s saying that wealthy people don’t do it alone. She says those who make a lot of money did it with the support of the society around them, including roads, educational systems (educated employees), police and fire protection. These are things that aid an entrepreneur to innovate and make money,

Read More..

I’ve recently started to advocate a new theory of creative thinking. Ready? Don’t think, Do. It’s not “Just Do It” — blindly doing something (although that beats inaction).  It’s more like start Doing in order to inform your thinking.  And keep doing to inform your thinking. It’s my view that many of us waste a great deal of time thinking. Thinking is going to happen, what doesn’t happen enough is action. Don’t wait for the perfect idea to get started. Get started, and perfect ideas often emerge. Yes, you need good ideas, and, good ideas often occur to you as a result of kinesthetic or multi-sensory action. If your problem is intellectual, find a way to make it more tangible.

Read More..

I posted an idea yesterday about having Steve Jobs create a series of videos targeted towards educating and inspiring young people. A day later, I’m modifying the idea — I think Ken Burns should do it. If Ken takes the project on Steve needs only to cooperate. As it turns out there is a lot of historical footage of Jobs — which might supply a good percentage of the content. The SmartBrief on Leadership newsletter published a link this morning to a series of videos on a Washington Post site. Interviews with Jobs in the early 90’s included. The original material was part of a PBS special “Triumph of the Nerds.” Another clip is from PBS’s Wall Street Week with

Read More..

A great deal is going to be written about Steve Jobs in the near future. There are already several biographies and so many articles dissecting him you could wallpaper the Taj Mahal. This brief post is about an idea I have for him. Steve, now that you’re done with being CEO of Apple, I’d like to make a humble request on behalf of very young people. One of the things you could do for them, and future generations, is to simply share, in simple terms, about your life and how to be an entrepreneur. You’ve inspired a lot of people in your time, myself included. Your courage, brilliance, and effectiveness are remarkable. Why not add further glow to your amazing

Read More..

I listen to the radio when I’m in Michigan. Thank goodness because I’ve got no cable here and my web connection is pokey. It’s sort of a self-imposed news blackout. Radio is my one solid connection, so, I had NPR in the background yesterday when I heard a show that had Everything to do with Innovation — This American Life. Ira Glass hosts this eclectic show, and as many times as I’ve heard it in the past, and enjoyed it, I’ve never really thought of him as even remotely concerned with business.  So all the more amazing when his program was an Innovation business mind-blower. Listen to it: it has to do with “Patent Trolls” and their huge negative impact

Read More..

A holistic approach to innovation is often missing in organizations that can’t create break-through new offerings, or innovate consistently. I’ve rapped about “holistic innovation” before, it’s one of my keynote talks. When audiences ask what I  mean, I explain the “4 P’s” of organizational creativity: People, Process, Product, and “Press” (code for internal culture or environment).  The 4 P’s concept was developed by Mel Rhodes many years ago. If an organization can gets its arms around the 4 P’s they’ve got a pretty good start on holistic innovation. But it’s only a start, there’s more. And many won’t like to hear it, but the additional things required to be more holistically innovative boil down to touchy-feely, artsy, trendy things. Things like

Read More..

Here’s a guest post from good friend and colleague Doug Stevenson. A brief note about Doug — he’s probably the most inspirational trained brain to be found on the planet — he’s the ideal “idea man” and if you need someone to give you 100 ideas about Anything, this is the guy. This is his account of his CPSI (Creative Problem Solving Institute) experience. I’d asked him to do a guest post as I couldn’t attend this year. I find it pretty amazing the lengths people will go to to connect with their creativity and the creative community. In challenging times, take Doug’s advice, don’t worry about your brakes — head for the light, and never retreat in your quest for

Read More..

If you’re a US citizen a political Tsunami is on its way to your shores. I could be wrong, but I predict here that the USA will have its own “hacking scandal.” The hacking scandal is currently happening in the UK, it’s the press run amok — snooping, lying, bribing, and corrupting everything in its path. To be fair, it’s not all the press/media — it’s mostly press owned by the Rupert Murdoch empire. For my British friends, this prediction might seem obvious. Every day that goes by there are new and ever-more-horrifying revelations about the violation of privacy rights of ordinary citizens (in addition to celebrities and government figures). Today’s headline informs us that Gordon Brown’s family was hacked,

Read More..

“If you’re gonna brainstorm… please do it like it’s 1999″…(sing this to the tune of Prince’s 1999). I’ve been busy lately doing a training course for salespeople called SalesStorming. My course is not rocket science, it’s just applied creativity concepts focused on selling challenges. I’ve been in front of about 50 sales reps in recent weeks and although they are regularly involved in highly complex sales challenges (the kind that are difficult to win, with long sales cycles, and require a team effort) virtually none of these sales professionals had any idea, really, about how to brainstorm. It was fun to bring them into the new century of creative thinking. In two days we were thinking up breakthrough ideas and

Read More..

If you are interested in the big picture of global innovation, you might want to download this report from INSEAD — the 2011 Global Innovation Index. It ranks 125 countries by measuring various indicators, both inputs and outputs to the innovation process. INSEAD is essentially a global business school with points of presence all around the globe. INSEAD has a number of partners in putting together this information rich report, including: Alcatel-Lucent, Booz and Company, the Confederation of Indian Industry and the World Intellectual Property Organization (a specialized agency of the United Nations). Don’t confuse this ranking with size of economy, that’s not what’s being measured here. The “winner” Switzerland has a population of 7.6 million and an economy of 492

Read More..