There’s a new wave of poker madness about to start.  I’m not talking Texas Hold-em.  I’m talking about Stephen M. Shapiro’s new book, Personality Poker, the playing card tool for driving high performance teamwork and innovation. Personality Poker is being released on Thursday, October 28th, 2010. This book is innovative in several ways.  First, it’s a truly novel way to assess yourself, teams, and companies. The built in assessment reveals your personality preferences, but perhaps more importantly, it’s been designed to tell how your traits fit into the innovation process. Second, it’s not just a book, it’s also a deck of cards, a card game, which comes packaged with the book.  I’ve never seen this kind of packaging done before

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I’ve been a professional facilitator, of some sort, for the better part of the last 15 years. I’ve taken, and given, a good deal of training related to tools, techniques, and methods for idea generation and meeting facilitation. I’m regarded as one of the best.  I say all this not to toot my own horn (toot toot) but as a preface to a review on possibly the best book written about the subject in many years, GameStorming, a Playbook for Inovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers. I know a lot of tools, but these guys put them all (nearly all) in a great book! There are a number of books out there on idea generation (and meeting facilitation) methods. What’s I’ve found

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If you are interested in Creativity, but have avoided creativity conferences, I have an idea for you — go on the first ever Creativity Cruise. Most creativity conferences are held at hotels, and in a way, this is where the problems start. I’ve already said too much in my blog about the why’s and why not’s of Creativity Conferences, but one I didn’t mention in the Not column is the plastic, antiseptic, and expensive aspect of hotel locations. With the exception of Toronto’s MindCamp, nearly all the conferences are hotel-based. Eileen Doyle and Bruce Baum — two noted creativity practitioners — have decided to change all that, with the Creativity Cruise. Before I go into the details I’ll simply say

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I am often asked about how improv can be used in Idea Generation. I’m asked because I’ve done improv in Chicago at the schools there (IO and Players Workshop of Second City) and I do Idea Generation as a business.  While I’m not a serious candidate for Whose Line Is It Anyway, I have learned, and integrated, the basics into how I think. As for Idea Generation/Brainstorming/Corporate Problem Solving it’s practically all I do these days, so, I’d likely make that All Star team. Call me the spitballer who mixes pitches like structured problem solving — that’s my fastball, and improvisation — that’s my curve. Let me state it simply:  You can adapt classic comedy improvisation games to help solve

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I don’t profess to be the foremost expert on all things UK Government budget. Still, I feel like I have to comment on yesterday’s announcements regarding support for higher education tuition in the UK. In a nutshell, tuition for higher education will be allowed to float free, and, loans to students will shift to a longer payback period.  There’s more to it than that. It claims to be “fair” because the loan repayment will be graduated and progressive. That is, if you make a lot you pay more, if you make very little you might not have to pay it back at all. And…if you pay it back early you might incur a penalty! To use an old phrase where

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You meet some interesting people using Twitter. Going back a couple years now I ran across a guy named Mark Dykeman (@MarkDykeman).  More accurately, he found me, and was kind enough to review Jack’s Notebook.  In any event, it’s clear we have similar interests.  I’m always keen to hear his unique perspective related to creativity and keep an eye on his Thoughtwrestling blog.  I was delighted to hear he’s just completed a new e-book about Mind Mapping titled: “Unstuck, Focused, Organized, using Mind Mapping.” The short version of this review is simply, if you are disorganized, either generally, or in some area of your life, this is a highly useful, amazingly practical, heaping helping of fast acting self-help. The book

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Was sad to see the news about Blockbuster — they’re filing for bankruptcy.  It’s a Chapter 11 situation so they’ll reorganize, square away a lot of debt, and try again.  So, they are not dead yet.  I’ve been a long time customer, and did a tiny bit of work for them about 8 years ago, so, love the brand and company. I wish them the best of luck, but frankly, I don’t see recovery happening.  I see a slow and painful death.  You might ask why? Well, to put it frankly, this is a company with a history of being afraid to change, afraid to respond quickly to market shifts. Their initial path to glory was simply renting movies. They

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Briefly noted: My good friend Alan Black sent me a link today to a very hip and creative blog called Crooked Brains. The post up today has to do with electronic or smart pens and he thought I’d like to see it given my recent review of Livescribes Echo smart pen.  Check out these wacky pens, some of which are quite innovative, some just interesting. Livescribe’s Echo is included in the list, and I still think it’s the most practical, but the others are quite interesting, and may suit your needs.  For instance if you’re a music composer the Gigiway device looks great. Is it just me thinking that this market is about to take off, or am I just

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Traipsing through O’Hare Airport a couple weeks ago, killing time, made the fatal error of stopping by Brookstone’s shop.  They always have cool stuff. I’d heard of the electronic pen concept from a friend a couple years ago and had made a mental note then to get one. Of course, it fell off my radar screen (never saw it on a shelf anywhere…) and I never got around to it.  I saw one, and was compelled to take the plunge.  I’m really glad I did, this Echo “smartpen” from Livescribe, is possibly the most useful tool for personal creativity I’ve ever bought.  Now, I love my iPhone, and, am sure to buy an iPad soon, but honestly, I see the

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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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