I’m introducing a new service called iCoach, and no, it’s not about handbags!  In simple terms I’ve found that what a lot of my customers need, beyond ideation facilitation, is assistance with internal innovation process. iCoach is designed to assess culture, including team dynamics and current process, spot bottle necks in process, and make recommendations and provide assistance in removing those bottle necks.   One of the toughest challenges with innovation is consistency.  iCoach aims to create management consensus around innovation objectives, and essentially, keep the train schedule of incremental and disruptive innovation leaving the station on time.   See my regular webpage under consulting for more information.  Or go directly to: http://www.greggfraley.com/coaching.html

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I am a creativity and innovation expert.  Mostly I advise people on innovation process and facilitate new product development, that’s my work.  I write this blog to provide my insight on my area of expertise, innovation.  I’m not a political pundit.  So, you might ask, why am I starting a boycott of Fox News?   It’s a good question. I’m kicking off the boycott because there is a time to talk about creativity and a time to take creative action. My passion for creative action has been aroused by what I see as a giant con game being played on the American people, the citizens of the USA.  I firmly believe that Fox News is not news because it has

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Sarah Palin took pains recently to point out, once again, that Barack Obama has a passing acquaintance with 60’s radical William Ayers.  Apparently she does read the newspaper after all – she’s quoting the recent New York Times article. Actually, she says he “palling around with terrorists.” Fox “News”, in an effort to whip up something new and interesting to try to turn around the current polling trends, is paying non-stop homage to the attack. I’ve been watching Fox for about three hours and they are repeatedly bringing up the video of Sarah, posing questions to their audience, running the ticker under the screen, and bringing in experts from both sides (to be “fair and balanced”) to comment. It’s absolutely non-stop. What’s not “fair and balanced”

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This post is part of the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour, my Innovise Guy pardner Doug Stevenson is also reviewing the book on The Innovise Guys Blog (the post-tour tour). I do a bit of reading. I try to have one business book and one fictional book going at all times.  This last month my pair has been The Innovator’s Guide to Growth and Salmon Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. It has proved to be a month of intense learning about innovation — and India! The Innovator’s Guide to Growth, which I am reviewing here, I predict, will become as important a book in the business world as Rushdie’s Booker Prize winning novel is in fiction. Quite simply, IG2G is the new bible for

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A simple point I want to make today, in light of all that went down last week: Innovation can be dangerous.  We saw it when Enron collapsed – creativity without regard for legality.  This time it’s much worse.  Back when the financial markets were deregulated a lot of folks, on both sides of the aisle, thought that it was a good thing.  They thought it was innovation, and, it was.  For years, it appeared to be a genius move, as new financial products were created, more competition was introduced, and folks got mortgages they wouldn’t have in earlier days.  The people who architected and pushed for deregulation had a real vision of the upside, and indeed it came to pass.  

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The irrepressible Julia Cameron is at it again.  Does this woman define the word prolific or what?  She’s been cranking out a good book at least once or twice a year for ages, and now, with her eppervescent partner in crime, Emma Lively, she’s just turned out a musical.   The Medium At Large will debut in Chicago at the Village Players Performing Arts Center on October 17th and will run through November 16.  If you live in the area you’d be crazy not to check it out. I’ll stick my neck out here — I wouldn’t be surprised if this does so well in Chicago (okay, it’s Oak Park technically) it will re-open in NYC.  Can a movie be far behind?

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I keep an eye on Starbucks — as readers of this blog are well aware. I do this not as an investor, but as a student of all things innovative, and as a bona fide coffee lover. Starbucks is a fascinating study because it’s a combination of good practices and not so good practices when it comes to innovation.  Their recently slide into hard times and 600 shop closings indicates trouble in paradise; sadly, I see them as an on-going case study in innovative failure at this point. I don’t think they are listening to their consumers, the key to incremental innovation.  Nor do I see them making any radical departures, or starting any new ventures, the key to disruptive

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I was recently gifted a copy of Deepak Chopra’s book, “Why Is God Laughing?  The Path to Joy And Spiritual Optimism.” I don’t often read books related to spirituality, probably an over-reaction to being inundated with religious instruction as a youth.  Frankly, I’m one of those people who believe the more you talk about spirituality the less likely you are actually spiritually connected.  I must confess that in the past I had less than an open mind about all things new age, but that’s changed.  Chopra’s book helped me make more connections between my expertise area of creativity, and something I am still mystified about, spirituality. The fact that Mike Myers (yes, of SNL and Wayne’s World fame) wrote the

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Pressured for Ideas? Here are Seven “Ideation First Aid Kit” emergency tools to get you thinking creatively again. Professional creative people often find themselves needing a brilliant idea — and simply not having one. We’ll we’ve all been there, a deadline is looming, you’ve tried this and that, and you know in your heart it’s not there, you don’t have something you can use. Anxiety, frustration, and fear creep into your being, and the harder you try, the worse things get. Don’t push the panic button, reach for the ideation First Aid Kit and triage your challenge. Here are seven tools for coming up with an idea under pressure: Think positive. Even if you’ve been stumped for days, even weeks, start

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In early June I posted under the title, Starbucks Is Dead.  In that post I explored how, for me as a consumer, the experience had changed, and I was walking away from my favorite coffee.  I expressed some hope that they would return to innovative greatness under the newly resumed leadership of Howard Schultz, the original founder.  Well, things have taken a decided turn for the worse; Starbucks posted its first ever loss last week, and announced the closing of over 600 American stores, and nearly all its Australian ones.  Don’t Aussies like coffee? The closings might be a smart move in the long run. Schultz undoubtedly has gotten that advice from the bean counters (no pun intended).  Starbucks has

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