Fresh Takes on Innovation

The Ideamachine, the BrainStore process to generate, evaluate and implement ideas at lightning speed, is now also on twitter. Follow @ideamachine to get more background on ideas and innovation. Yay!

This map by reporters without borders shows the countries without free internet activity. It is an impressive image that made me look. The map is part of an advertising campaign for reporters without borders done by the famous “fabrica” ad agency. This map is a great example on how an idea can be visualized in a simple and capturing way.

Hello. We have updated to the new Wordpress version and somehow our categories have been lost. We are working on restoring them. Hang in there.

If you have no clue what twitter is, don’t worry. It is quite a recent habit. To tweet or to use twitter is to send a very short message (a maximum of 140 signs, actually) to other people, giving some valuable information. Other people can follow you on twitter and see what information you have to share.

It is that shortness of the message that makes twitter so intreaguing to me. You have to be very precise and short to sum up your thoughts in a nice, round and attractive message. It’s like creating the perfect headline for a newspaper: A fun challenge. The better you do it, the more people will crave your tweets!

A good post on twitter is considered to contain some valuable bit of information with a link or an image. Some people say that twitter is “micro-blogging”, others just want to share their thoughts and feelings, and most professionals who have knowledge about a certain topic use it to get the word out about their skills. Go to www.twitter.com if you want to try it out, it is free and easy.

As twitter is becoming one of the most interesting “social media” tools and a great way to share information quickly with others, companies start looking for people who know how to use twitter. Pizza Hut, for instance, is hiring a “Twintern” (twitter intern) to bring the Pizza chain up to scratch with the new social media age. Great idea!

(Pizza Hut story via Braden Kelley)

Twitter related, check out these two useful tools: Tweetdeck, Friend or Follow.

(courtesy Pia Schatzmann, who took this picture during her holiday in Bali.)

In our daily work with clients, we are often asked what the difference between creativity and innovation is, or when a creative invention or idea actually deserves to be called an innovation.

There are many ways to explain, but I have never found a better collection of explanations than on the blog Lateral Action by Mark McGuinness, a creativity and innovation consultant. He actually took a short article by cartoonist Hugh McLeods blog gapingvoid and has peppered it with his own thoughts.

It makes for great reading and really helped me with the very important distinction between our inner force (Creativity) and the (hopefully) successful result of this creativity (Innovation).

If indeed we can harness creativity and ideas and develop them in a way so they can become truly great ideas with additional value, then, and only then, the result is innovation. And then it is more than just the buzzword many use today without really knowing what it is all about.

By the way, Hugh McLeod also has coined the expression “Create or Die” which I find to be very appropriate for our current economical times.

What needs to come first: A great culture that allows for innovation and makes sure people can contribute to new ideas from within the organisation (and ideally also from without) or a great process that makes sure the organisation can capture all relevant ideas for different topics from various sources such as stakeholders, experts, lateral thinkers, innovators and internal staff and build on those ideas?

What will eventually lead to better innovation? There are different “schools” and beliefs on this question. Ideally, we believe, you have both. A great culture where it is normal and expected to contribute, as well as a process that can capture these contributions in a transparent, fair and collaborative way. If you do not have either, we would always suggest to start with the clear process and to drive the innovation culture with this process instead of the other way round.

What are your beliefs and ideas about the issue of culture and process? Do you see other drivers and needs? Let us know!