Fresh Takes on Innovation

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!

In our daily work at BrainStore we get to use a lot of image material, be it for inspiration or illustration. Searching for a specific picture can become a drag sometimes, switching between different image hosting sites and scanning the content in the traditional way. It takes up time, lots of it, time that could be used better to focus on how we can further improve our IdeaMachine.

So these days, when it comes to searching for images, I turn to Cooliris (free download at www.cooliris.com ). It is a plug-in for your browser that turns your screen in to a customable “3D Wall” to display your search results, be it pictures or videos, in a stunning new and slick way. It has a very intuitive handling that an averagely gifted person should understand within a minute. Also available in an iPhone version, Cooliris takes full advantage of the touch screen technology to create a unique picture and video viewing experience on the go.

At present, the software is compatible with Google Image Search, Yahoo! Image Search, Ask.com Images, Live Search Images, AOL Image Search, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Fotki, FotoTime, deviantART, SmugMug, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, hi5, Friendster, YouTube (for videos), Gallery, and any web site that implements mediaRSS <link> tags in their HTML pages. The software places a small icon in the corner of an image thumbnail when the mouse moves over it, which launches into a full-screen photo viewer when clicked.

This little gadget is exactly the kind of software we expect when we think of the web of tomorrow. The only difference is: It’s here already.

For the start of 2009, here is an organisation that is truly inspiring and important: All Day Buffet is an incubator for social innovation. They connect, develop and launch purpose-driven ventures. Last October they organised “The Feast”, a conference for social innovators. They also do a lot of work in New Orleans, which will become the Capital for Social Innovation thanks to the fact that after Hurricane Katrina everything had to be built there from scratch, and a lot of people took this as a wake-up-call to reinvent how things can be done. The next Feast conference, is, infact, taking place in New Orleans on February 6, 2009, so hurry there if you are a purpose driven entrepreneur or just interested in seeing exciting projects that deal with social innovation.

The hamster wheel powers the paper shredder on top of the cage. This way the hamster creates his own shredded paper in his cage.

Source:tomballhatchet.com

The current economic situation is probably bringing a completely new approach concerning innovation in the future. As a historian, you may postulate that systems normally innovate when facing crisis. Times, when a fast development into a certain direction is seen as the only possibility to survive, normally bring fast and ground-breaking ideas – which in fact are highly depending on luck and the right decision under pressure.

It is said that one should never change a working system. Using the very same working system for a longer time brings additional fear of failure and a conservative ethos. Closing eyes, ears and mind to anything new and risky may, speaking of the worst possible case, cause complete “idea-blindness”. Because a system never works ceteris paribus, a complete blockade of the system in a constantly changing environment is unavoidable – unless the change is not forced from in- or outside (looking at Europe: this mechanism, indeed, made the triumph of concepts like democracy and liberalism possible!).

Speaking of economics, the free market normally makes innovation happen. Enterprises survive by adapting fast to market situations, which makes them way more flexible. If the framework stays the same or develops in a predictable way, innovation may be looked at as a relatively slow but constant process.

The current unbillable situation of the world economy has to be looked at as a chance as well. An emphasis on new ways and possibilities in innovation will give companies and hopefully even nations the possibility to establish procedures, which allow fast reactions but also long-term innovations. In times of globally linked economies, innovation culture and capacity has to be looked at on a bigger scale – the output of companies and societies on global markets is not only defined by the production of goods and services, but also by the production of – yes – ideas.

Here is another proof of how small things can make a big difference in our everyday lives: Efrat Gommeh, an industrial designer from Israel, has created such innovative tableware that one is tempted to go shopping for Christmas gifts early this year. To give you an idea of her work, here are two examples of her unpretentious and beautiful collection.

The Lock Cup: imagine a morning in your office without a missing coffee cup… The cup can only be used if the key is in the lock, otherwise it leaks.

 And here comes my personal favorite, The Info Tray:

Love it or leave it, the tray is a helpful accessory when you are suddenly overwhelmed by great ideas and need to brainstorm in the most unexpected moments.

Btw, according to Gommeh’s self-definition you might assume she’s worked at BrainStore before: «The studio is characterized by an innovative and fresh approach, attention to details and a broad perspective which incorporates the point of view of the user, the manufacturing limitations and marketing considerations».

If knowledge is power, personal newsfeeds are your weapons. A newsfeed customized to your information needs allows for professional news monitoring and information retrieval like previously only news services and professional communication agencies could.
If for instance you wished to be constantly informed about your clients, suppliers and competitors, then an aggregated newsfeed could be an interesting solution for you.

In the following example I’ve combined selected data sources to process them with different methods. Eventually the outcome is a helpful aggregated idea-feed.

This is comparable with the concept of a search engine: finding what one is looking for via queries from any number of sources. So instead of constantly dealing with complicated Google scanning on a certain subject, you can continually inform yourself of a predefined field.

In this aggregated newsfeed example, articles of selected sources on the subjects of trends, ideas, innovation and future are displayed on a daily basis. For instance, you can subscribe to the Yahoo! Pipes aggregated feed as badge for iGoogle or Netvibes.

The Internet includes an elusive quantity of information. If we visited each existing URL on the Internet for only 10 seconds, we would be busy doing so for roughly 317,098 years.

Google and Yahoo search engines let you browse through this enormous amount of information as quick as lightning. And by using social bookmarking service providers such as Mister Wong and Delicious clever discoverers can find the information looked for in no time.

Based on a content analysis of social bookmark service providers, I have listed and summarized the most interesting websites on the subject of ideas, trends and future in a Google Custom Search. That is about the same as analyzing how many guests go to which restaurants. The best results however are not compiled in a list but in a search engine based on Google’s technology!

The result is a niche search engine to track trends, future and innovative ideas!

I suggest you begin searching for new business trends right away or start your discovery of exciting ideas from a land faraway.

Niche Search Engine to Track Trends, Future and Innovative Ideas:

Custom Search

For more informations see:
- We knew the web was big…
- Google Custom Search Blog

Did you know that there is actually an official phobia of ideas, called ideaophobia? There are severals sites that list all fears known to mandkind, mind1st blog is just one example that lists the most unusual fears that can possibly haunt a human, from allodaxaphobia (fear of the opinions of other people) to Uranophobia (fear of heaven).

So, if you encounter these typical nay-sayers using all the killer phrases you have heard so often, just tell them they have ideaophobia. It’s the official term.