Evaluation, Rewards, Competition and Contraints -- Their Effects on Creativity - Teresa Amabile

Teresa Amabile is a well-known creativity researcher, who has focussed on the effects on creativity produced by evaluation, rewards, competition and constraints. I find it very interesting that Dr. Amabile is a professor of business administration (and at Harvard University). Some material from her book, Creativity in Context (1996, Westview Press) is summarized below. According to Amabiles experimental results, evaluation (as, say, good or bad) and rewards have very similar results on creativity. The results depend upon the nature of the task -- is it * Heuristic, where many possibilities must be explored OR * Algorithmic, where the task is primarily a linear series of steps, where the order is clear.

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The New Paradigm of Advantage (there is enough food in the world to feed everyone) - Harvard Business Review

Here's something you might not know. There's enough food in the world to feed pretty much everyone. So why are more than 1 billion people — nearly 20% of the world's population — either starving or malnourished? And why, over the last two decades, has global hunger steeply risen? The answer has everything to do with the past — and future — of advantage. Over the last few months, I've discussed in depth the tectonic shifts rocking the macro and micro economy. Let's put it all together. Here's what the 21st century demands from firms of all stripes: a paradigm shift in the nature of advantage. The past of advantage was extractive and protective. The future of advantage, on the other hand, is allocative and creative. I made a little Prezi to illustrate it, below. Let's go through each category in turn.

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Right Brain Workout - Telephone Booth - Creativity Test

This is a creativity test. We're going back to the days when the phone booth was about the only alternative to the desk phone. You're the president of a company that makes phone booths. Recently your closest competitor has begun to whittle away at your market share. Desperate, you ask all of your employees for ideas. Not just run-of-the-mill ideas, but innovative, creative ideas.

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Seven Tips for Managing Price Increases

When driving these days, do you look at the prices every time you pass a gas station? Do you notice yourself paying more attention to the prices of everything you buy? You are not alone. Consumers everywhere are more price aware. People who've been indifferent to price increases for years are suddenly amazed at what things now cost. How can marketers cope not just with inflation but with consumer sticker shock?

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