CLF Chairman's Report

Communicating with many leaders, we are constantly hearing that after the ‘BIG CUT’ the focus is now on re-development, so where do you start?

Following decades in business, it always commences in the same way for ourselves and our clients…

Research – Research – Research!!!

After a couple years research and reaching over 30,000 executives and managers throughout Australia, we launched CLF research on ‘Is Australian Management Creative and Innovative?’ in 08. You can view the summary of results here

The main concern was: After confirming with questions in 5 different ways, over 80% of managers believe they are creative/innovative… Less than half believe their employers are creative/innovative.

This knowledge inspired development over the last 12 months of the Creative Leadership Index (CLI)

“What has been inspiring is that every case study we complete shows that the CLI is unique worldwide…

Because every business, organisation and government body we communicate with is systemically and uniquely creative, our research provides a discussion paper – a snapshot - customised for every client

That is where The Creative Leadership Forum generally commence before considering recommendation for any investment in education from our master educators.

The CLI does not replace the various engagement surveys available. We have researched many engagement surveys and have access to some of the best in order to create a unique review as required and unique and separate of engagement surveys…

Clients continue to inform us how the CLI provides insights on how they can innovate and be more creative, both internally and as an interface with clients/customers…

From there we have developed, in association with our CLF team of consultants, solutions that are customised for every client…

This issue we consider where to invest your time and money….

Some articles of particular interest include McKinsey’s recommendation to ‘Identify Skill Gaps in An Organisation’ review the article – here

We look forward to researching with you how our CLF team can improve management innovation through:

• Research providing a snapshot of your executive/management team
• Communication internally and at the interface with clients

Crowdsourcing Innovation: Q&A with Dwayne Spradlin of InnoCentive

In recent years, corporations have turned to open innovation to solve their toughest research problems and reduce runaway costs of R&D. Now non-profits are beginning to see prize-based innovation as a strategy for humanitarian causes too, such as developing medicines to fight tuberculosis in the developing world, cleaning up oil spills or designing solar technologies for villages in rural India and Africa. InnoCentive is the premier open innovation marketplace in the world, where corporations and non-profits post their toughest research problems and a global network of 160,000 solvers takes a crack at solving them for cash rewards. Non-profit challenges have grown to about 20 percent of the InnoCentive portfolio, up from virtually none only two years ago. In this Q&A, InnoCentive president and CEO Dwayne Spradlin explains why crowdsourcing is becoming a powerful tool for doing good.

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Creativity Software Reviews

Need help coming up with creative ideas for your next project? Read reviews of these powerful brainstorming and idea generation software programs. Check them out...

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Democratising Innovation

Democratizing Innovation Eric von Hippel SM '68 April 8, 2005 Running Time: 1:00:44

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Optimising A Lead Generation Marketing Budget In Tough Times

Everyone needs to generate leads in business. But where does the future take us... In 2009, we're all going to hear more talk than ever before about what constitutes "quality" online leads. And there will be plenty of accompanying disagreement about what the word quality means as lead buyers try to squeeze the most out of their pressured budgets. In some markets, it may take days or even months before a buyer can truly assess the quality of a given lead. Moreover, quality can be volatile month to month, even from the same lead source. If you can't reliably measure quality, how do you know if you're paying the right price for leads? How can you effectively manage your call center when lead quality goes up and down? The overwhelming majority of lead buyers have no idea how to predict which individual leads have the best chance of converting. So it will be up to the best-informed sellers to help educate the lead generation marketplace. One of the best places to look for such guidance is the online education sector,

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