The Pope and the Brainstorming Blunder - Tudor Rickards

So the bright young things at the Foreign Office have been getting ideas. Worse, as Sir Humphrey used to say in “Yes Minister”, they have been getting new ideas, which are, well, dangerous. This time was no exception. Someone had called for a few ideas around the Pope’s visit. Maybe it was part of a wider security exercise to protect The Pope. Anyway, a group of people was assembled and (we are told) a brainstorming took place. From time to time I have offered help to Government departments about creativity and brainstorming. I offer the following as a plausible explanation of what happened. First, and critically, it is unlikely that the group could be considered a trained group, and more likely to have comprised those available and deemed to have some competence and availability

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Six Factors To Recognise Emergent Innovation - Hutch Carpenter

Six Factors in EmergentInnovationIn discussing employee-driven innovation, having a technology platform to deliver on objectives is a key part of a company's strategy. Hard to get everyone tuned in when you rely only on email and conversations with your cubicle mates. But that's just one factor. There are many other considerations for companies seeking to vault to the top of their industries through greater innovation. One set of characteristics are what I term factors of 'emergent' innovation. I use emergent here in the sense of conditions which let good ideas find their level inside a company, regardless of source

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24 Characteristics of Creative Organizations - Michelle James

1.  balance planning with improvising
2.  use the unknown as a resource (do not avoid it)
3.  creativity is a core value
4.  creativity is a organizational discipline; an ongoing process; a mindset
5.  time and attention are dedicated to “practicing” creative process until it 
     becomes embedded in the system
6.  flexible, limited organizational structures
     combined with intensive interaction
7.  room for exploration and discovery without judgment
8.  act upon intuition and “resonance” as well as logic
9.  employ real-time feedback loops and adapt accordingly
10.  mistakes and failures are seen as invitations to improve, grow or create
11.  hold organizational tension, cognitive dissonance and natural resistance
12.  engage paradox – engages opposing or differing “truths” and view points to without
       needing to boil them down to the lowest common denominator
13.  use diversity productively – uses differences to contribute to the creation of something new
14.  creativity can come from anywhere in the system in any direction
15.  use both linear and non-linear ways of thinking
16.  believe in their people; draws forth what is positive
17.  encourage the questioning of all assumptions
18.  informed by, but not limited to, what worked in the past
19.  not reliant on business buzz words; uses more authentic language
20.  excitement is not squelched – it is used to fuel creativity
21.  tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty
22.  use both divergent and convergent thinking; whole-brain approaches
23.  balance structure and “being organized” with flow and emergence
24.  value fun as part of the creative process

By Michelle James, CEO of The Center for Creative Emergence

Dramatic Breakthrough in Strategic Planning - New and Improved Innovation Blog Site:

Deer Mouse_ John Good -NPS Photo It's been said (by poet Robert Burns) that, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley" (since he was a Scot writing in 1785, what he meant was that the plans go often awry). Regardless your language, you may have noticed this pattern yourself when working with innovation teams to put together compelling plans of action. After years of research and number crunching, the results are in on a new technique that results in a dramatic improvement in the effectiveness of strategic planning and goal implementation.

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The Death of A Truly Great 20th Century Innovator - Malcolm McLaren

Last week one of the world's truly great innovators passed away. Malcolm McLaren, the inventor of the punk movement. McLaren's life work was that of a Renaisance man, an ideas man who changed popular culture both as an entreprenuer and as an artiste. His journey of invention was often misunderstood by artists, academics and the industry in which he operated because he continually moved outside the norms to create new forms and new products that questioned the accepted practice of his peers. As a manager, he was not a traditional band manager. He interfered artistically. As an artist, he was held in deep suspicion by musicians and practicing artists alike because he was seen as an entrepreneur first, part of the profit making machine artists inherently mistrust. Even worse, he couldn't play a musical instrument used digital sampling technology to create his work way before it was the accepted norm.

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