Types of Creativity

1. Expressive ... Very common form of creativity.  Example: Doodling, short notes, humming a new melody.   Useful for communications, advertising, sales.
2. Productive ... Common form of creativity.  Example: Finding a better way of doing a job.  Useful for process improvement, cost reductions, efficiency, improvement.
3. Inventive ... Userful for new product development.
4. Innovative ... Applied creativity.  Better solutions than competition.  Competitive advantages.   Useful for marketing, new product development.
5. Emergenative ... Very rare form of creativity.  Example: Einstein's Theory of Relativity...opened the door for space travel, nuclear fusion.  Useful for developing entirely new industries.

Brainstorming

A good way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas from which to choose! 

1. Brainstorming is a Creativity Supertool and also a team sport ... support your team members!
2. No criticism ... no "devil's advocates" allowed!
3. Anything goes … wild, crazy, impractical, ingenious ideas encouraged!
4. Go for quantity, not quality, of ideas!
5. All ideas encouraged!
6. Piggyback, improve, combine ideas ... be an "angel advocate"!
7. Record all ideas so nothing gets lost!
8. Filter ideas later, not during the brainstorming session!
9. Set a time limit for the session, then stick to it!

Variation ... brainwriting: the general process is that, in a group, ideas are recorded by each individual who thought of them ... they are then passed on to the next person who uses them as a trigger for their own ideas.

Elements of a Successful Innovation

Relative advantage ... the perceived superiority of an innovation over the current product or solution it would replace. This advantage can take the form of economic benefits to the adopter or better performance.

1. Compatibility ... the perceived fit of an innovation with a potential adopter’s exiting value, know-how, experiences, and practices.
2. Complexity ... the extent to which an innovation is perceived to be difficult to understand or use The higher the degree of perceived complexity, the slower the rate of adoption.
3. Trialability ... the extent to which a potential adopter can experience or experiment with the innovation before adopting it The greater the trialability, the higher the rate of adoption
4. Observability ... the extent to which the adoption and benefits of an innovation are visible to others within the population adopters. The greater the visibility, the higher the rate of adoption by those who follow.
5. Functional performance ... an evaluation of the performance of the basic function
6. Acquisition cost ... initial total cost
7. Ease of use ... use factors
8. Operating cost ... cost per unit of service provided
9. Reliability ... service needs and useful lifetime
10. Serviceability ... time and cost to restore a failed device to service
11. Compatibility ... fit with other devices within the system

Stimulating Creativity

1. Surround yourself with creative people. Hang out with writers, musicians, poets and artists. Often, just being in a creative environment will inspire you and refresh your creative mind.
2. Start somewhere. If you create a load of crap for a few pages, whether it’s creative writing in Word or sheet music, the brain loosens up and it’s easier to break through the barrier and come up with ideas.
3. Expose yourself. Not after too much vodka. Expose yourself to new art – books, music, paintings – all the time. If you’re a rocker, listen to funk. If you’re a crime writer, read fantasy. If you’re a productivity writer, read something about slacking off.
4. Develop a “morning ritual” that puts you in the zone – whether it’s stream-of-consciousness such as in tip 2, or a series of non-spectacular everyday actions in sequence that tell your brain it’s time to get in the zone. Perhaps you drink a coffee while watching the news before going for a morning walk – if you repeat the same actions before doing creative work for long enough, it eventually creates an association that tells the mind to get in a particular zone.
5. Use GTD techniques – free up your mind from the hassles of life by doing an info-dump so your head is clear enough to create instead of worry.
6. Never stop learning.
7. Imitate the real world – find beauty (or the ugly, depending on what inspires you) and try to extract the essence of it into your work. This may lead you to what you need to create, or it may just warm up the muse.
8. Drink too much coffee sometimes (one of my favorite submissions).
9. Do something new. Play chess. Read a book if you watch television and watch television if you read. Go outside. Sing in the shower.
10. Don’t be too precious about your work. Being inspired by ‘the muse’ is important, but if the doctor and the garbage man can do their jobs every day, then those in a creative line of work can too. Change your attitude towards your work.
11. Based on the theory that everything that can be created has been and creation is simply a process of combining existing ideas, consume information by the bucket load. The more you know, the more you can create from that knowledge.
12. Meet new people from different walks of life. Gain insight into their perspectives on life. Strike up a conversation on the bus.
13. Shut out the world. Instead of sucking in new information, sit quietly, go to sleep, or meditate. Stop thinking and clear your mind so that the clutter doesn’t get in the way of your thoughts.
14. Carry a camera with you and look for interesting things in your every day scenery. Hadn’t noticed that crack in the path before? Then it’ll do. Set a quota and force yourself to make it. Don’t go to new places to do this – force yourself to find new perspectives on old knowledge.
15. Creativity is a muscle. Exercise it daily – if you only need to create once a week, your muscles may have atrophied if you don’t do it just because you don’t have to.
16. Carry a notebook everywhere. Or a PDA.
17. Write down a list of ideas and draw random arrows between them. For instance, if you’re a blogger, write down everything in your Categories list and draw lines to connect unusual ideas. If you had the categories “Relationships” and “Management” and randomly connected them you’d have an interesting article idea to work with.
18. If you’re not on a tight deadline, walk away and do something completely unrelated. Don’t let yourself spend that time stressing about what you need to do.
19. Create a framework. As many writers have said, the blank page can be the biggest show-stopper. Instead of trying to rely on pure inspiration, set your topic or theme and start creating within confines. Think within the box you create for yourself.
20. Remove obstacles to creativity. That friend who calls to complain about their life can wait until you can afford to get stressed about their problems.
21. Don’t judge your ideas until you have plenty to judge. Don’t be embarrassed by yourself – just write them all down! Even if you start with “pink polka-dotted lizard.”
22. Keep a journal. It can get your mind working, and in a month, or a year, when you’ve gained some distance from what you’ve written it can give you new ideas.
23. Stop telling yourself you’re not creative. If you tell yourself not to come up with ideas, then you probably won’t – no matter how hard you try.
24. Don’t be a workaholic – take breaks. Your mind needs a chance to wind down so it doesn’t overheat and crash.
25. Experiment randomly. What does a flanger sound like on a vocal track? Like Lenny Kravitz, of course.
26. Treat creativity like an enemy in a strategy game; if one thing isn’t working, don’t keep trying until you give up. Try a new strategy. Run through the whole list, not just the first tip.
27. Choose a topic and write about it as wonderfully or badly as you possibly can. Then edit it as ruthlessly as a newspaper editor who has thousands of words to edit in the next hour and doesn’t care what gets lost in the process. At the end you might have something decent to use as a starting point.
28. Trash what you’re working on. Start again.
29. Exercise every day, before you sit down to be creative. If you exercise afterwards you’ll get the creative burst – just too late.
30. Spend time with your children. Or someone else’s.

[Thank you, Joel Falconer]

 

The Big Steps

 [This worksheet is currently incomplete and under construction.]

Step 1: Creating Concept POTENTIAL Value

Step 2: Preparing Venture READINESS for Development

Step 3: Raising the RESOURCES Necessary for Venture Launch

Step 4: Go!

Innovation Categories

Innovation has a revolutionary reputation, but an evolutionary reality!  

An innovation is (simply) Something New and Better ...

• Something: a product, service, process, methodology, or market positioning. 
• New: didn't exist before in this market space.
• Better: desirable benefits, a lower price, or both ... compared to the available alternatives.

That's not to imply that the innovation process is simple, by no means!  It can be quite complex, even if the final result doesn't necessarily reflect such.

Some types of innovation are pretty simple, pretty straight-forward. A new hot dog stand on a corner can be an example of "positioning" innovation ... simple, yet it does provide something new and better.

Other innovations are indeed quite complex and required high levels of intellect, resources, skills, education, and expertise.

Here are some general categories of innovation:

1. Incremental … basic design concepts are reinforced, linkages between modules are unchanged
2. Component or modular … basic design concepts are overturned, linkages between modules are unchanged
3. Architectural … linkages between modules are changed, basic design concepts are reinforced
4. Radical … basic design concepts are overturned, linkages between modules are changed
5. Disruptive ... technological discontinuity
6. Application ... technology application creates new market ... killer application
7. Product ... improved performance, dominant design
8. Process ... more efficient and/or effective processes
9. Positioning ... establishing a venture in a new space
10. Experiential ... improved customer experience
11. Marketing ... improved marketing relationships
12. Business model ... reframe the value proposition or value chain
13. Structural ... responds to structural changes in the industry
14. Service … give the same products but with much better service
15. Paradigm ... good luck! If we want a paradigm shift, we'll need a solid combination of several simpler innovations!

Types of Innovation

1. Products
2. Services
3. Processes
4. Business methods
5. Business model
6. Revenue model
7. Positioning (relative to the competition)
8. Paradigm (a combination of several innovation areas)

Marketing Brochure Prototype

A prototype marketing brochure is a good tool for "testing the waters" with prospective customers.

1. Easy way to test a new product, service, solution idea
2. Easy to iterate a concept
3. Easy to put in front of prospective customers for feedback: test, measure, learn
4. Customer can become part of the design process ... pencil and paper and eraser
5. Inexpensive ... time, money, resources
6. Works for most any idea concept
7. Flexible "size" (number of pages) although the fewer the better 
8. Can incorporate in the venture business plan, summary
9. Can use to design and develop a product and/or service based on prospective customer reactions to the product and/or service describe in the prototype brochure

Solving Problems

1. Define the problem
2. Define a set of criteria for a good solution
3. Explore potential causes of the problem
4. Explore existing solutions
5. Identify alternative approaches for resolving the problem
6. Select the best approach for resolving the problem based on the criteria for a good solution (number 2 above)
7. Plan the implementation of this approach
8. Implement the plan
9. Monitor the results
10. Verify the problem has been resolved

Scientific Method

The Scientific Method is a well-refined process for solving a problem.  

1. Purpose/Problem ... What do you want to learn?  What problem do you want to solve?
2. Research ... find out as much as you can about the problem, from a variety of sources.  Takke copious notes.
3. Hypothesis ... Try to predict the answer to the problem, an "educated guess" ... "If I (do something), then (this will occur)".
4. Experiment ... Design a test or procedure to confirm of disprove your hypothesis.  Implement this process.
5. Analysis ... Record what happened during the experiment.  Collect data.
6. Conclusion ... Review the data and check to see if your hypothesis was correct.
7. Iteration ... Change what didn't work and test it again.