Innovation in Greece

The Kokkalis Foundation will present its new study “Innovation in Greece: Comparative Evaluation with International Indicators, Policies, Strategy Recommendations,” at an event to be organized on 17 June 2009 in Athens under the auspices of SEV-Hellenic Federation of Enterprises.

Learn more at: http://www.kokkalisfoundation.gr/en/articles/2009/5/14/1463/

The World's Most Innovative Companies

Their creativity goes beyond products to rewiring themselves. BusinessWeek and the Boston Consulting Group rank the best. In this article you will aslo read the major obstacles and barriers to innovation some of the most innovative companies face.

You may visit: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_17/b3981401.htm

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An original idea!

This is an innovative way of playing the piano!

Outcome of Braintivity Voting

As the results of the voting depict, Braintivity readers are more interested in reading articles concenring Tools for Creative Thinking!

Here is one, which I find interesting: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/Creative/Techniques/index.html

'Techniques are like tools in a workshop, with different tools for different parts of the creative process. For example, there are techniques for defining a problem, exploring attributes of a problem, generating alternatives, visual explorations, metaphors, analogies, and evaluating and implementing ideas'. Below you may find part of the selection of techniques:
Random Input
Problem Reversal
Ask Questions
Applied Imagination - Question Summary
Lateral Thinking
Six Thinking Hats

There are many more! Visit the link provided and explore the wide selection of such techniques!

MindManager 8

Interesting article on how to use MindManager 8 for Brainstorming Success!
Please read more: http://mindmapblog.com/?p=568

"The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500" by Gary Hamel

The experience of growing up online will profoundly shape the workplace expectations of “Generation F” – the Facebook Generation. At a minimum, they’ll expect the social environment of work to reflect the social context of the Web, rather than as is currently the case, a mid-20th-century Weberian bureaucracy. If your company hopes to attract the most creative and energetic members of Gen F, it will need to understand these Internet-derived expectations, and then reinvent its management practices accordingly. Sure, it’s a buyer’s market for talent right now, but that won’t always be the case—and in the future, any company that lacks a vital core of Gen F employees will soon find itself stuck in the mud.
With that in mind, I compiled a list of 12 work-relevant characteristics of online life. These are the post-bureaucratic realities that tomorrow’s employees will use as yardsticks in determining whether your company is “with it” or “past it.” In assembling this short list, I haven’t tried to catalog every salient feature of the Web’s social milieu, only those that are most at odds with the legacy practices found in large companies.

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.On the Web, every idea has the chance to gain a following—or not, and no one has the power to kill off a subversive idea or squelch an embarrassing debate. Ideas gain traction based on their perceived merits, rather than on the political power of their sponsors.
2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.When you post a video to YouTube, no one asks you if you went to film school. When you write a blog, no one cares whether you have a journalism degree. Position, title, and academic degrees—none of the usual status differentiators carry much weight online. On the Web, what counts is not your resume, but what you can contribute.
3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.In any Web forum there are some individuals who command more respect and attention than others—and have more influence as a consequence. Critically, though, these individuals haven’t been appointed by some superior authority. Instead, their clout reflects the freely given approbation of their peers. On the Web, authority trickles up, not down.
4. Leaders serve rather than preside.On the Web, every leader is a servant leader; no one has the power to command or sanction. Credible arguments, demonstrated expertise and selfless behavior are the only levers for getting things done through other people. Forget this online, and your followers will soon abandon you.
5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned.The Web is an opt-in economy. Whether contributing to a blog, working on an open source project, or sharing advice in a forum, people choose to work on the things that interest them. Everyone is an independent contractor, and everyone scratches their own itch.
6. Groups are self-defining and -organizing.On the Web, you get to choose your compatriots. In any online community, you have the freedom to link up with some individuals and ignore the rest, to share deeply with some folks and not at all with others. Just as no one can assign you a boring task, no can force you to work with dim-witted colleagues.
7. Resources get attracted, not allocated.
In large organizations, resources get allocated top-down, in a politicized, Soviet-style budget wrangle. On the Web, human effort flows towards ideas and projects that are attractive (and fun), and away from those that aren’t. In this sense, the Web is a market economy where millions of individuals get to decide, moment by moment, how to spend the precious currency of their time and attention.
8. Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.The Web is also a gift economy. To gain influence and status, you have to give away your expertise and content. And you must do it quickly; if you don’t, someone else will beat you to the punch—and garner the credit that might have been yours. Online, there are a lot of incentives to share, and few incentives to hoard.
9. Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed.On the Internet, truly smart ideas rapidly gain a following no matter how disruptive they may be. The Web is a near-perfect medium for aggregating the wisdom of the crowd—whether in formally organized opinion markets or in casual discussion groups. And once aggregated, the voice of the masses can be used as a battering ram to challenge the entrenched interests of institutions in the offline world.
10. Users can veto most policy decisions.As many Internet moguls have learned to their sorrow, online users are opinionated and vociferous—and will quickly attack any decision or policy change that seems contrary to the community’s interests. The only way to keep users loyal is to give them a substantial say in key decisions. You may have built the community, but the users really own it.
11. Intrinsic rewards matter most.The web is a testament to the power of intrinsic rewards. Think of all the articles contributed to Wikipedia, all the open source software created, all the advice freely given—add up the hours of volunteer time and it’s obvious that human beings will give generously of themselves when they’re given the chance to contribute to something they actually care about. Money’s great, but so is recognition and the joy of accomplishment.
12. Hackers are heroes.Large organizations tend to make life uncomfortable for activists and rabble-rousers—however constructive they may be. In contrast, online communities frequently embrace those with strong anti-authoritarian views. On the Web, muckraking malcontents are frequently celebrated as champions of the Internet’s democratic values—particularly if they’ve managed to hack a piece of code that has been interfering with what others regard as their inalienable digital rights.
These features of Web-based life are written into the social DNA of Generation F—and mostly missing from the managerial DNA of the average Fortune 500 company. Yeah, there are a lot of kids looking for jobs right now, but few of them will ever feel at home in cubicleland. So, readers, here’s a couple of questions: What are the Web-based social values that you think are most contrary to the managerial DNA one finds inside a typical corporate giant? And how should we reinvent management to make it more consistent with these emerging online sensibilities?

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/management/2009/03/24/the-facebook-generation-vs-the-fortune-500/

How Collaboration is Changing Business

Think for a minute about how you used to book your holidays, buy your music, find an address or select insurance - 10 or even 5 years ago? Do you even bother to search for things these days or do you just rely on the recommendations from your network via Facebook, Twitter, Zemanta or even Amazon?
These prolific and radical changes are not limited to social and consumer interactions on the internet. They also impact the nature, shape and conduct of business both internally and externally.
Companies are increasingly working in networks, whether they be loosely coupled or tightly integrated, because of technology and the globalisation that technology has brought with it. Those networks are essentially virtual entities, and this trend will accelerate over the coming years. To be in or join a network, people need insight and connections, as well as appropriate processes capable of supporting various business needs across the virtual entity. That signals fundamental shifts in the way people do business and the underlying business models.
This was one of the issues Leo Apotheker (co-CEO and a member of the Executive Board of SAP AG) and Andrew McAfee discussed during an interview with Charlie Rose earlier this week.
It echoes the message from Pisano & Verganti in their article Which Kind of Collaboration is Right for You? (Harvard Business Review December 2008):
"In an era when great ideas can sprout from any corner of the world and IT has dramatically reduced the cost of accessing them, it's now conventional wisdom that virtually no company should innovate on its own. ... [But] greater choice has made the perennial management challenge of selecting the best options much more difficult. ... [How] open or closed should your firm's network of collaborators be? And who should decide which problems the network will tackle and which solutions will be adopted?"
Those opportunities and challenges are equally applicable within organisations, with changes affecting the way people are now able to work together and the nature and style of management. Everything happens and needs to happen so much faster just so businesses can stay in the same (market) position and not loose ground to competitors. Yet when we look around for examples of successful businesses to emulate, who do we look to? Google? Proctor & Gamble? Toyota? Hubbards? Headshift ;-) ? There are plenty more. And what do they tell us? Well, to quote Eric Schmidt - Google CEO (The Mckinsey Quarterly November 2008):
"There's a lot of evidence that groups make better decisions than individuals. Especially when the groups are selected to be among the smartest and most interesting people. The wisdom of crowds argument is that you can operate a company by consensus, which is, indeed, how Google operates.
One of the things that we've tried very hard to avoid at Google is the sort of divisional structure and the business unit structure that prevents collaboration across units. It's difficult. So, I understand why people want to build business units, and have their presidents. But by doing that you cut down the informal ties that, in an open culture, drive so much collaboration. If people in the organization understand the values of the company, they should be able to self organize to work on the most interesting problems. And if they haven't, or are not able to do that, you haven't talked to them about what's important. You haven't built a shared value culture."

Source: http://www.headshift.com/blog/2009/01/business-will-be-different-in.php

Common Craft: Technology Components and their Business Need

The structure of any E-Business site is comprised of many technological components that enable the company’s operations and promotes specific business needs. Numerous factors such as information flow, financing flow, content flow, marketing, security and law are involved and should be considered in the website’s architecture.
In the above table, we evaluate the case of Common Craft E-Commerce site and present a summary of the results. We identify all the individual components of the Common Craft’s website, and list the respective business needs addressed, as well as the broader strategic intent they serve in the company.

Link: http://www.commoncraft.com/

About.Com Technological Components

This is the survey I created regarding About.Com website's technological components, its business needs and the relevant Strategic importance

Technological components

Technological components- business needs-strategic importance
www.findtutorials.com

Don't multitask. Multithink instead!!!!

I expect you are familiar with multitasking: the ability to perform more than one task simultaneously. Managers who like to overwork their employees love multitasking. They assume that if their employees are performing three tasks simultaneously, they'll work three times as fast.
The logic in that assumption is so thoroughly flawed, it is hard to believe that intelligent managers accept it without question. Perhaps they are too desperate to improve employee productivity.
Logic suggests two points:
1. No one can actually perform several tasks simultaneously. Rather they quickly switch from one task to the other. Hence, all things being equal, multitasking should be no faster than monotasking (that's my own word, incidentally).
2. Bearing in mind point 1, it would seem that a person would require a certain amount of time to switch from one task to the other. Even if that time is tiny, it would add up after numerous switches from task to task. This would suggest that multitasking is actually slower than monotasking.
As it turns out an even more reputable source than me confirms the above two points. In a paper published by the American Psychological Association: “Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching”, authors Joshua S. Rubinstein, David E. Meyer and Jeffrey E. Evans confirm what logic tells us. You can download the paper as a PDF at http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/xhp274763.pdf or read the press release at www.apa.org/releases/multitasking.html.
Although multitasking turns out to be counter-productive, multithinking (another word of mine!) is a different matter all together. Multithinking is thinking about completely different issues or tasks at the same time.
Whether you multitask or not, you almost certainly have numerous tasks awaiting your attention at any given time. And it is inevitable that your mind occasionally turns to one task while you are working on another. A multitasker would be inclined to switch tasks at this point. I recommend you stick to the task at hand, but keep a notebook – or at least some paper – nearby when performing any tasks. (Indeed, if you've been reading Report 103 for any length of time, you will know that I recommend having a notebook with you all the time). When the mind turns from the task at hand to another task, simply note down your thoughts in the notebook. Then return to the task at hand.
This simple action does several things at once. Firstly, It allows you to maintain your focus on the task at hand. By making a note of your thought, you are clearing your mind of the distracting idea. This can only improve your focus on the task at hand.
Secondly, when the action of performing task A inspires an idea relevant to task B, it is very often the case that the idea is a creative one that would not have come to mind had we been focusing on task B. In other words, multithinking often inspires creative ideas.
Thirdly, if performing task A provides inspirations for task B, you may come across synergies between the two tasks; synergies which reduce your overall workload – and actually improve your productivity. Such synergies are best discovered through multithinking. Indeed, when ideas come to mind. Do not simply write them down. Try to draw links between your ideas for task B and task A.
Frankly, one of the best places to multithink is during long, crowded meetings. During many such meetings, I have filled pages of my notebook on ideas relevant to other tasks – and have still followed the flow of the meeting.
On the other hand, even as I write this, I have one notebook on my desk and another electronic one open on my computer – and I am slowly filling them both up.
So remember. If you want to be more creatively productive. Don't multitask. Multithink!

Based on an article (by Jeffrey Baumgartner) published in Report103, 1 Feb 2005 issue

Source : http://www.jpb.com/creative/article_multithink.php

The Risk of an Idea

Why innovative people in your firm may not be sharing their best ideas

Albert Einstein once said “If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” How true. When someone comes up with a radically new idea, it is often hard to determine whether the new idea is brilliant or stupid – even for the person who had the idea in the first place.

As a result, it takes a brave person to propose to their firm a truly innovative new idea. The perceived consequences can include ridicule, loss of respect from management, missing out on future promotions and more.

Of course it is not only brave people who have brilliant ideas. Shy people, people insecure about their jobs, new people who are unfamiliar with corporate culture and people who do not like to make waves (which, comprises the majority of us) are likely to keep radical ideas to themselves rather than risk the consequences. As a result, most organisations miss out on brilliant ideas with substantial potential returns.

The consequences of this are tremendous. By our calculations, a firm with 1000 people is missing out on one or two revolutionary ideas (ie: ideas that have a significant affect on turnover) every year.

There are two solutions, both of which should be implemented in every organisation that wishes to maximise their innovation potential:

Ensure that there is an environment of trust within the organisation, particularly with respect to idea proposals. If every idea is treated with respect and even proposers of impractical ideas are rewarded for sharing their ideas; staff will be more comfortable about contributing ideas to the organisation, even ideas which may seem absurd. Such an environment of trust cannot be created instantly. It takes time to create and promote the mechanisms that support the environment. Even then, trust will only come with time.

Create a process that allows an employee to propose ideas anonymously, but provides a mechanism that allows that employee to be recognised should her idea be implemented.

Only in this way can employees feel secure in proposing potentially absurd – but also potentially revolutionary – ideas to their organisation.

If your idea proposal system is an old-fashioned suggestion box, you could simply provide idea paper with receipts. Anonymous proposers could retain the receipt and show it later, once the idea is to be implemented.

Needless-to-say, innovation driven firms need to combine an environment of trust together with a means of submitting anonymous ideas to management.

Source : http://www.jpb.com/creative/brainstorming.php

When Brainstorming Goes Bad

Fruitless sessions are a clear sign that your company isn't doing idea generation the right way.

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- The mere mention of brainstorming elicits a lot of eye rolling in most offices. But here's a little secret: Much of what's called brainstorming isn't brainstorming at all. "Nowadays, brainstorming could mean a discussion, a debate, or a wild idea," says Scott Isaksen, founder of the Creative Problem Solving Group in Buffalo, N.Y. "It's an abused, misused term."
Most often, modern brainstorming involves a group of people sitting around a conference room, staring into space, and waiting for ideas to come. But in its true form, it's a rigidly structured process.

A number of studies have since reinforced the more formal approach, but most corporations still tend to be very haphazard when it comes to idea generation; Isaksen estimates that just 4 percent of companies actually know what they're doing.
Here are the three mistakes that cripple brainstorming.
No trained facilitator. One of the key tenets of Osborn's approach is assigning a trained facilitator to guide the sessions. But most corporate brainstorming is led by someone who has little understanding of the process or by a manager who has a vested interest in the outcome.
"People are uncomfortable sharing wild ideas in front of their boss," says Daniel Wilson, a researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. According to a study published by Isaksen last year, groups using a facilitator produced an incredible 600 percent more ideas than those without one (167 vs. 23).
Isaksen suggests training employees in facilitation strategies; several firms, such as Strategic Communications, offer classes on the topic.
Lack of rules. A facilitator is useless without guidelines, but most corporate brainstorming sessions employ a freewheeling style.
"I've seen people bring knitting and their BlackBerrys because they know it will be a waste of time," Isaksen says. Osborn's ground rules in Applied Imagination can provide a good starting point: Criticism and judgment of ideas should be deferred until after the session, and each brainstorm should last no more than 45 minutes.
Most crucial, says Howard Gardner, a Harvard professor of cognition and education, is that the facilitator politely but firmly enforce the guidelines to keep the group from veering off track.
Unprepared participants. When called in response to a crisis, brainstorming sessions typically require participants to start from scratch. But it's better if workers can prepare in advance to get their creative juices flowing.
"Some of the best brainstorming sessions I've been involved in asked me to send my ideas via e-mail before we came together," Wilson says.
If there isn't time to prepare in advance, Isaksen suggests warming up the group on a practice problem to help spark creativity and familiarize the group with the rules. "A good runner doesn't just jump up and start sprinting," Isaksen says. Stretching your brain doesn't hurt either.

Source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/10/01/8387119/index.htm

How to be innovative

Here are some tips that can help you be Innovative:

• Get to know your customers
• Visit unfamiliar territory
• Get inside the head of the end user
• Practice seeing more than what's in front of your eyes
• Explore far and wide
• "Test fast - fail fast - adjust fast." (Tom Peters)
• Create a dream team focus group - of your customers - and then seek their input with your product development or inventory assortment
• Look back in history and reflect on the winners. Do this kind of postmortem regularly.

Reado more at: http://www.canadaone.com/ezine/july07/innovation.html

How to become a Creative Genius

This is an article I have read which captured my attention from the very first lines:

When we measure the creativity of young children, virtually all of them will record as being ‘highly creative’. However, only a small percentage of adults register as being ‘highly creative’.
What happened?
Schools have crushed creativity. We were told to color within the lines. We were taught to follow instructions. The goal inschool is to get the “right” answer. Unfortunately, if you’re afraid to be wrong, you’ll never be creative or original.
The job of education is to produce employees who follow instructions. And to this endeavor, they are doing avery good job. However, in terms of creativity, they are falling terribly short.
This is one of the most unfortunate realities in our current education system.
To undo this, we must continually exercise our creative juices. In the following link you can find 6 tips for expanding your creativity:

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/how-to-become-a-creative-genius.html

Tips for personal brainstorming

Everyone has problems and challenges that need solving; they're an inevitable part of living. What many people don't realize, however, is that most of them can be overcome using a simple, focused program of personal brainstorming. Here are some practical tips to help you increase the effectiveness of your personal problem-solving skills:
Step 1: State your problem clearly


Before you start, firmly plant in your mind the idea that your problem can and will be solved. Your job is to find that solution, using personal brainstorming.

State your problem clearly and concisely in one sentence at the top of a blank sheet of paper. Then write down everything you know about your current problem or challenge. Try to isolate and write down specific factors or trends that have contributed to it. Keep in mind that a problem, clearly defined, is already half solved.

By gathering all of the information that you know about your challenge and laying it out in front of you in tangible form, you enable your most powerful problem-solving tool -- your brain -- to see connections, interrelationships and implications in the information you've collected, which would not be obvious if you just kept all of this information in your head.

Think about people who have faced problems or challenges similar to the one you are facing. What strategies or solutions did they use? Then determine if any elements of their solutions can be adapted to your current situation

Step 2: Brainstorm solutions

As you review your problem statement and supporting information, write down any ideas that occur to you. Don't censor yourself at this point; there will be plenty of time to evaluate your ideas later. Write down every idea, no matter how far-fetched. Your goal at this stage of the personal ideation process is to generate a large quantity of ideas.

Ask yourself: How would a person who is an expert in this area solve this problem? You might want to try this exercise using famous people from history, creative thinkers such as Albert Einstein, or other leaders and innovators that you respect. Your goal for this exercise is to perform a bit of "slight of head" -- to whack your thinking into a different frame of reference to generate fresh ideas and insights
Divide your problem into its component pieces and write each of them down -- perhaps in a mind map or outline that shows the relationships between each element. Then, try brainstorming ideas for each one. This "slice and dice" technique often works well when you're faced with complex or multi-dimensional challenges.

Envision an ideal future goal or outcome. Then work backwards to the present, writing down the steps you would need to take now to move toward that objective.

If you find yourself running out of ideas too quickly, don't give up. Keep working at it until you have written down at least 20 possible ideas or solutions. Many times, the first 5 to 10 ideas you write down are top-of-mind solutions; often the best ideas take more concentrated and prolonged brainstorming to emerge.

Conclusion

Your subconscious mind likes closure. When faced with an incomplete picture, it works to complete the mental image by inferring the missing information. Your mind works the same way on an unsolved problem or challenge; it loves to dive right in and get the job done.

In closing, remember that you can solve your problems and capitalize on new opportunities using personal ideation. All you need is a pencil, a pad of paper and a quiet "thinking spot" to tap into your creative muse.

Chuck Frey is the founder of InnovationTools ( http://www.innovationtools.com ), a Web site that provides entrepreneurs and innovators with one of the best collections of resources on business innovation, creativity and brainstorming on the Web


Read more: www.creativityforlife.com

Find at About.com!

The Website which always stroke my attention is http://www.about.com/. Whenever I was ‘googling’ on a topic or a field of my interest, I was always able to find information on it. It is a site which has a clear-cut value proposition for its visitors: http://www.about.com/gi/pages/promise.htm

About.com is an “online neighborhood” having experts sharing their knowledge on a wide variety of topics with visitors. Indicatively, one may find information on:
“health care and parenting issues to advice on travel, cooking, technology, hobbies and more”. It “offers solutions in the form of over two million hand-crafted, original articles, recipes, product reviews, videos, tutorials and more”.“Founded in 1996, About.com was acquired in March 2005 by The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT). Today, About.com is recognized as a top 15 content site and one of the largest producers of original content on the Web”.


Have a look at the Components of their Business Model

TED/ Ideas worth spreading

"At the MIT Media Lab's new Fluid Interfaces Group, Pattie Maes researches the tools we use to work with information and connect with one another. You will see a demo of a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Pranav Mistry is the genius behind Sixth Sense, this device that enables new interactions between the real world and the world of data."

Have a look at the demo, as well as the full bios of both Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry at: http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

'The Secret to Creativity'

The secret to creative thinking is to start with good problems. Then you need to turn those problems into thought provoking challenges. After that, great ideas will almost invent themselves.
Almost every creative idea is a potential solution to a problem. Einstein's theory of relativity was about solving a discrepancy between electromagnetism and physics. Post-its were about finding a use for not very sticky glue. Picasso's cubist paintings were about solving the problem of representing three dimensional space on two dimensional canvases. And so on and so on.
Before you even think about generating ideas, you need to turn your problem into a challenge. Because if you start generating ideas to solve the wrong problem, you may have great ideas - but they will probably be lousy solutions.
Here is a very nice example:

A self-employed woman is window shopping and sees a beautiful dress. She thinks that it would be perfect for an upcoming reception where she hopes to impress prospective clients. Sadly, the dress costs €3000 and her bank account is nearly empty. She thinks to herself: "how could I earn €3000 in order to buy that dress?" She might come up with some great ideas.
But the truth is, her problem has nothing to do with the dress. Her problem is that she needs to develop new business. One way to do that is to acquire new clients. Wearing a stunning dress to a reception might be one method of solving that problem. But there are many more solutions - and a lot of them are probably more cost effective than a €3000 dress, particularly if she hasn't much money.
Instead, she should be asking herself: "How might I acquire new clients for my business?" or better still, "In what ways might I develop more business?"
The latter question or challenge might lead to ideas like offering existing clients new products or services; increasing her prices; asking for referrals and other activities that have very little to do with new dresses and a great deal to do with building her business.

Most people are like the woman in the story above, but creative people know better!!

Read more at: http://www.jpb.com/creative/secrets.php

How much energy does your house use?Ask Google

How much does it cost to leave your TV on all day? What about turning your air conditioning 1 degree cooler? Which uses more power every month — your fridge or your dishwasher? Is your household more or less energy efficient than similar homes in your neighborhood? Studies show that access to your household's personal energy information is likely to save you between 5–15% on your monthly bill, and the potential impact of large numbers of people achieving similar efficiencies is even more exciting.
Google promises to solve these issues with their new beta project dedicated to home energy monitoring. They are working on a tool called Google PowerMeter which will show consumers their electricity consumption in near real-time in a secure iGoogle Gadget. Google PowerMeter, now in prototype, will receive information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provide anyone who signs up access to their home electricity consumption right on their iGoogle homepage. The graph below shows how someone could use this information to figure out how much energy is used by different household activites.

Source: http://www.google.org/powermeter/smarterpower.html

From Business Failure to Business Opportunity

This is a great story, showing how one can turn business failure into business lesson!

The story of George and Mary Ann Clark!They have a great product – carbonated milk – but have struggled mightily in making a thriving company out of it. Fully 10 years after they opened for business, the Clarks finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

The Clarks invented a fantasy beverage for kids and parents: real milk that is carbonated like a soft drink! And now their e-Moo and RPM (Refreshing Power Milk) product lines – in fun flavors like Bubble Gum and Orange Sparkle – have made their way into 31 school districts, serving tens of thousands of students, around the United States.
But their company, Mac Farms Inc., could be so much more than it is. Only now do the Clarks believe that they’re solidly on a path to long-term success. “It would have been easy to give up, but this wasn’t just a blind labor of love,” says George, who is 72 years old. “There was clearly a market need out there and also a market opportunity, and we were given a unique chance to solve the problem.”

The appeal of a genuine dairy beverage with soft-drink bubbles would seem to be a no-brainer. But it still took about a half-million dollars to get off the ground. The Clarks were willing to invest much of their life savings, but they needed more capital. So George made a move that can be successful for startups: seeking business financing from a potential supplier. The dairy-farmer members of St. Albans Cooperative Creamery in Vermont – the same savvy organization that once bankrolled another startup called Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream – ponied up because they saw the potential for e-Moo to increase fluid-milk sales.

George sees now that he and Mary Ann made a crucial mistake right out of the gate: they failed to line up enough outside capital for the company, which forced them to rent an existing production facility in Cooperstown, NY. The results were potentially devastating on two fronts. First, the market readily bought in to the Clark’s concept, but they proved unable to satisfy the demand. And second, during the early stages, when the innovative nature of e-Moo was starting to attract news-media attention from all over the country, the Clarks couldn’t take full advantage of the public relations spotlight due to that inability to keep up with orders.

Keep reading on how they managed to turn this failure into success: http://www.startupnation.com/articles/1236/1/business-failure-opportunity.asp

The Curious Case of Common Craft

What would you think if you heard the phrase “You’ve got some explaining to do!” ? Something like “Oh, no #%#&!” maybe...Well not for Lee LeFever and his wife Sachi, owners of the Seattle based company called Common Craft. They thought “What a great business idea!”.
Common Craft was founded in 2003 as a consulting company, but in 2007 the LeFever couple began making videos explaining certain tools and trends emerging online, like RSS, wikis, and social bookmarking “in plain English”. They tried using white boards and other methods, but the result was boring and disappointing - until Sachi thought to put the white board on the ground, cut out some simple cartoon figures and use a stop motion method of animation. The Common Craft Show was born. The unique paper-and-whiteboard format quickly attracted the attention of bloggers, as well as innovative businesses. Today, their voice is been heard by millions of people around the world, making strange new applications feel easy to use and offering some of the clearest explanations of how the Internet is changing.

The company is activated in the field of e-learning and e-training. As stated on their website, they place themselves in the business of “Explanation”. They visualize their lessons in a simple and fun way, that addresses everyone from a curious 6-year old to a preoccupied CEO…The company’s business model (see table for more details) was built upon this inspirational and innovative style of giving lessons and then expanded by having quick response times to market changes and identifying opportunities. All of Common Craft content can be freely shared on-line. The company’s revenue stream is based on the licensing of their high-quality, downloadable versions of the explanatory videos to individuals or corporations. The website and the videos are ad-free. Lee and Sachi are the only employees in their business and they want to keep it that way. They also have time to travel all over the world…and blog about it!

An amazing website

www.findtutorials.com
One of the best tutorial / learning resources I have come across. FindTutorials.com is a Web index and search engine that searches for tutorials and online courses on the web. It Features a huge categorized database (700 categories, about 4000 tutorials) FindTutorials.com allows you to search for free tutorials on practically any subject, ranging from photography to gardening to psychology. The site claims to guide you directly to written, certified tutorials carefully selected from all over the Web.




It is an e-learning site and I believe that it best fits in our blog, because through this website we can find tutorials, videos and courses which will be related to creativity, brainstorming and innovation.
Enjoy: www.findtutorials.com

Brainstorming and Brainwriting

I recently read an article, written by Chauncey E. Wilson, in which he elaborates on the term Brainwriting and explains how this technique for generating ideas, complements Group Brainstorming sessions.

Chauncey says that when time is limited or the group of participants is large, Brainwriting is "a method for generating ideas about products or processes by asking participants to write their ideas on paper rather than shouting them out, as they would in a traditional Brainstorming session".

Chauncey refers to interactive Brainwriting sessions, where all participants are asked to write down their thoughts and ideas and then pass the paper to the next person in the group. Again, this person is now expected to read what the previous one wrote and add something new. Then the paper passes to a third person and this process ir repeated for several times, until there is a good amount of information depicted on the papers.

Then all papers are posted on a board, where all participants can see and comment. According to Chauncey one main advantage of Brainwriting (altough not a common technique yet) is that "the blocking effects found in face to face brainstorming are reduced when people write their ideas privately".

You may read more on Brainstorming Pitfalls and Best Practices at:
Wilson, Chauncey E. (2006). Pitfalls and Best Practices, Interactions, vol.13, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 2006), pp.50-53

Mind Maps

During my school and university years, I always found simple note - taking as a boring way to keep information provided in class...let alone that most of the times, my notes were not clear enough to understand or remeber what was taught, when I was returning back to them to study! I had then found a way of keeping notes and elaborating on them, by writing the main subject in the center of a paper, circling it and then, when major subdivisions or subheadings of the topic were discussed, I used to draw lines out from this circle.
I was actually creating something like a Mind Map, in each of my courses!
The term Mind Map was coined by Tony Buzan, who popularized it. According to Buzan, a good Mind Map 'shows the 'shape' of the subject, the relative importance of individual points, and the way in which facts relate to one another. Remembering the shape and structure of a Mind Map can give you the cues you need to remember the information within it'.

Mind Mapping is a useful technique that improves the way you take notes, and supports and enhances your creative problem solving. By using Mind Maps, you can quickly identify and understand the structure of a subject, and the way that pieces of information fit together, as well as recording the raw facts contained in normal notes.
More than this, Mind Maps encourage creative problem solving, and they hold information in a format that your mind finds easy to remember and quick to review.

Keep reading on Mind Maps and how to Draw them at: ttp://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm

Google Bus: Ready, Steady, Go!

Though most of the Western world now breathes online oxygen as freely as the elemental kind, that's not true in other parts of the globe. Recognizing that fact, Google has launched an effort to demonstrate the Internet to citizens of India who may not otherwise have access to it.

Launched just last week, Google's Internet Bus aims to educate Indian people about what the Internet is and how it can benefit them in multiple ways. To do that, the customized, Internet-enabled vehicle is bringing the online experience to where people live, visiting several towns and cities across India's Tamil Nadu region with demonstrations of the Internet's uses in education, information, communication and entertainment. Content is provided both in English and in Tamil to familiarize people with services including search, email, social networking, online maps and others. Since beginning in Chennai, the bus has already travelled to Vellore, Krishnagiri, Salem, Erode and Pollachi; on Saturday, it will arrive in Coimbatore. Twelve cities will follow before the effort wraps up in mid-March; in the meantime, photos, videos and updates are available on the project's website.

The Internet Bus initiative is part of Google's overall strategy of "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful," the company says—its efforts have also included localizing and translating multiple Google applications. Prasad Ram, head of R&D for Google India, explains: "We are passionate about empowering users with information, and the Internet democratizes access to information. With this initiative we want to take the power of this medium to people who will really benefit from it. We believe that if we can get people to experience the Internet even briefly they will find the means to go back again."

And that, of course, is the ultimate goal. If people do go back again, it will bring benefits not only for them, but for Google too—and for the legions of advertisers dying to reach new markets. That sound you hear is the global online marketplace getting even bigger!

Source: http://springwise.com/
Links: http://www.google.co.in/intl/en/landing/internetbus/

Creative Thinking

12 Reasons to Study Creativity

Creative or innovative thinking is the kind of thinking that leads to new insights , novel approaches , fresh perspectives, whole new ways of understanding and conceiving of things. The products of creative thought include some obvious things like music, poetry, dance, dramatic literature, inventions and technical innovations. But there are some not so obvious examples as well, such as ways of putting a question that expand the horizons of possible solutions , or ways of conceiving of relationships that challenge presuppositions and lead one to see the world in imaginative and different ways.

Why should we want to be creative? What are the benefits?


12 REASONS TO STUDY CREATIVITY

Because your brain will thank you.....

• Develop your potential beyond the boundaries of intelligence


• Rapid growth of competition in business industry


• Effective use of human resources creativity is a human resource which exists in all organizations


• Discover new and better ways to solve problems


• Development of society


• Building on the nature of knowledge


• Natural human phenomenon


• Important aspect of mental health


• Growing body of interest


• Builds on all disciplines


• Contributes to effective leadership


• Enhances the process of learning.

''Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things'' Noam Chomsky

Success Story

A story of how start-up Nouveau Cosmeceuticals goes up against the big firms within the industry

“Redefining the industry” is how CEO and co-founder of Nouveau Cosmeceuticals, Ace Hawkins, characterizes the direction of her company. And that’s a pretty big statement for someone who a little more than a year ago responded to an idea that her co-founder and trend watcher, Mike Fitch, offered up over a phone conversation. But redefining an industry is exactly what they are doing.The idea of a simple skin care line with ingredient formulations as strong as dermatological lines was the challenge before renowned chemist and Nouveau’s chief scientific advisor, Clifton Sanders.
Nouveau Cosmeceuticals’ challenge was to create packaging which would appeal to men as well as women of from age 8 to 80, and would contain products that are beautiful with universal appeal conveying a message of clinical efficacy.
It was a mere 5 months before the some of their biggest competitors took notice. But more importantly, consumers were buying the products and loving them.
“We needed to have an image that could stand up against the other big guys”, said Ace, “and because our business model is direct sales - we had to create effective tools for our consultants to use in their sales and marketing.”
“When I came to One Creative with a product and a prospective market.” One Creative sat down with me and we invented and shaped our companies personality and identity. What came out of these brainstorming meetings was a “total brand message." One Creative set out to package the spirit of Nouveau. The only term Ace was insistent on was the cobalt blue bottles. “The initial meeting and brainstorming time that we spent with Ace was invaluable to our creative process. We were able to get completely into the companies foundation to craft an identity that was inherently true to its founders’ goals and business objectives.” says creative director Wendy Spalsbury. “We seek to understand our clients’ objectives and gain a clear sense of the direction they want their company to go - it’s why our tag line asks the question “where are you headed?” The single best way to achieve these desired results is adequate face to face time.
One Creative’s solution for Nouveau’s brand development involved the creation of several applications. We designed Nouveau’s packaging to provide a unified brand appearance. We created informational brochures to provide education and application information. We designed a web store front to inform potential customers and to facilitate sales. The web site was complimented with a monthly electronic newsletter. which keeps customers and consultants informed about Nouveau’s interests and achievements. Finally, we created a three part interactive DVD designed as a consultant training and selling tool.

You may read more at: http://www.onecreative.net/success/

Visual Brainstorming

Apart from the 'traditional' brainstorming sessions, there are other ways to create innovative ideas. Visual brainstorming, that is brainstorming with images, objects and actions frequently works spectacularly well.

'The ugly truth about brainstorming is that more often than not it leads to mediocre results. In fact, if you've been involved in brainstorming sessions, you've probably experienced more than your share of events in which few truly creative ideas were suggested.
There are several reasons why a brainstorming session might fail to generate great creative ideas.
1. Badly formulated challenge. Any proper brainstorming event starts with a creative challenge that is the focus for idea generation. Unfortunately, few people appreciate how important a well formulated challenge is. They'd rather go right to the idea generation part of the brainstorming. Unfortunately, if you get the challenge wrong, the best ideas in the world probably will not solve your problem.
2. Poor facilitation. Even trained facilitators who do not understand creative problem solving (CPS) are often unable to manage properly a brainstorming event.
3. Squelching. Criticising ideas during the idea generation phase of brainstorming demotivates everyone. It tells participants that wacky ideas will get you in trouble. The thing is: the wackiest ideas are the most creative. So, any squelching basically communicates to participants that creative ideas are not wanted. And participants oblige by suggesting uninspiring and predictable ideas.
4. Dominating personalities. If one person dominates the brainstorming session, her ideas inevitably become the focus and other participants' ideas are pushed to the side. Unfortunately, this means that only one person is really doing any brainstorming - and that makes nonsense of bringing a brainstorming group together. Worse, dominating people are usually more interested in power than in discovering the best ideas.
5. Topic fixation. When someone suggests an obviously good idea in a brainstorming event, other people tend to focus on similar ideas. The result is that other avenues of possibility are ignored.
6. Too much noise. In a good brainstorming event, a lot of people are sharing ideas loudly. That means everyone has to listen to other ideas before sharing their own. The result is more time and energy is spent on listening and interpreting than ideas than on generating ideas. Worse, quiet or shy people tend to keep to themselves when brainstorming gets noisy - so you lose their ideas.
The bad news is that one any of these flaws can spoil a brainstorming event and lead to poor, unimaginative ideas. The good news is that non-verbal brainstorming -- based on images, objects, actions or any combination of these -- not only avoids almost all of the flaws listed above, but seems more reliably to result in better, more usable ideas. '

Visual Brainstorming
'Visual brainstorming is about collaboratively generating ideas without using the spoken or written word. You might use objects which teams put together to solve problems. You might use arts and crafts materials such as coloured construction paper, tape, string, card, pens and the like. You might use people to create improvisational role plays.'

Read more at: http://www.jpb.com/creative/visual_brainstorming.php

Individual and Group Brainstorming

Any one who wishes to perform a Brainstorming session should ‘Welcome Creativity’. I perceive the term creativity as a classmate of the term brainstorming; and this is true, because one should be creative in thinking in order to develop new ideas and indulge in brainstorming sessions.
Brainstorming is a useful and popular tool that you can use to develop creative and effective solutions to a problem. It is particularly helpful when you need to break out of stale, established patterns of thinking, so that you can develop new ways of looking at things. This can be when you need to develop new opportunities, where you want to improve the service that you offer, or when existing approaches just aren't giving you the results you want.
Used with your team, it helps you bring the experience of all team members into play during problem solving.
This increases the richness of solutions explored (meaning that you can find better solutions to the problems you face, and make better decisions.) It can also help you get buy in from team members for the solution chosen - after all, they have helped create that solution.
Individual Brainstorming
When you brainstorm on your own you will tend to produce a wider range of ideas than with group brainstorming - you do not have to worry about other people's egos or opinions, and can therefore be more freely creative. You may not, however, develop ideas as effectively as you do not have the experience of a group to help you.
When Brainstorming on your own, it can be helpful to use Mind Maps to arrange and develop ideas.
Group Brainstorming
Group brainstorming can be very effective as it uses the experience and creativity of all members of the group. When individual members reach their limit on an idea, another member's creativity and experience can take the idea to the next stage. Therefore, group brainstorming tends to develop ideas in more depth than individual brainstorming.
Brainstorming in a group can be risky for individuals. Valuable but strange suggestions may appear stupid at first sight. Because of this, you need to chair sessions tightly so that uncreative people do not crush these ideas and leave group members feeling humiliated.

Read more at: http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html

Honda History


Honda Motorcycles - A Five Decade JourneyBy Staff WriterHonda has grown to become a top manufacturer of motorcycles. Its history can be considered a journey through five decades of forward thinking and technological innovations.Soichiro Honda's success parallels the classic rags-to-riches fable - the lone individual starting in a humble setting, battling odds and succeeding, through talent, ingenuity, and good fortune. In a nation noted for reserve, Mr. Honda was and is often direct, frequently exuberant, sometimes hilarious, and always confident. He preferred getting his hands greasy in the shop over shuffling papers in the office. He chose learning on the job over academic paper chases. Yet when he realized that there was a deficiency in his technical knowledge, he did not hesitate to enroll in a technical high school - at age 29. The year was 1935. The motivation: learn why he was having problems manufacturing piston rings.Before his venture into piston rings, Honda was employed as a technician. Automobiles, rather than motorcycles, were his first love. He dreamed of racing. After completing eight years of schooling, he joined an auto repair shop at age 15. Two years later, he became a Harley owner and then an Indian rider.He opened his own auto and motorcycle repair shop in 1928 while pursuing his hobby, building racing cars. That same year, he applied for his first patent, for casting automobile wheel spokes. He organized Tokai Seiki Company, Ltd. to experiment with manufacturing piston rings. After initial failures, he sought further education which enabled him to successfully produce piston rings for automobiles, motorcycles and airplanes.In 1945, Honda sold his stock to Toyota and took a year off. His sabbatical included music-making and merriment. Refreshed, he launched Honda Technical Research Laboratory in October of 1946. His new venture added war surplus Tohatsu and Mikuni generator motors to bicycles to provide basic transportation for the war-torn nation.In November 1947, the 1/2 horsepower A-Type Honda was being manufactured and sold as a complete motorbike. Because the motorbike gave off a lot of smoke and a stench of turpentine it was known as the "Chimney".Soichiro Honda started Honda Motor Company in 1948, at the age of 41. Soon after, he hooked up with financial whiz Takeo Fujisawa and together they built an empire. Honda enlisted 13,000 bicycle shops in Japan as Honda dealers. This move, combined with a decently reliable product, catapulted the company forward.In 1948, Honda introduced a 90cc version of the A-Type known as the "B-Type".By 1949, Honda came out with the "D-Type". Mr. Honda was involved in every step of the two-stroke D-Type Dream's design and manufacture. This was Honda's first motorcycle. This was far from simply slotting a motor into a pushbike frame. Honda called his machine 'The Dream', because his dream of building a complete, motorcycle had come true. Soichiro Honda was an engineer and was always looking to produce better and more sophisticated machines.Honda had another dream and it turned out to be the 146cc, OHV, four-stroke E-Type Dream. A powerful machine producing 5 1/2bhp capable of 50mph. It had a steel frame and proper suspension front and rear. By October 1951, the new Dream was in production at the rate of 130 units per day. Sales success allowed Honda to focus vigorously on two key ingredients: quality and design.In 1952, Honda produced the first "Cub" F-Type, a 1/2 horsepower, 50cc, two-stroke engine that was produced in huge numbers. You could get one to fit to your pushbike or buy the complete red and white Honda "Auto Bai". Less than a year after its introduction, production was 6500 units per month, at that time it was 70% of Japan's powered two-wheeler market.Sales continued to boom, but the end of Korean War in 1953 triggered an economic depression in Japan that almost ruined Honda. The company survived, bolstered by the sale of Cub clip-on motors that were attached to bicycles. Healthy again, Honda produced the 90cc, four-stroke single, a motorcycle of even greater sophistication. This was known as the Benly; in Japanese this means "convenience". The J-Type Benly had a three-speed gearbox, produced 3.8bhp, a pressed steel frame, rear suspension with the engine and swinging arm on a sprung pivot, and telescopic front suspension. Before long, they were selling at a rate of 1000 units a month.

keep on reading : http://motorhelmets.com/htm-service/resources-motorcycle-articles-honda-history.htm

Tom Peters: Innovation is actually easy!

Google Recipe : 20% pure Innovation...

As IT budgets threaten to follow the same trend lines as financial markets, it's a natural impulse for managers to circle the wagons, concentrate on core projects and put off innovation for another day. Natural, but wrong.

One important policy has increased both employee satisfaction and innovation at Google: the "20% rule," which allows engineers to spend one-fifth of their time on corporate projects of their choosing -- creating something new or making something work better -- even if the project isn't part of their job descriptions.
For one day each week, Google's engineering staffers get to work on projects they think are important for the business, not what management has prioritized for them.

Keep on Reading: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=332900