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/

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

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

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

Creative Thinking

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