Today is a big day. That’s right, it’s World Egg Day! Aside from that, it is also the launch of the 2014 BRW Most Innovative Companies list. You can check out the Top 50 most innovative companies in Australia right here. A massive congratulations to the 50 amazing companies that made the list! As youRead more
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Alfred P. Sloan, the long-time chairman and CEO of General Motors in the 1930s and early 1940s led General Motors to become the largest corporation on Earth until many years after his death. Sloan’s focus was on policies, systems and structures. He had a calculating nature. During an important meeting Sloan once interjected by askingRead more
Can you remember the last time you got a group of people together to come up with creative solutions to a problem? Think about who was in the room with you. Were there any unexpected characters, or were the usual suspects wheeled in? Something we see in teams all over the world is people unintentionallyRead more
Last week I was lucky enough to see one of my idols, Seth Godin, speak in Melbourne (big thanks to the CommBank Women in Focus gang for inviting me). Most things that come out of Seth’s mouth are gold, but I especially loved one of the things he had to say about innovation. He said (and I paraphrase,Read more
The common expectation and hope of brainstorming and problem solving meetings is that those involved will immediately be able to generate creative ideas and solutions. However, time and time again I have seen these meetings start off with people just putting the same old ideas forward. The problem is that many people go straight intoRead more
Imagine you are in prison (innocently, of course). You have served two-thirds of your sentence and you are up for parole tomorrow. You are allowed to choose the time that you will face the board. You can choose to see them first thing in the morning at 8.30am, later in the afternoon at 4pm orRead more
We are all a tad excited right now as we are looking for a new home. We have outgrown our current office and are looking for a new space that we can be our geeky selves in. One of the things we are ridiculously excited about is that we will be building a workshop space,Read more
Here’s a quick challenge for you: Guess which company I’m talking about in the next paragraph. It offers cloud-computing services. It builds technology hardware. It offers technology enterprise solutions to large businesses. It’s in direct competition with Microsoft. Any ideas? OK, this will give it away: it’s also in direct competition with K-Mart, Netflix andRead more
Creativity lies at the heart of innovation. One of the most popular ways to generate creative ideas is through brainstorming. Typically a lot of the emphasis in brainstorming sessions lies within the idea generation phase. The more ideas we come up with the better right? Not really. Generating a lot of creative ideas is fantastic,Read more
There is a common personality trait that can be problematic at certain stages of the innovation process that I wanted to share with you today. This trait is termed: A Need for Cognitive Closure, and you may know a few people (including yourself) who are high on this trait. When someone has a high needRead more