With Christmas done and dusted for another year, I want to share a suitably festive story (that has an important lesson) with you. I’ve paraphrased a story from Nassim Taleb’s book Antifragile – a book I have been recommending to anyone who will listen for the past few months. The Great Turkey Problem A turkey is fedRead more
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Innovation is a word at the tip of almost every CEO’s lips. However, despite the best of intentions, many organisations are killing innovation. There are several issues that these organisations have in common. Leaders don’t walk the talk While the majority of CEOs and their leadership teams talk about innovation, many unfortunately don’t doRead more
Chances are that if you have innovation in your job title or are responsible for the innovation program at your organisation, you have considered creating your very own innovation lab. Whether you are still on the fence, or fully converted, it can be difficult to know where to prioritise your efforts when embarking on theRead more
If you have been to one of Inventium’s innovation workshops, you’ll know that one of the first things we do is help get people in the right mindset for creativity and idea generation. One easy, yet perhaps surprising way, to set the scene for creativity is to position your body into a demonstration of powerRead more
Hi there, I’m Nick Johnston. I’m using my last name because Inventium has recently recruited two Nicks. I’m Melbourne Nick, or tall Nick, or Nick J – enjoy my blog! Recently I have made a sea change; I left the hustle and bustle of the ‘big smoke’ and moved down the Victorian coast. When people hear about my move, oneRead more
As a Melbournian, I have something shocking to admit. I don’t drink coffee. Well, not often. In fact, I could count the amount of coffees I’ve had this year on two hands. True story! I may very well be the new wave of hipster. A true individual. Amazingly, the rest of my fellow Aussies areRead more
I know what you’re wondering. What kinds of spaces are optimal for innovation to flourish? How can you create an environment that boosts creativity? Is it even possible for individual creativity to flourish just by making some physical changes? You’ve seen the ‘labs’ with bean bags, the ‘hubs’ with a foosball table and theRead more
It’s quite common these days for organisations to have an ideas submission platform, or something similar to collect ideas from around the organisation. Now if your organisation has one of these platforms in place, then you’ll know that all ideas aren’t made equal – some are great, while others leave a little to be desired.Read more
Think back to the last time you got people together for an idea generation session. Chances are the usual suspects were in involved, the same old people who are pulled on time and time again to solve problems. Perhaps they might be people from your team who are easy to work with, or perhaps theyRead more
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been exposed to literally hundreds of organisations’ innovation programs as part of the BRW Most Innovative Companies list. And there seems to be a common theme that many innovation programs revolve around: Events. Just to clarify, I’m not talking about reward dinners or off-site days here, but rather theRead more