This is not a ‘check-out-this-cool-link’ post. It’s not a ‘I-need-to-pitch-a-sale-so-I’m-faking-a-
blog’ either. Not even a ‘I’m here I’m here’, post. It’s a simple ‘I-think-I-have-a-genuine-
insight-to-share-and-would-appreciate-your-thoughts’ post. The good old kind. Its probably my insight only because I was too lazy to look it up, or because I just didn’t share it with anyone to hear them say: Duh!
So for all it’s worth here it is. Enjoy!
They say that knowing the problem is half way to meeting the solution. I think, who ever said that was either grossly mistaken or had never met with a real problem :). Nevertheless, I must agree that ‘Knowing’ the problem, can be, instrumental for its resolution. But Knowing the problem can’t be a problem. Can it? Knowing is easy. The problem is a noisy pesky fellow, difficult to miss. So all we need is someone with a hefty creativity-out of the box-weapon, to blast it clear. We meet with experts, offering to help us find a creative solution to a problem, your problem, any problem. And as great as they are (and many times, they are!), they too often miss-shoot. Continue reading ‘Aiming at ghosts’
Last week I visited MSR - The Israel Center for Medical Simulation –in the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, and met with Dr. Amitai Ziv who heads it. We talked about innovation and simulation and possibilities for cooperation, and following the meeting, Amitai referred me to a recent interview (published in the McKinsey Quarterly, March 2008) with Delos “Toby” Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, apparently one of the leading and innovative medical institutions in the US.
The interview’s title was “Innovation in health care”, and indeed innovation was the central theme. Dr. Cosgrove mentioned three “seismic shifts” (his expression) in health care, on which Cleveland Clinic was taking the lead. What struck me about them was, more than anything, how these three trends, touted as the absolute cutting edge of novelty, were exactly what any grandmother with common sense would probably have recommended. Please judge for yourself: Continue reading ‘Your grandmother, the innovator, and second-order innovation’
When it comes to research around “Creativity”, 3 standard approaches prevail: The first approach is the Person approach. This approach suggests that innovation is a characteristic inherent in naturally creative people. Either you’re born with it or you’re not. Some of us have it, and some of us don’t. Managers who subscribe to this view tend to recruit innovative people into the company and assume that these creative people will be the standard bearers of creativity within the organization.
The second approach is the Process approach. This approach suggests that there are particular processes that promote creativity. Take Brainstorming for example. This method says that if you create a process which gathers people from different disciplines, and you have someone to facilitate the discussion, and suspend judgment when coming up with ideas, and put emphasis on the quantity not quality of ideas, and build on the ideas of others, then you’ll get to some good ideas upon which you can build your work plan. Similar to Brainstorming, there are a variety of other methods which you can adopt in order to reach creative ideas. Continue reading ‘Can you learn how to be creative or is it just a myth?’
As a budding copywriting student in the Watford College of Advertising, I used to wonder how I too could create ads like Stella Artois’ “Reassuringly expensive” campaign.
No matter how hard I tried to be witty, original and persuasive, few of my concepts ever seemed to quite resemble those magnificent campaigns that graced our screens and magazines. Bruised but not (totally) beaten, I limped off to become an account planner, where from close distance I watched my colleagues in the creative department bash out their wares week in, week out. What was their secret? What was I missing?
