Have you ever wondered what someone born in the 1800’s would think if they saw what human life is like today? Do you think they would value all the new technology that pervades modern life? Or might they consider 21st century civilization, with all of its hustle and bustle and multi-tasking required, a sad place to be? Hold on, I have a text message, I’ll be back to finish this blog post in a minute…
In this day and age one can easily participate simultaneously in various conversations or activities (i.e talking on the phone while chatting on the web, talking on the phone while having a Skype video call, driving while talking on the phone). Multi-tasking is hard to avoid in a modern, technology-filled world. For those of us who have given in, and who willingly call ourselves “multitaskers”, have we lost something by being willing to multi task? Perhaps there is something we have gained- some sort of upper hand over those who still insist on focusing on one thing at a time.
Continue reading ‘Attention, Multitaskers, You Might Be Paying a Mental Price’
Posted in Insights categories |
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You probably know the little riddle about the dog, the carrot and the rabbit that need to be transported to the other side of the river. The problem is that their owner can take only one of them on each trip across the river (it was a very big carrot! 
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When the dog and rabbit are left unattended, the dog devours the rabbit. And when the carrot and the rabbit are left unattended, the rabbit eats the carrot.
How can the rabbit, the dog and the carrot be transferred safely to the bank on the other side of the river?
If you haven’t heard this one, take a few moments to try solving it before you read on.
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The solution is to take the rabbit on the first trip, go back and take the carrot. Then take the rabbit BACK to the original bank, leave it there and take the dog. On the last trip, the rabbit is taken to the other bank and the owner can continue his journey with all three.
Continue reading ‘Take a step back to move forward’
Posted in Insights and
Problem Solving categories |
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Roni’s story in his latest post reminded me of what was probably the most dramatic moment in my 15+ years of facilitating innovation. I’ve told this to people a few times (not many, because I am pretty ashamed of my role in the event), and they often don’t believe me, but I swear that this happened exactly as it is told here. 
It was a pro-bono session in a city in the US MidWest, and the objective was to find innovative ways to improve communications and understanding in the local community, which had been stressed to the point of intermittent violence. The organizers had attempted to statistically represent, within the 16 participants, all segments of the local population according to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and what not, and had done an excellent job. It was the heterogeneous-est group you could imagine, all of them good intentioned active citizens.
The first day went well, and on the morning of the second day, we opened with an exercise: the group sat on chairs in a circle, except for one person who stood in the middle. This person was asked by me to mention something he remembered from the first day, then pick another participant, ask them to stand up, and sit in their place, and so on.
Continue reading ‘Blind.’
Posted in Fixednesses and
Insights categories |
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Browsing thru Posterous, the brainchild of Sachin Agarwal and Garry Tan, included in Creativity-online’s annual list of the most influential and inspiring creative personalities of the last year, aka The 2010 Creativity 50, I came across a quotation by Jim Jarmusch, one that enjoys being an eternal carry-over between blogs and sites.
“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, painting, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and your theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery-celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to’.”
A recommendation often heard in advertising classes and or seen in books on advertising creativity: Read the old annuals, study the old ads, dismount the award-winners, look at tourism catalogs, and read everything in sight. And so on.
Continue reading ‘Creativity Templates: Stealing with Soul or Clever Archeology?’
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I decided it was high time I got on the LinkedIn boat. I had a vague memory of opening an account, once upon a time. (Alright, I’ll admit it. Maybe I was trying to spy on someone. But we all do that. Isn’t that the point?) So, just to be sure, I went on to the website and searched for myself. I did not appear. Not terribly surprising news so far. Fresh out of maternity leave, I’m well aware of my memory not being as sharp as it once was.
No worries though. I filled out the form, clicked “join now”, and waited to become one of the 60 million professionals. LinkedIn was quick to inform me in bold writing “Unable to add robyn@sitsite.com. Email address is associated with another LinkedIn account.” Voila! I exist!
While it’s quite possible that when searching for myself I misspelled my own name, I chose to ignore this option and instead, found it humorous that there were parallel worlds in which one of them I existed, while in the other I did not. It got me thinking - why should LinkedIn do this? What’s in it for them?
The first thing that came to mind was “Limit Rather than Delete”, a possible spinoff of the SIT principle “Limit Rather than Dilute” in which we implement ideas in a limited version rather than diluting them due to constraints. But more on that another time.
Continue reading ‘To be or not to be?’
Posted in Ideation and
Insights categories |
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If we try to list the barriers to innovation, cognitive fixednesses will be very close to the top of the list. One of our main challenges as facilitators is to help our clients break their fixednesses as part of the attempt to promote innovation. One interesting aspect of these fixednesses, and particularly structural fixedness, is their relationship with language. 
Let’s consider the word “order” for example. WordNet defines order as “logical or comprehensible arrangement of separate elements” and “a condition of regular or proper arrangement”. These definitions, coupled with another meaning of the word – “a command given by a superior that must be obeyed” – can help us understand the power of structural fixedness. It highlights our tendency to embrace order and structure as positive attributes that are not only valuable, but also natural.
Continue reading ‘Innovation is in order?’
Posted in Fixednesses and
Insights categories |
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In the last decade, it seems that if there is any agreement about anything, it is that we need to save the planet, and take responsibility for the environment and our influence on it. Never before has the color “green” received such significance and value.
Considering the great resources governments and companies dedicate to the purpose of sustainable innovation, we should ask ourselves – how should we manage our innovation? Can we go “too far”?
Let’s try and answer this question, using one of Boeing’s latest and most innovative projects as a case study: the new 787 Dreamliner.
Continue reading ‘Sustainable innovation. How far should we go?’
Posted in Greenovation and
Insights categories |
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In our previous post we wrote about how talking about innovation is not enough: you also have to act on it. In this post we will give you our insights on how to translate the innovation and creativity talk into real action.
If you are the kind of leader with the insight that innovation is important, and you also do not accept that relying on chance or unpredictable events are valid leadership qualities; if you are the proactive, hard worker who wants to create innovation, what can you do? 
Here’s a suggestion for a good start:
* Acquire knowledge – Learn about how you can implement effective innovation through systematic and focused efforts. There are many good training programs and tons of literature for this. Start with a simple test, by asking your associates how they define innovation. If you can agree on this, you have a base to build on. Then move on to gaining more knowledge about principles and models for systematic innovation.
Continue reading ‘Walk the Talk!’
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