creativity

There are innovative organizations that most of us find inspiring because on the inside, they're essentially passionate communities. But what do companies like Google, Red Hat, IDEO, Apple, 3M, and W.L. Gore have in common? And what defines a community of passion, anyway?

Over the past few months, I've been engaged in a Management Hackathon with a few folks you might recognize from opensource.com and some other members of the Management Innovation eXchange (MIX), an online community started by Gary Hamel. » Read more

Creativity is less an art than a discipline--and surprisingly practical and accessible

If you think creativity is the province of a privileged few--the proverbial black turtleneck and pony tail crowd--think again. Our work with hundreds of teams, from CEOs to customer service reps, has convinced us that a few relatively simple techniques can help anyone generate new and creative ideas.

The key is to focus on perception. Neuroscientists tell us that as our brains evolved, they learned to take perceptual shortcuts to save energy. In other words, they stuff experiences into well-worn patterns. But when we bombard our brains with new information, our brains are forced to re-categorize these new experiences and move beyond old patterns. That's when we come up with new ideas.  » Read more

By now, I'd wager cold, hard cash that you've heard it all before: marketing's just not good enough, cool enough, interesting enough, fast enough, real enough, tough enough, slick enough, noisy enough, responsible enough.

And, as rousing and convincing as those arguments are, you've probably also concluded that the state of the art as it stands is, truth be told, more than OK to get the job done.

Yet, while we might not want to admit it, I bet we all know it: we can--and should--do better. » Read more

At one time or another, most of us have probably worked for a boss who was self-absorbed, vindictive, or just plain inept — a real-life equivalent to Dunder Mifflin’s Michael Scott. One of my first jobs was for an HR manager who thought the best way to humble a cocky new MBA was to have him spend hours sorting files into alphabetical order. Needless to say, he didn’t get the best out of me or anyone else that worked for him. » Read more

Earlier this week, Fast Company posted an article by Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen (thanks to Gunnar Hellekson for sending it my way) that may be of interest to folks seeing success with their open source and open innovation efforts.

The article is entitled "User-Led Innovation Can't Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and IKEA" and here's how it starts: » Read more

Imagine a 20-year-old musician publishing his work today. Let's pretend he's living the fast and reckless life of a rock star and will die young at 45. Because the copyright term has been ratcheted up to life of the author plus 70 years (or 95 years from publication for corporate works), you won't be able to sample his work without permission (for your heartfelt tribute song, of course), until 2105. But since you're not living his rock star lifestyle, maybe you can hang on another 95 years to grab your chance. » Read more

The open source community has a phrase for the principle of rapid prototyping: “Release early, release often.” The theory is sound: Don’t wait until a project is perfect to share it. Instead, keep producing work so more people can experience it, react to it, find bugs, and improve it.

But does the principle also work in a creative environment? Ideas are fragile. Their merit is judged not just on the idea, but the quality of the execution. Often they need to be protected just to get that far. All it takes is one naysayer to sweep the legs out from under your idea.
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Our society and its lawmakers are notoriously bad at predicting the effects of new technologies. I think of the ongoing battles over new distribution formats, like the assumption that "the VCR [would be] to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." Jennifer Jenkins, one of the authors of Theft! A History of Music, has an even more basic and older example: musical notation. » Read more

“To get good ideas, you need lots of ideas.”

This quote by Linus Pauling is a popular one among companies who hope to gain or maintain competitive advantage by continuously innovating. It’s also a concept at the very heart of open source development.

If you’re reading this, I would venture to guess that you could use a few new ideas … especially good ones. Who doesn’t? I’m always looking for new & innovative approaches to design, branding and marketing in my role at Red Hat. » Read more

This week I finally got a chance to sit down and digest IBM's latest Global CEO Study, newly published last month and entitled Capitalizing on Complexity. This marks the fourth study IBM has done (they complete them once every two years), and I've personally found them to be really useful for getting out of the weeds and looking at the big picture. » Read more