Leaders, consultants and managers must be competent in at least thirteen domains to even begin effectively managing creativity and innovation. Part 1 of Managing Creativity and Innovation covers the first seven of these domains.

a) The difference between creativity and innovation. Often used interchangeably, the two must be thought of as separate and distinct. One definition for creativity is that it is problem identification and idea generation, whilst innovation is best described as idea selection, development and commercialisation. These definitions alone imply at least six competencies (including one holistic). At a minimum, the differences mean that, at each stage, varying skills, processes and structures are required.

b) The size and richness of idea pools. Initially creative thinking is used to generate an idea pool and then critical thinking reduces those ideas to feasible ones. To maximise the quantity and quality of the idea pool, a conscious application of processes and … Read more

Have you ever sat in amazement watching a local flock of birds as they make quick and abrupt directional changes and the flock follows? When watching local bird flocks you can see right away that they are much different than migrating bird flocks, as the migrating birds fly in a straight line. It’s hard to say why the birds fly together in formation in local flocks and seem to challenge each other for who will lead the formation, but it seems that is what they are doing. With long-distance migrations it’s obvious they do this for the aerodynamic advantage.

Now then, I’d like to take this analogy and propose a thought to you. I’d like you to sit back and think about it for a moment as I compare this to the innovations and changes in any given industry, as the industry leaders jockey to position with new innovations, research … Read more

College students are always on the look out for part time jobs that are not only close to campus, but also pay them well. The student job search is a process that never stops and students keep on trying to find out some of the best part time jobs available on college campuses. Are you a student and looking for a good employment options too? Read on to know what part time jobs can prove to be the best for you, in terms of closeness from campus, pay and hours too.

Computer Lab Attendant or Tech Support Jobs
One of the best campus jobs options available for students is the computer lab attendants or tech support jobs. College and universities look for students that are tech savvy and can perform IT field related work. Not only these part time jobs pay students well, but these jobs also provide with some … Read more

The S.C.R.E.A.M technique can assist you to direct your organization to come up with innovative solutions that will work effectively and productively. As long as you are in a leadership position you will need S.C.R.E.A.M to get to the root of the problem fast and find any ways and means to resolve that problem.

To be innovative and creative the first thing to do is to find areas in your work environment that provides opportunities to innovate. This can be anything ranging from your customer relationship management, new processes, and new services, improving your workflow, developing new products or improving the quality of your current product. The list is not exhaustive.

Once you find an area to innovate the next step is for you to identify and frame the opportunity. In doing this you have to come up with an action plan on how you are going to go about … Read more

There are strategic planning tools for pretty much any objective a business executive can conceive of. However, for managers and entrepreneurs wishing to innovate their business model, it can be challenging making the leap from conventional thinking to the sort of creative but realistic thinking from which the next generation of sustainable profits can develop.

Knowing the types of tools you can use for various kinds of business strategy tasks can you get far more innovative results from your strategy development sessions while cutting the time it takes to arrive at good business models.

Tools for Mapping and Dominating Uncontested Market Spaces

1. Strategy Canvas

The Strategy Canvas is a tool first introduced in the book, “Blue Ocean Strategy” by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. It is a chart that plots the positions of business competitors relative to the factors important to the customer marketplace. The horizontal axis plots … Read more