What are you doing to develop your competence in creativity?

Creativity Expert, Alan Black, Ph.D. posed some provocative questions to me, “What are you doing to increase your creative skills, traits, and abilities?  What are the tools you use (mental, physical, emotional, social) to increase your creative thinking?  How do you increase your creative skills?”

After some reflection I developed these responses and realized that this is how I develop my creative competency.  It is my hope that this will spark some ideas for you to develop your own creative competency.  After all, creativity is a skill that can be learned, just like riding a bicycle.

Traits – I am daring and I am unafraid to reach out to people who are so out of my league it is laughable to think they would have anything to do with me.  However, sometimes they respond back to me and it is great fun.  I am passionate about learning as much as I can about creativity and how it can be applied to business, science, and technology.  Traits I possess are, I am daring, unafraid of failure, passionate, and I have the philosophy that if I am not having fun then I need to go do something different.

Abilities – I am always thinking about ways to promote creativity through the use of technology.  I have a Master in Business Administration; therefore, I am always on the lookout for how to justify creativity with (ROI) return on investment because that is the language business people understand.  I am always looking for examples of language to use that will make creativity theory understandable to “rational” people such as those in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).  I am often told that I am not rational (by my husband); I take this as a high compliment.

Tools – I read books about creativity and then I contact the authors and invite them to engage with me.  Oftentimes they ignore me but I have had some phenomenal successes.  Sometimes the authors find me and initiate the contact.  Michael Michalko did this and he invited me to write an endorsement for his new book, “Creative Thinkering” so I did. 

I use the public relations tools provided by (WITI) Women in Technology International to announce my latest creativity adventures.  They have a market reach of two million.  I am on their leadership team.  I also do webinars on creativity for WITI.  I am the Chief Creative Advisor to the President of Sedaa’s Global Brain Trust, which is a community of over three hundred in the field of (OD) organizational development.  I write blog posts about creativity on their site and how it relates to OD.  I also do webinars for them on social media and creativity.

I am an avid fan of Tony Buzan’s iMindMapping computer software and I use it for all my presentations.  I met him at the American Creativity Association conference in Singapore that I helped to organize.

I learn as much as I can about social media and then I implement what I have learned to promote creativity and connect with others who are interested in creativity.  I go where I have never gone before, for example, I am now a radio talk host on live radio for a program called Women\Men.  It is a new adventure and I am learning as I go along.  I plan to use this as a platform to apply creativity to everyday living and to make others aware of the field of creativity.

I am also constantly promoting RobotLab’s process developed by Lars Ringe that provides training in creativity to build high performance teams.  Our most recent success was his presentation in Copenhagen, Denmark of our white paper, “Mastering Creative Problem Solving within Teams” at the International Association of Science Parks conference.  We will soon begin our new book incorporating the ideas of tomorrow and the management solutions that create and maximize high performance teams by using creative problem solving.

I write blog posts about creativity.  I became a guest blogger for the Front End of Innovation, IIR USA and travelled to Amsterdam and wrote 19 blog posts about design thinking.  I continue to read and study design thinking to gain a better understanding of what it really means.  I recently connected with Roger Martin on facebook, the author of “The Design of Business, Why Design Thinking is the next competitive advantage.” 

Mental – I exercise five times a week.  I sleep eight hours every night.  When I am on the treadmill I zone out and often think about creativity.  I watch the news and think about how creativity might impact some of our world issues.  I am an insatiable reader of books, e-books and periodicals.  My reading ranges from the latest on Harvard Business Review to the latest historical romance novel.  I connect and hang out with international people; they are fascinating because they see the world differently than many of us.

I travel internationally at every opportunity.  Last year I went to Amsterdam; this year I am going to Ireland.  I will be going to China; therefore, I am educating myself about China.  I attend lectures and read about China.

Physical – I play with my two year old grandson on the floor and pay close attention to the way he perceives the world.  He reminds me of how fresh things once were to me and how innocent he is now.  I love to play with him and it leaves me filled with joy and new energy.  He loves to look at plants and animals and wonders about them.  My six year old grandson is just so brilliant; I love to have conversations with him about how he sees the world.  His perspective is so fresh and insightful.   They both make me start to think again about life with a fresh perspective.  When I am with them I take the time to look carefully at a plant, a flower, or to watch and think about the ducks. 

Emotional – I have been married for over 40 years and I am fortunate to be surrounded by a stable and loving family.  I do not take this for granted because some of our friends and extended family have the opposite situation.  I think about the creative skills required to stay married and to raise well adjusted children in such a turbulent society.  I am writing a book about my life’s journey entitled, “Mind Shift, Migrant to Main” and a second book entitled “Unconventional Corporate Mom.”

Social – I seek out creative people on social media networks and engage with them.  I became the President of the American Creativity Association – Austin Global.  It is a virtual community.  I seek out other leaders in creativity.  It is my intent to build a collaborative community using the latest technologies to promote creativity.  I envision scientists, software developers, engineers and other “rational” professionals meeting with creatives in one easy to use friendly collaborative virtual space.  I invite everyone to connect with me on LinkedIn, facebook, and Twitter and I engage with them.

What ideas do you plan on implementing to develop your own creative competency?

When I first began blogging I had no idea that my journey would take me to Amsterdam within six months as a guest blogger for the Front End of Innovation Europe 2010, an event sponsored by the (IIR) International Institute of Research.

Although I had vast experience selling emerging technologies and I represented internationally renowned thought leaders in the world of creative thinking and innovation, I was a novice at blogging. 

I had signed up for a social networking class with Sabrina Gibson.  We received our first assignment and we created a blogging strategy plan.

Now six months later, I responded to a bid to be a guest blogger for the Front End of Innovation Europe.  Imagine my delight and surprise when I was selected.  I was notified of my acceptance five days before the event would begin in Amsterdam. 

My assignment is to blog LIVE and post during the sessions while the speaker is actually speaking.  I also had to produce ten tweets each day of the conference and post on two websites, the website of Front End of Innovation Europe 2010 and my own website, Develop Your Creative Thinking.  I am up for the challenge.

Over the next three days, I worked 15 hours per day and generated 22 blogs within that time frame.  When I first arrived, I was asked if I had brought my camera.  I was taken by surprise.  I do not travel with my camera because I typically do not take photos.  Fortunately, I did have my iPhone with me and it has the ability to take photos.  Now, I realize not only am I to blog but I have to hop up and take photos as well.

When I returned home, I redid all of my blog posts.  Now they read much better and make more sense.  Despite many challenges, I am incredibly pleased with myself.  

Remember, it was only six months ago that I began blogging.  I am quite proud of what I have accomplished.  I assure you if I can learn to be this productive with social media and social networking due to the superb training from my incredible teacher, Sabrina Gibson, than you can also learn these same skills.  

I just want to express my deep gratitude to Sabrina Gibson for giving me the necessary skill set to prepare me to blog at a major international design thinking and innovation conference.  Thank you, Sabrina Gibson!

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic:
Idea: A Framework for Driving Innovation Throughout Your Organization

Speaker:
Daryl Dunbar: SVP of Innovation, REED ELSEVIER

Daryl Dunbar built out an innovation team and created an IDEA methodology. His background includes experiences at British Telecom.

IDEA means: Inspire, Discover, Evaluate, and Act.

We need a common language. Innovation is about ideas that result in value creation. Value may not always be about economics. Value occurs at the intersection of capability, viability, and desirability.

Innovation can be of different types:

1.) Products/services
2.) Process
3.) Business models
4.) Management practices

Innovation comes in degrees:

1.) Sustain and grow.
2.) Build new revenue streams.
3.) Build new business.
4.) Creating strategic alternatives.

IDEA Framework was developed, not as a process, not as a procedure nor as a workshop. It is a loose framework.

There are 4 modules:

1.) From infinite possibilities to finite action.
2.) Need to frame the challenge.
3.) Pick your leaping off point
4.) Set boundaries, set goals.

Think about what you are trying to achieve. Assemble many different types of stimulus such as stakeholder interviews. In a cross-functional sharing session, you can ask “What are we doing now?”

Obtain agreement on the type of stimulus to be used. How can you inspire people to innovate, to think differently, and to engage the world in a different way.

For example he used IDEA to develop these customer propositions.

• Inspire: uncover themes, pain points, what people doing, follow customers around, themes generate trends, then pull out insights.
• Discover: divergent thinking wide leads to convergent thinking, develop blue print and road map, and see what execution could looks like.
• Evaluate: engage customers, get compelling business case, understanding of where it fits and how use it.
• Act: Launch a pilot. Oftentimes what happens in organizations is that there are plenty of ideation sessions, and then the ideas are cataloged, rolled up, and stuck in a cabinet and forgotten. You need to act on it.

Target 100 logged ideas. Combine ideas and stretch them, look at trends and themes and build things out to draw out large opportunities.

When you evaluate, build compelling propositions and business cases. It is very important to engage with customers and potential partners at this time.

Then Act to pilot, refine, and launch successful propositions. Be careful with measurement systems because you will get the behavior you incent. Stay away from ROI, it kills innovation. A payback in 12 months is unrealistic. Do a pain-gain matrix and consider the value of the opportunity to the degree of difficulty to execute. Create an opportunity map with timeframes labeled 3-5 years in the future.

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Speaker: Dr. Andreas Bong, Senior Vice President, HILTI

Topic: Customer Orientation Throughout the Innovation Process

The focus is on the front end of innovation.

Agenda:

• HILTI
• Innovation management
• Customer integration
o Fuzzy front end
o Development

You cannot duplicate what they have done at HILTI. They use a direct sales model with only 30 people selling to their customers. HILTI is about cultural diversity and this fosters creativity and the outcome of innovation. Their employees include more than 50 nationalities.

HILTI has a worldwide presence for construction professionals worldwide, they increase productivity, and provide the benefits from innovation to generate significant added value. They are known for system solutions for professionals.

Sales development doubled the company in the last ten years. They invest 4% in R&D, 10% is done in applied research.

In the HILTI business model they have a common purpose and values. HILTI passionately creates enthusiastic customers to build a better future! The foundation of their culture is integrity, courage, teamwork and commitment. They put people first.

Business improvement, customer competence concentration, customer needs versus requirements, innovative and value adding solutions, management and support creates higher customer satisfaction and better bottom line results.

Innovation management at HILTI is integrated with a holistic view. They have normative innovation management, strategic innovation management, and operational innovation management.

The focus is on outside-in innovation. This is a contradiction as innovation. Horizon 2020 is the identification of future key technologies. They look in the crystal ball to determine global trends and predict construction trends. They generate various scenarios using “Construction 2020” to forecast HILTI relevant applications in 2020, and to create a HILTI relevant global technology roadmap.

They are driven by sustainability. HILTI identified trends by interviewing customers to come up with scenarios. This led to the creation of roadmaps. They learn to survive in each scenario, so they are prepared regardless of which trends or applications occur.

It is important to understand applications and customer needs. What is their value chain? What is their application chain? How do they operate?

HILTI uses science methodologies, work methods, work flow and task durations. There is cooperation and communication to review problems, errors, and identify opportunities for improvement.

By observing their customers at work, HILTI learns what their customers really need. They do this by using video. The customers who are observed forget they are being videotaped. They then behave normally in a brief amount of time. Think about this, 10% of total construction costs are caused by job site injuries. Return on sales of the average construction company is only 2-3%.

Dr. Bong then shows us several examples of innovation at HILTI. One involves the installation of cable trays. It is a solution that is low tech, with low competition, and with a high improvement potential that saves 15-20% of the total time needed. Another example is to replace a yardstick with a laser measurement.

Once you have an idea and a business plan, then go out to customers and ask for their acceptance of that solution.

Enthusiasm creates innovation! Innovation creates enthusiasm!

Key Points are:

1.) Employee satisfaction is the key driver for customer satisfaction.
2.) Understand your customer’s needs.
3.) Idea of scenarios, learn to survive in each scenario.
4.) Creating enthusiastic users is a very steep one.

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic:
Part 2: Innovation Think Tank – Develop a Vision for the year 2050

Led by: Per Sandberg, Managing Director, WORLD BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

After listening to Part 1: Using WBCSD’s Vision2050 of a Sustainable World to Drive Corporate Innovation, attendees at the Front End of Innovation 2010 conference were invited to generate ideas for Vision 2050.

These are their ideas:

• With open innovation you lose control.
• The biggest challenges are the names: the toothbrush example, protecting the market brand and existing business structure. It is hard to create partnerships.
• The big companies and brands have resources and money.
• How can we convince them to abandon existing business challenges?
• Here is a different opinion. How could the future look like? Make it transparent; current business models are an inhibitor. Business models are preventing new types of partnerships.
• Low hanging fruit represents a large win referring to the McKinsey chart in Vision 2050.
• Recognize that in IT and the building industry, the way you purchase influences things.
• There is a lot of stuff you can do now; it does not take fancy things.
• In large organizations, there is a lot of inertia.
• Different viewpoint is that scale increases consumption in oil energy, 1% change. They used the same data set from McKinsey.
• Trying to stimulate grassroots for sustainability, the way forward is to do public-private funding.
• Needs to be focused and fast.
• Large corporations think long term very well. P&G began with candles.
• How do we finance, if the speed is too slow?
• It is unrealistic to rely on big corporations.
• Must have the politics of public-private partnerships.
• The average person will not be making the decisions.
• Create fast change by industry solutions.
• The internal organization is not conducive to innovation. Usually innovation occurs in R&D, or specialized departments.
• Innovation leads to financial performance.
• In bakeries the unsold buns are thrown away. This is not public knowledge. Public image was the driver that led to these results:

1.) Reduce by half in 10 years.
2.) Increase the value of the bread left.
3.) New products developed in 2 month, is multiplier by 100.
4.) Use bread as fuel.
5.) Lot of packaging is needed, use in biochemical or bio plastics.

• Smaller scale needed for innovation, important to parcel out the problem to small issues that can be solved. It is better to work in small teams.
• Megatrends: Intra entrepreneurship will play a big role.
• Can be accelerated, entrepreneurs can be glue for systemic change to occur. We need to incentivize entrepreneurs. Embrace entrepreneurs from all angles. They are driving change.
• We not want to waste bread but want to make money.
• Companies should not pretend to be something and do something else.
• FEI conference focuses on sustainable innovation with cases, etc.
• With a background in a chemical company, the challenge in the fashion or cosmetic industry is that as a supplier we have difficulties communicating with R&D, marketing, and not being able to talk to the right people. We need to remove the walls between different organizations.
• From organizational development, if you do not have a leader like Richard Branson, then your organization needs urgency. She had a prior experience in Shell. They had to work on composition on their oil. You can create a sense of urgency from the outside.
• In the U.S. nothing was learned from the banking crisis.
• Need a burning platform; this is needed to drive change. Ask yourself, what if tomorrow there is no more water? As a company we must question ourselves, and then we will innovate. What as a person what would you do?
• In the brewery industry, cans are recycled. They learned:

1.) Be on consumer top of mind. You need meaningful communication with the consumer.
2. ) Renovation reuses the bottle. Now label bottle, “Hello this is the 4th, 5th time you have seen me.” This changed the consumer mindset.

• Will not get big companies to agree at high altitude. Small companies are good at speed and entrepreneurial. Bring together small companies with funding provided by large companies. Use the leverage of both small and big companies.
• Lots of large companies have huge foundations, like the United Nation’s foundation. Address them and can make big changes occur.

• Summary of key points :

1.) Create sense of urgency
2.) Small bits of a problem
3.) Tools
4.) Project oriented approach, small teams
5.) Create Partnerships

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic:
Part 1: Using WBCSD’s Vision2050 of a Sustainable World to Drive Corporate Innovation

Speaker:
Per Sandberg: Managing Director, WORLD BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Per Sandberg posed this question, “What innovation does the world need?” Vision 2025 was just launched in India.

Agenda:
• Argue that sustainability is the key driver for innovation.
• Describe what sustainable innovation needed to deliver.
• Dialogue how best to do sustainable innovation.

Based on the vision 2050 platform, gaps are identified to develop a pathway and identify areas of action. The idea is to clarify the business perspective, quantify market potential, and then agree on action points and next steps. Vision 2050 was run by 29 companies within 20 months.

They evaluated the sustainability status to see how are we doing? We plotted the quality of life and the ecological footprint. This identifies a sustainable quadrant for different nations. Countries such as Africa and the South American countries are using fewer resources than available but with a lower quality of life.

We only know one way of developing. How can we keep the quality of life with fewer resources, without overusing the resources? The status is that we are not doing well.

We are borrowing from the future. Over the next 40 years, we will see fantastic growth, more people, and more wealth. Growth means wealth and spending power. The global middle class is expanding. There is growth in the emerging markets. Global economic power is shifting. The top ten economies will change.

We are experiencing inertia with an accompanying inadequate policy response. There is degradation of water and degradation of resources such as oil.

To summarize, we will consume 2.3 Earths in 2050!

In Vision 2050, nine billion people will live well, and within the limits of the planet. Vision 2050 proposes using one planet.

This means that business as usual is not an option. Neither is policy as usual, financing as usual, nor consuming as usual. Innovation as usual is not an option either! We must build an attractive path.

Please read HBR: Why Sustainability Is Now the Key Driver of Innovation

“…sustainability is now the key driver for innovation. In the future only companies that make sustainability a goal will achieve competitive advantage”

How do we close the gap?

1.) Resources and carbon: halving CO2 emissions while doubling agricultural output.
2.) Costs: internalize cost of carbon, water and other ecosystem services.
3.) Consumption: change consumption patterns in favor of more sustainable lifestyles.
4.) Areas of activity: people’s values, human development, economy, agriculture, forests, energy and power, building, mobility, materials, etc.

What does it mean? It is all about resource efficiency around labor, productivity, and financial. We have a rising cost of capital with fluctuating prices. There is availability of raw materials, increasing complexity of risk, changing consumer behaviors, and evolving framework conditions. This creates significant business opportunities.

Key insights are:

1.) Global challenges will become key strategic drivers for business and innovation.
2.) There will be tremendous change.
3.) Opportunities abound for those who turn sustainability into strategy.
4.) Business must work closer with government and society worldwide to transform markets, prices and competition.

The needed radical resource efficiency improvement will require sustainable innovation by all means. Sustainable innovation is waiting to happen. We can begin by harvesting the low-hanging carbon fruit.

It takes 30 years for new energy technology to have market penetration. It is very possible to triple Africa’s agricultural yield. We can make IT work for sustainability. Systemic, integrated innovation is needed and attractive. We can form complex coalitions, do co-innovation with customers and competitive, suppliers. We can forge public-private partnerships.

How do we make it happen? How can we make systemic, integrated “sustainable innovation by all means” happen at a radical scale, with speed and performance?

Per Sandberg then invited the Front End of Innovation attendees to form an Innovation Think Tank to generate additional ideas for Vision 2050. Please go to blog post, Part 2: Innovation Think Tank to see the results.

Topic: The Invention Environment and its Difficulties

Speaker: Peter Hilfinger: Inventor of the Powered Toothbrush & former R&D Director, BRAUN/ORAL B

Peter Hilfinger invented the electric toothbrush; he was the leader of the team. He outlined the conditions for innovation as exemplified by the development of a revolutionary electric toothbrush. Braun/Oral B will now be a part of Procter and Gamble.

They were searching for a new product to fit into their portfolio. There was a big potential in the worldwide market, but there was an existing electric toothbrush that had not done well. It had no special benefits and the price was very high. It was a conventional electric toothbrush that had the same thing as a manual toothbrush.

There was a need to offer benefits that the manual toothbrush did not offer. Therefore, they tried to find out why people did not like existing electric toothbrushes. There were few consumers who are willing to pay for same benefits as a manual toothbrush.

Recommended time for brushing of 3 minutes was perceived as 3 minutes. Consumers use their toothbrush less than one minute; this is still true today.

Desired Benefits:
1. Is more convenient to use and creates pleasant sensation when being used: leaves you with a good mouth feel.
2. Does a better job at cleaning, compared with common manual cleaning practices.
3. Does it in less time than the recommended three minutes.
4. A brush head motion which was seen as not reproducible manually. So everybody understands that an electric device is necessary.

You cannot innovate by asking people what they want. This is useless and not productive. If you use nonfunctioning mockups, consumers do not understand the concept. This is due to psychology.

Consumers like mirror images of themselves versus pictures of themselves. They have strong preferences to old established ways. You have to make the decisions. Recommend strongly, otherwise remain in the mainstream. They were not committed to a final business plan. They only had a rough idea of what they wanted to do.

If a final business plan is approved then any new idea is reviewed against the business plan.

The electric toothbrush was considered as the most unneeded product. One of the features of the new electric tooth brush is that the brush head is circular.

Conditions for innovation include:

1. Top management understands and supports that final project plan has to be flexible while in progress.
2. R&D management has the freedom to set interim targets.

Each team member is aware of the entire project, including the financial targets and the desired contribution to the success of the company. The R&D team agrees with the project targets set up by the management! Meanwhile the team develops a sense of responsibility for the whole project Team members enjoy periods of creative rest.

Their initial tries resulted in bleeding gums. Eventually a working sample was built. The prototype outperformed the manual toothbrush with a better interdental plaque index, it was more convenient, it had a better feel of clean, and the teeth felt more polished.

They had some difficulties with production of the product. They were given more time to fix these issues and resolved them by using different materials to produce the bevel gears. Top management decided to go into the market.

Peter Hilfinger summarizes by saying that innovation needs freedom and creative rest, do not press innovation work into timeframes and financial constraints too early, and rely on your own strength.

By Connie Harryman, Applied Concepts Creativity
Guest Blogger IIR USA

Do you ever wonder if our current business models are serving our need to innovate? One of the keynote speakers at the Front End of Innovation Europe is Josephine Green, Senior Director of Trends and Strategy, Philips Design, Royal Philips Electronics.

Her background includes international sales and marketing. She is an acknowledged thought leader for future trends using social research for advanced strategy.

Josephine takes into consideration the complexity and interconnectedness of our socio-cultural values with emerging technologies. She acknowledges the benefits of creating new business models.

She reminds us that current management structures were set up to accommodate the needs of mass markets. Their primary focus is managing logistics. This has nothing to do with innovation. Current management is about command, control, and distribution.

For creativity and innovation to flourish, we have to create spaces where people can experiment. We must create an innovative environment where we can feel free to create a future that considers our complex and connected world.

Factors to consider include the need to introduce new thinking around our business models while considering the human element. We must consider the sustainability of development in our culture. We must be knowledgeable about the impact of processes we implement.

She asks us to imagine viewing the universe with childlike wonder with a willingness to explore new possibilities. We might go beyond our current notions of time and space.

This means engagement with artists, scientists, and academics. This allows us to explore the space between the creative and scientific disciplines.  Perhaps you can learn to trust in your own subjectivity and that of others as much as you do in objectivity.

In Josephine Green’s e-book, Democratizing the future, Towards a new era of creativity and growth, she tells us there are new ways to create value by transforming our worldview of social models.

We can create a transformation of new approaches with new tools, new research and innovation, new leaders, new networks and new partnerships. This all involves cross-disciplinary, cross-industry, cross-border and public/private collaborations that will create the industries and markets of the future.

I am pleased to announce that I have been selected to be a guest blogger for the Front End of Innovation Europe.  

I will be sharing many more posts with you about some of the most outstanding thought leaders in the field of creativity and innovation. They will be sharing leading edge ideas with us at the Front End of Innovation Europe on how to create a better future.
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