Tight Budgets Breed The Best Innovations

By Dan Coughlin

Innovative thinking means searching for and implementing a better way.

That’s it. Nothing more. Do not overcomplicate this topic. It’s not about pontificating on highly theoretical concepts and wasting a lot of money. Innovation is improvement in motion.

A business innovation is the process of creating additional value for your customers that they will pay for at a greater profit for your business. Your innovations have to do both: increase value to customers and increase the profits that your organizations make. Creating value that erodes profit is not a business innovation. It’s actually a self-induced death blow to your business.

The Process of Innovation

Step One: Focus, don’t spend.

For many years I worked with executives in one of the world’s largest companies. Each quarter we would study the business results of the industry in a wide variety of categories. Every quarter one of my client’s competitors, which was much smaller and had far fewer resources than my client, would win in several key performance categories.

I didn’t understand what was happening. The people at my client organization worked incredibly hard on a large number of projects to create and deliver more value to the customers. They invested enormous resources into these innovative projects. And yet this small competitor kept outperforming them quarter after quarter.

Then one day my client hired one of the key executives from this competitor. On her second week on the job I asked her, “How in the world did your former company keep outperforming your new company?” What she said I will never forget.

She said, “We had very, very limited resources. We couldn’t try a lot of things. We had to succeed with the few projects we could afford to do. We were forced to concentrate on delivering great value on one thing at a time. Here we have tons of resources. And that’s the problem. It allows us not to have to focus in order to survive. So we end up doing too many projects and overwhelming our front-line employees and customers.”

Within a few years my client’s organization was achieving incredible results that were lasting far longer than ever before. What was the difference? In spite of having massive resources to work with my client narrowed their focus to a few key areas. No longer did they allow themselves to go off on three dozen wild tangents. They poured all of their effort and concentration into improving just those few areas. Today they are achieving truly remarkable results quarter after quarter.

Note: recessions are good for innovation. It forces every company to operate within a tight budget and be extremely focused. This tight area of concentration generates far more useful innovations than the conceptual free-for-all that companies often use during good economic times.

In the past six months I have served as a business speaker to the National Automobile Dealers Association, National Association of Home Builders, and a national conference of a major residential real estate company. These were three of the hardest hit industries in the past three years. Yet I didn’t hear talk about gloom and doom at any of the meetings. I saw and heard a lot of ideas about how people were working to create greater practical value for their customers in a few concentrated areas. It was clear that everyone understood that innovative thinking was a requirement to survive through this recession and thrive on the other side of it.

What is the one area that you are going to focus on improving for your customers?

Step Two: Ask.

Of course, one way to find out the best area to focus on for customers is to ask the customers. I suggest a simple question such as, “If there was one thing about your experience with this product (or service) that you would like improved, what would it be?”

Now be patient. Customers don’t have the answer on the tip of their tongues. Allow them to think. If they can’t think of anything, you can follow up with probing questions on specific aspects of the product or service. Another approach is to ask, “What was of value to you with this product, what was not of value to you, and what would have been of greater value to you?”

Before you start to come up with an innovative product or service, identify the statement you are trying to fulfill. Write a one- to three-sentence description of the desired outcome. Say you want to create a new countertop in public bathrooms for the sinks and faucets. Your statement might say, “In the end, we want a countertop that stays dry so people can place a book or small bag on the countertop and the item won’t get all wet.”

Innovations don’t have to be about computers or cell phones or medicine. Innovation is about searching for and implementing a better way. That “better way” can happen in any industry.

Step Three: See.

Remember: insight comes from sight. If you want to understand the customer experience in order to improve it, then go see for yourself what it is that customers go through. Don’t just ask them for ideas on how to improve the experience. Go look for yourself.

A few weeks ago I bought a quarter-sheet cake for a Valentine’s Party at my church. I went to the bakery, and asked the baker if I could see the cake before I paid for it. She opened the box, and it said, “Happy Valentine’s Day, St. Lucas Women in Red”. I looked at the cake, I looked at the baker, and then I said, “Why does it say, ‘St. Lucas Women in Red’?”

She pulled out a sheet of paper, and said, “It says right here, ‘St. Lucas Women in Red’.” I looked at it, and I said, “I meant I wanted the frosting in red, not the words.” She said, “No problem.” She scooped off the red letters and replaced it with vanilla frosting.

At the party that night I told that story. Someone else said, “I had that same experience at that bakery.” If the owner of the bakery had been a customer of the bakery, then he or she may have gained the insight necessary to create a better experience for customers.

Step Four: Stop and start over.

Sometimes you have to start over from scratch. Don’t feel compelled to merely tweak what you’ve always done.

Several years ago McDonald’s sold Salad Shakers. The idea was to put the salad dressing in a cup with the salad ingredients. Then you shook it up and, voila, you had a salad. Only problem was there were a lot of problems. You had to ask for a plate to pour the salad onto after you shook it up, and the salad dressing oftentimes ended up on the customer’s clothing.

So McDonald’s stopped and started over. They gained insights from customers. They went and observed the Salad Shaker in action at restaurants. And then they came out with a completely new salad, their Premium Salad. This new salad has been wildly popular for several years and helped to significantly increase sales of Happy Meals.

Don’t be married to your current way of doing things. Once you’ve identified the statement you are trying to fulfill and have gained insights into what customers really want be willing to take out a blank sheet of paper and start with new ideas on what will deliver the value that you want to deliver.

Step Five: Improve.

A prototype is a model that represents what your idea will look like when it’s put into action. You can create simple prototypes for both products and services. Use cheap, basic materials to assemble your prototype. Use paper, napkins, paper towels, paper clips, cardboard, and Styrofoam. Don’t use expensive materials to make fancy looking models. That’s a waste of money.

When you are explaining your concept you can refer to the prototype and that may very well help the other person understand better what it is you’re trying to get across. My all-time favorite book on innovation is The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley, who is the general manager of IDEO. My favorite quote from that book is, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a prototype is worth a thousand pictures.”

Start with five or six prototypes under the area of focus that you selected earlier. Study the prototypes, capture the best ideas, and then continue to make prototypes as quickly as you can as better ideas evolve.

Notice so far you have not spent very much money. You’ve invested time in talking with customers, observing customers, and developing prototypes. The process of innovation is not expensive. The primary investment is a mental investment, not a financial one.

Keep improving the prototypes until you land on the one that you are ready to actually create and deliver into the marketplace. This is where the costs primarily occur. You will have to spend some money in producing the product, training people on the new service they will be delivering, and on marketing the new product or service. However, notice that if you hold off on the spending until this stage you are able to provide something into the marketplace that has a far better chance of success at a lower overall investment from your business.

Step Six: Sell.

At some point you have to attempt to sell your innovation. You can’t innovate in a vacuum forever. You’ve got to put your idea out in the market and see how people respond to it. Innovation does not end with the first sale. Innovation is an on-going process. Find out what customers like and don’t like in your new product or service. And then keep working to make it better and better.

Step Seven: Find out if the proper connection has occurred

One important question to ask after your product or service has been in the market for awhile is, “Do customers feel they received the value that we intended to deliver to them?”

There is value to you regardless of the answer to that question. If customers feel they are receiving the value you wanted to deliver, then you can tell how much this value is worth to them. If customers believe they are receiving some other value that was unintended, then what is it? Perhaps that unintended value can lead to great profits for your business. If customers feel they are receiving no value from this new product or service, then you can work to determine if you need to scratch the idea or merely modify it.

My point is that I don’t want you to just stop after you’ve sent the new product or service into the marketplace. Allow customers to teach you what you don’t know about this new innovation. It doesn’t matter what value you think you put into the marketplace. What does matter is what value your customers think you put into the marketplace.

Keep searching for and implementing a better way. It is the key to surviving in tough times and thriving in good times.

About Dan Coughlin

Dan Coughlin teaches practical ideas that improve business performance. His purpose is to work with executives and managers so they achieve great performances. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, executive coach, and author of three books on management performance, including Accelerate, Corporate Catalysts, and The Management 500. Dan’s new book Find a Way to Win: Management Insights from Terry Michler, America’s All-Time Winningest Soccer Coach, will be published in May 2010.

Could This Be You?

Saw this on a friends feed and had to post. Can you relate?

Thanks to: Comics.com | Pearls Before Swine

Wiiwaa Video Game Will Have You Saying, Wii!

Seems I grew up too late for all the cool toys. I just missed the Big Wheel, too late for the PS2, and don’t get me started on the Nintendo DS. We had bikes, cards, and make-believe games (not saying that’s all bad) but I sure wish I could be a kid again. Now, along comes Wiiwaa for the Wii. Oh well, missed another one, but you still gotta check it out. Fun! Watch the video and then let me know what were/are some of your favorite games growing up?

Are You A Dreamer?

Do you feel misunderstood?

Do you have trouble remembering details and instructions?

Do you love positive feedback, yet not desire to conform to the cultural mold of expectations?

You are not alone.

Lately, I have been doing reading about cognitive styles. Primarily, there is plenty of information about strong-willed children/adults and High-D personalities as well as compliant children/adults. Yet, there is little information out about “Dreamers.”

Dr. Dana Spears and Dr. Ron Braund have a very interesting book on Dreamers, the passionate-creative-culture-changers of the world. Join me soon for a more in depth look at this type of individual and see if you are a mold breaker.

Humorous Word-Play To Start Your Day

Got this from my friend Chris, this morning. Enjoy the play on words.

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference .  He acquired his size from too much pi.
2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian
3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.
4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
9. Two silk worms had a race.  They ended up in a tie.
10. Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana.
11. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall.  The police are looking into it.
12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
13. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway.  One hat said to the other, “You stay here; I’ll go on a head.”
14. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger.  Then it hit me.
15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: “Keep off the Grass.”
16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital.  When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, “No change yet.”
17. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
18. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
19. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
20. A backward poet writes inverse.
21. In democracy it’s your vote that counts.  In feudalism it’s your count that votes.
22. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
23. Don’t join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!

How To Improve Your Learning

Kendra has some good insights about being a learner. Here she shares some effective ways to enhance your personal learning. I liked number ten. I think you’ll like this too. Enjoy!

By Kendra Van Wagner, About.com

I’m always interested in finding new ways to learn better and faster. As a graduate student who is also a full-time science writer, the amount of time I have to spend learning new things is limited. It’s important to get the most educational value out of my time as possible. However, retention, recall and transfer are also critical. I need to be able to accurately remember the information I learn, recall it at a later time and utilize it effectively in a wide variety of situations.

1. Memory Improvement Basics
I’ve written before about some of the best ways to improve memory. Basic tips such as improving focus, avoiding cram sessions and structuring your study time are a good place to start, but there are even more lessons from psychology that can dramatically improve your learning efficiency.

2. Keep Learning (and Practicing) New Things
One sure-fire way to become a more effective learner is to simply keep learning. A 2004 Nature article reported that people who learned how to juggle increased the amount of gray matter in their occipital lobes, the area of the brain is associated with visual memory. When these individuals stopped practicing their new skill, this gray matter vanished.

So if you’re learning a new language, it is important to keep practicing the language in order to maintain the gains you have achieved. This “use-it-or-lose-it” phenomenon involves a brain process known as “pruning.” Certain pathways in the brain are maintained, while other are eliminated. If you want the new information you just learned to stay put, keep practicing and rehearsing it.

3. Learn in Multiple Ways
Focus on learning in more than one way. Instead of just listening to a podcast, which involves auditory learning, find a way to rehearse the information both verbally and visually. This might involve describing what you learned to a friend, taking notes or drawing a mind map. By learning in more than one way, you’re further cementing the knowledge in your mind. According to Judy Willis, “The more regions of the brain that store data about a subject, the more interconnection there is. This redundancy means students will have more opportunities to pull up all of those related bits of data from their multiple storage areas in response to a single cue. This cross-referencing of data means we have learned, rather than just memorized.”

4. Teach What You’ve Learned to Another Person
Educators have long noted that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to someone else. Remember your seventh-grade presentation on Costa Rica? By teaching to the rest of the class, your teacher hoped you would gain even more from the assignment. You can apply the same principle today by sharing your newly learned skills and knowledge with others.

Start by translating the information into your own words. This process alone helps solidify new knowledge in your brain. Next, find some way to share what you’ve learned. Some ideas include writing a blog post, creating a podcast or participating in a group discussion.

5. Utilize Previous Learning to Promote New Learning
Another great way to become a more effective learner is to use relational learning, which involves relating new information to things that you already know. For example, if you are learning about Romeo and Juliet, you might associate what you learn about the play with prior knowledge you have about Shakespeare, the historical period in which the author lived and other relevant information.

Read More…

Sacrifice Is A Sustainable Strategy

By Dan Coughlin

My parents majored in sacrifice and minored in thrift. Every day for the first thirty years of my life I heard the word “sacrifice” as in, “We sacrificed a lot so you could be better off.” And they weren’t kidding. My mom wore the same winter coat for at least ten years. Going out to eat was a rare treat saved only for birthdays. A fancy dinner included my dad going up to McDonald’s and getting a dozen cheeseburgers and then going to the grocery store and buying a half gallon of vanilla ice cream. Then my parents, my five siblings and me sat around our kitchen table and ate it. At least 85% of all the clothes I wore in the first twenty-two years of my life were bought at garage sales.

Two Problems with Sacrifice
There were two problems with this approach.
Problem #1: Sacrifice was used like a jackhammer.

I heard the word sacrifice so many times that when I finally went on my own I was determined to go out to eat. I was determined to buy books and not go to the library. I was determined to enjoy today and not scrimp by every minute of my life. And there were these wonderful new inventions called credit cards.

Problem #2: My parents were right.

Despite all my frustrations with hearing that word over and over and over again, my parents were right and they are still right. The upside of sacrificing far outweighs the downside. A very high percentage of businesses and individuals in the U.S. have acted a lot like me for the past twenty five years. We all need to learn from my parents and make sacrifice a sustainable business strategy.

Stop Thinking About the Next Quarter, Start Thinking About the Next Decade
Beginning in the 1980s when the stock market began to grow exponentially, individuals and businesses began to obsess over quarterly returns. This obsession with short-term results caused executives and managers to think about what could be done today to make a good showing in ninety days. Think about how absurd this is. Over the course of ninety days, you might have seventy days of actual work. Imagine your results for last quarter weren’t very good so now you feel the pressure to produce great results this quarter. What will you do? You could slash your prices or come up with a hot promotion to get sales moving. You could dramatically cut costs to make the numbers look good. You could fire people or sell off assets. You could cheat and make up numbers to make the quarter look good. Or you could do something dramatically different: focus on improving the value your customers receive and remain patient over the long term.

Pixar Animation Studios didn’t overtake Disney Animation Studios overnight. They did it by remaining remarkably patient and steadily improving the quality of their films. Google didn’t become the best search engine in the world overnight. They steadily and patiently improved the quality of what they had to offer. Apple didn’t become the Most Admired Company in the World as named by Fortune magazine overnight. They steadily created more value for customers.

Stop focusing on making this quarter look good and start focusing on making the next decade truly remarkable. Ironically, as you focus on generating ten years of greatness you will steadily make the performance of each quarter better and better.

Use Credit Very, Very Carefully
Cash is annoying. First you have to have it, and second you have to have it with you. Credit cards are so much easier. You can just whip those puppies out and pay for everything from fast food to fur coats. The same is true in a business. Having a credit line makes everything so much easier. If you have a good product idea or marketing campaign, you can just plow ahead. You don’t have to think through whether or not you can really afford it. You can implement immediately because you know your good idea is going to generate a great return on investment. Except sometimes it doesn’t. Actually sometimes it generates a zero percent return on investment. That’s right. Some new products and some marketing campaigns deliver no revenue. None. Zippo. However, you do still have that little problem of the bill to pay.

My mom would search for extra pennies in the house at the end of each month to pay the bills, but she would never buy anything on credit, mainly because she was scared she wouldn’t be able to pay it off. However, being scared of credit turned out to be a very smart thing because it forced her to think through her purchases. It turns out that credit cards are a good thing, just like car loans and house mortgages and business credit lines are good things, as long as you pay them off on time.

The big problem with credit occurs when a person stops thinking through his or her purchases. Suddenly frivolous purchases seem mandatory. And paying them off today is annoying since tomorrow will always be a better day. Think long and hard before you make a purchase today that can be paid for tomorrow. Identify your margin of safety. Can you really afford it? Is there a reason why you’re not paying cash today?

Is that a Meeting or a Roman Festival?
I love a good business meeting. As a speaker, facilitator, or observer, I really get a kick out of a productive meeting where ideas are being generated, discussed, and selected for implementation. Having said that, I’m really confused by many meetings that I attend. If the attendees are going to be in the meeting room for 95% of their stay, why bother taking them to a fancy resort with expensive rooms and even more expensive food? Either go to a moderate hotel or give the attendees time to enjoy the surroundings. Some people argue that the surroundings are necessary to convey the message that the business is doing well. To which I have a very technical response: baloney! I’m writing this article on a desk my mom found at a garage sale twenty-five years ago for $20. Does my desk, which works just fine, make this article better or worse?

Get in Shape
This one is going to cut a little close to the bone. Folks, we’re out of shape. I know, I know, you might be in good shape, but the vast majority of Americans are not in good shape, including me. This concept of sacrificing goes beyond just financial waste. We eat like every meal is our last meal for the next thirty days. We need to get lean and hungry again. We need to eat right and exercise more. Isn’t it a strange dynamic that we fill our days with activities so we can’t exercise, but then we’re tired so we need to eat more to keep our energy up?

Imagine no money owed on past bills, savings in the bank, a trim waistline, and great personal energy.
Now imagine more bills than you think you will ever be able to pay off, no savings in the bank, a huge waistline, and very low personal energy.

Q: What’s the difference between these two scenarios?
A: Sacrifice.

Let me try that again.
Imagine a business with no money owed to anyone, employees who find purposefulness in their work, and great energy in the business for the long run.
Now imagine a business with stacks of unpaid bills, employees worried about keeping their jobs, and very low morale for the long run.

Q: What’s the difference between these two businesses?
A: Sacrifice.

Ok, I’ll add in one more word: patience. When you have to have results today and you have to try every idea today no matter the cost, then you have no patience. When you don’t have patience, you won’t be able to sacrifice. And if you don’t sacrifice today in order to improve tomorrow, then you will continually be in the second scenario.

Why Sacrificing People is a Really Bad Move
Firing people is suddenly the in-thing to do. Each month we read about hundreds of thousands of jobs being eliminated. This is an extraordinarily good move to cut costs in the short term and an extraordinarily bad move to improve profits in the long term. There are only a few resources that generate profits. Having money in reserve can improve a company’s ability to invest and generate more money. Of course, that theory hasn’t exactly worked out very well recently. Owning real estate is a good investment for the long term, although it hasn’t worked out very well recently either. And the other great value-generator is people.

But it’s not enough just to have employees; you actually have to tap into their minds to gain the ideas for profit generation. I suggest you gather employees together in groups of five to seven people and ask the following questions:
Without letting go of any of our employees, what ideas do you have on the following questions:

1.    What can we do to cut costs without decreasing value to our customers?
2.    What can we do to increase value to our customers without increasing our costs?

Let me encourage you one more time. Before you let go of any of your employees, gather them together in small groups and engage them in meaningful conversations. Just as executives and managers are too quick to spend frivolously in good times, I think they are too quick to fire employees in tough times. I’ve never met the executive or manager who had all the answers on any topic. The best ideas always come from group discussion followed by a single individual making the final decision. Gather your employees together and engage them in a meaningful discussion about how to cut costs without cutting value to your customers and how to increase value to your customers without increasing costs. And do this every quarter in every year regardless of whether the economy is doing great or doing badly.

Make Old-Fashioned a New Way of Life
As I’m writing this I feel old. It sounds so old to me to talk about sacrificing and being patient. Those were the words I heard from my mom and dad when I was growing up. It doesn’t feel hip or cool or young to talk about sacrificing and being patient. However, winning does sound cool. If you want to build a great career and be part of building a great business, then make old-fashioned a new way of live.

During really tough economic times like we’re living in right now, the word sacrifice gets used a lot. It’s easy to talk about sacrificing when you have no choice. Everybody has to sacrifice when the stock market falls by 45%, jobs are being eliminated, and cash flow is drying up. It’s also easy to lose weight when your doctor says, “Lose forty-five pounds or you will die.” The harder part is to sacrifice when times are great and to eat wisely and exercise when you’re in great shape.

To build truly great businesses and to get in truly great physical shape for the long term, we need to make old-fashioned a new way of life. We need to sustain our sacrifices for decades, not quarters. In doing so, I think we will all find that sacrifice creates freedom. When you choose not to buy something or eat something that you want right now, you enhance the belief that you are in control of your decisions, not someone else. That’s freedom. When you have to buy or eat something as soon as it appears, then you are not in control of your decisions. That’s lack of freedom.

My parents didn’t sacrifice for six months and then spend $10,000 on a lark. They were consistently frugal over a period of several decades. Decide on the value you want to deliver to your customers, and then consistently, patiently, and steadily sacrifice other options in order to build a great business for the long term. Be consistently frugal and you will be ready for the strategically rainy day. That’s the day when investing your carefully saved money can generate an extraordinary advantage for the business. But that advantage won’t happen if you’ve spent every dime you could borrow.

Sacrifice, be patient, and maintain that approach over and over and over. It’s actually an exciting and freeing experience.

About Dan Coughlin
Dan Coughlin works with executives and managers to improve their business momentum. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, and author of ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum. Dan’s clients include Coca-Cola, Abbott, Toyota, Boeing, Marriott, McDonald’s, AT&T, American Bar Association, YPO, Vistage International, Roush Fenway Racing, and the St. Louis Cardinals. He speaks on leadership, branding, sales, and innovation. His next book, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success is due to be published in May 2009 by AMACOM.

Martial Arts, Emotional Intelligence, And Academia

This came from the Edutopia site. Having studied martial arts, I would agree with many of the ideas Jordan has in the article. I hope you find this informative as well. Have fun!

On paper, Jordan Schreiber is a martial arts teacher, but his real goal is far broader. By shaping the social and emotional lives of his students, he hopes to prepare them for successful lives outside the tae kwon do studio and in the classroom.

The academic benefits of social and emotional learning are well established by now, and they’re no less germane in a martial arts studio. Schreiber says that as his students learn to recognize and manage their emotions, care about others, make good decisions, behave ethically and responsibly, develop positive relationships, and avoid negative behaviors through tae kwon do, they also improve dramatically in the classroom.

Indeed, with the ability to self-regulate comes the ability to focus and take in new information that’s vital for academic success. For that matter, establishing a goal for the week is as important as learning a proper stance. Schreiber rewards equally academic achievements outside the studio and physical achievements within. He follows up the students’ martial arts sequences with discussions on the meaning of success.

Read more…

Virtual Turkey Bowling! Gobble Gobble!

Fun online Turkey Bowling game. Give it a shot. I stink at it. I only got 22 points.

Speed Reading And Weird Minds

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a wreid mnid too. Seped rnadieg sluohd be a bezere!

Play Is Good For You And For Business

I love creativity in all things. As I look for creative ways to educate and train I happened upon this video. Here Tim Brown, from Ideo, discusses creativity in the workplace and how it breeds innovation. Yet, what I think I like best about his entire presentation is the way Tim got the audience involved in his talk. So, set aside 20 minutes and enjoy this TED Talk by Tim Brown.

more about “Presentation Zen: Play is good for yo…“, posted with vodpod

Vodcasts Free Up Classroom Time and Raise Performance

Saw this. Loved it. Wanted to share.

Design Thinking (plus MIT Video)

My friend and co-worker, Craig Dockery, recently posted about an interesting article he read on Harvard Business Online.

Just a couple of weeks ago I read a great article called Design Thinking at Havard Business Online. In that article, Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, says, “Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services, processes—and even strategy.”
Read more…

This particular article above requires a nominal fee for downloading but there is a video (Real Video format) presentation on the same topic available at MIT World.

Inamo – Innovative and Practical Use of Technology

I just saw this on Dustbowl and thought, “Now that is cool!” Here’s a restaurant in Soho London that utilizes technology in a creative way. Visit Inamo to see and learn more.

Menus are projected onto tabletops, sweet.

East meets West / Asian Fusion

5 More Reasons To Love Your Mac (PC Magazine)

I saw this nice little article on PC Mag.com and had to share. Some of these I knew and some are now favorites. Enjoy!

Everyone has secrets—even your Mac. And your Mac may be your friend, your best friend, or even your only friend, but there are still a few things it’s not going to share with you no matter how close the two of you are. Did you know that your Mac can proofread—out loud? That it can help you create new keyboard shortcuts in most apps? Are you familiar with its security tricks? Its productivity skills? Come along as we uncover some of your Mac’s more exotic capabilities. Some you probably already know about. But we’re willing to wager that most will be new to you, though they’ve all been around at least since Panther (OS 10.3) and some have been a part of the Mac experience for as long as we can remember. Let’s get started.

Read more…

(Image Credit – PC Mag.com)

Graphic Design, The Beauty of Type, and The Days of U&lc

By E. Brown

I just stumbled upon this site while visiting, Moving at The Speed of Creativity. The site is Wordle. They have created a cool little app that allows you to create word clouds from your delicious tags or blog rss feed. You can then customize the fonts, colors, and layout to your choosing.

Here are my delicious tags in Wordle…

Ah, this reminds me of the days I used to subscribe to U&lc (Upper & lowercase) Magazine. Now you can see the online version. But, the print edition was a thing of beauty. Never had type or the crafting of words looked so sexy. Type designers would draw inspiration and just a little envy from the over-sized newsprint periodical. I loved to look at the use of words and letters to create textures and patterns.

Good times…

It’s hard not to get just a little nostalgic. Here is the blog feed in Wordle. Enjoy!

Branding You – Why Personal Branding Is So Important In Today’s World

By Scott Lahde

Remember all the talk in the late 90s of the “brand called you?” Well, much has changed in the past 10 years – including the way we conduct a job search and the way we network with each other. But the original concept of branding yourself, especially in today’s competitive marketplace for plum roles and positions, is more relevant than ever.

Sure, you have a LinkedIn page. Perhaps you’ve signed up for Naymz and one of your colleagues invited you to join NotchUp or even one of the newer business social networks like Ryze. More and more online business networking opportunities are sprouting up every day. You may have even designed a personal web page with your professional credentials.

That’s a good start, but is that enough to build your own personal brand? No.

Focus on Number One
As executives in marketing, advertising and sales can certainly attest, marketing a company’s product or service, generating sales leads and enhancing the brand is paramount to company success. So why wouldn’t you use that same approach for yourself? Sound too self-serving? Think again.

Really successful executives, the ones that are consistently written about, quoted as experts, and asked to partner with top executives and companies, do one thing and do it well. They promote themselves and their expert opinions.

Creating an online profile in a number of places and monitoring your online presence is definitely important, but if you ignore your real world presence, you’re cutting your own legs. Busy executives pour through hundreds of emails and view scores of web pages each day. Will your digital communication or web presence stand out among the deluge of daily digital information? Well, it’s a big challenge.
What will be remembered is poignant, real world interaction.

Make it Real
You can generate this sort of interaction and attention for the “brand called you” in a dozen different ways. However, the three ways that have had the biggest impact and are often a catalyst for more opportunities are:

1. Participating in industry trade groups and associations
2. Speaking at prominent industry events
3. Writing well-crafted, by-lined articles in trade publications

In a sense, think back to basics. Some may scoff at the notion of participation at the trade level. Whether it’s engineering, finance or technology, the trades are not nearly as glamorous as being featured in Forbes or Fortune or speaking at Davos. But let’s be realistic, only a very small handful of people are invited to participate at those high levels.

So don’t scoff at them – embrace your trades! It will be your entrance to bigger and better things. Everything is cyclical – a trade article could lead to being selected for a speaking engagement, which leads to being quoted in a news article, which leads to a panel opportunity, which leads to being interviewed on television as an industry expert. You never know. Your participation with Beer Advocate magazine six months ago could have led to being asked to comment on the mammoth Anheuser-Busch/InBev merger.

Be Memorable
The same holds true for conferences, conventions and industry association events. You certainly don’t need to attend every single one in your industry, but select a few key events and really focus on your personal interactions. You may be a sales person for your organization, so of course one of your goals might be generating sales leads, but don’t make the mistake of ignoring your other goal – selling YOU.

Focus on real world interaction with people. Have the kind of conversations that will make people remember you, not run the other direction because you are hounding them. Be genuine. Be thoughtful. Find ways you can help people as much as they can help you. These tenets may seem natural to some, foreign to others, but in any case, they will go a long way in building your brand.

In Short
Create this simple litmus test: Is what I am doing improving my brand, both online and off-line?

Remember: Networking is not about collecting as many business cards as you can. It’s about quality over quantity.

I recently attended a conference and during the networking portion I was approached by a gentleman who quite frankly told me that his boss told him to attend the conference and hand out his business cards. He then offered me his business card and walked away.

Obviously, his business card was immediately circular filed the same way I file random online invites when I receive them. Do yourself a favor – don’t be that person.

Scott Lahde is a 15-year veteran of the communications industry and is Vice President, Associate Director of Corporate Communications at Deutsch Inc., a $2.5 billion top-ten, bi-coastal communications agency.

Are You Creative?

By E. Brown

It’s funny how many people I speak with that say things like, “I am not creative,” or “I wish I was creative,” or the ever popular, “I do not have a creative bone in my body!” To which I respond, “You’re full of it!…”

…Creativity, that is.

I am a firm believer that everyone IS CREATIVE. Don’t let any art snob tell you differently. Just because you may not play music, perform, paint, draw, or sculpt does not mean you’re not creative. You exhibit creativity every day of your life.

I must say at this point that I do not in anyway endorse illegal forms of creativity. Yet, you must admit, some folks can be very creative in their attempts to break the law.

At WeirdGuy blog we talk a lot about learning, leadership, technology, and more — through the lens of creativity and fun. Solving any problem is a creative process whether it’s a business issue, people issue, technical issue, or any issue for that matter.

Learning
How do you teach, train, or communicate? In order to get in touch with your audience you look for creative ways to engage the “student” in learning. You look for creative ways to make learning stick. You want learning to be fun and memorable and to solve performance related problems so you need to use your creativity. There are many others ways too — tell me how you do it in your line of work.

Leadership
How do you generate income, protect your brand, or market your products? You may hire a creative firm, but the final say is yours, right? You know your audience and you know your culture. How do you keep employees excited and engaged? You allow them to exercise their creativity. How do you use creativity in your business or where you work? Share your ideas here.

Technology
How do you scale your technical infrastructure, protect your digital data, or enhance your online environment? I.T. folk rarely see themselves as creative, yet I see incredible forms of creativity in solving many coding and back-end related issues. For example, a UI designer may come up with a hip and cool look for a Web site, but unless the technology supports the graphics, it’s only eye-candy or a pretty picture. What are additional ways your technology team demonstrates creativity? Share with others here.

Community
How do you create community, drive involvement, and foster interaction? You look for creative ways to create and spur dialog. You open the community to forms of creative expression through customization. You look for way to creatively set yourself apart from the other social networks and communities. You look for creative interchange between you and the community members. And, there are more ways to creatively leverage community — share how you do it.

Creativity
Yes, creativity. How do you foster, manage, and incorporate creativity into your life (work and personal)? What do you do to stay motivated, captivated, and innovative? What kinds of books do you read, music do you listen to, podcasts do you subscribe to, programs and movies do you watch? How do you capture your thoughts and ideas for further inspiration and creative development? Share you examples here.

Bottom line, YOU ARE CREATIVE. Celebrate it. Exercise it. Look for new and fresh approaches to all that you do and above all, have fun while doing so. You’ll find it’s a natural by-product.

Related Reading
- Creativity In The Process
- Mandatory Ping Pong In The Workplace
- Peter Pan and Willy Wonka On Creative Thinking
- New Children’s Book Idea – Creative Learning is Fun!
- Creative Ways To Make Complex Information Simple
- Doctor Doctor Makes Learning Fun

Airport Terminal Seating With A Tude

I love the simple design of this functional artwork. Also, if you’re working in a terminal and do not want someone sitting next to you, all you need to do is remove the back-rest and –tadaa! — instant work surface :)

By Tomek Rygalik. Posting from designboom.com | Dustbowl

10 Tips For Global Communication

NOTE: This was posted on Communication Nation a little while back, but I loved the drawings and had to share.

By Dave Gray

The difference between local and global markets is like the difference between the fishbowl and the ocean. To understand and engage successfully requires a shift in perspective. Here are a few tips to help you get the most from your global communications efforts:

1. Get outside your fishbowl.
To go global you’ve got to get out from behind your desk. Your culture surrounds you like the air you breathe, and you can’t understand it until you get outside it. Spend some time – an extended period, if possible – completely immersed in another culture. When you return, you’ll be surprised how many things you notice that were previously invisible.

2. Be authentic.
Being global doesn’t mean losing your identity. If you’re a global company that was started in Germany and is headquartered in Germany, it’s perfectly ok to be German. It’s a multicultural world and you are a part of it too. The key is to be respectful of other cultures while being true to your own unique identity.

3. Remember that you are a guest.
When you are visiting another country, or when you open an office there, you are a guest. The same rules apply that would apply if you were visiting a friend’s house. Be polite, respectful, and thoughtful in your communications.

4. Think visually.
There’s a reason why TV is booming while newspapers are going out of business. People understand pictures faster and more easily than words. With pictures you can communicate complex ideas instantly, and virtually nothing is lost in translation. And words need to be translated, while pictures are a universal form of communication.

5. Ask for feedback.
Share your ideas with global teams early, when they are in the napkin-sketch stage, and ask for feedback. When you ask people to participate in defining the message, you build trust. If you build your message globally, then deployment becomes much easier.

See the remaining 5 tips at Communication Nation…