Get inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci when thinking about innovation today

Gregg Fraley: “Ideas are not expensive. Only the implementation stage costs money”

“If your are not inspiring as a leader you shoud ask yourself what is wrong with this pictures” . Gregg Fraley, creativity and innovation expert, author, speaker, and ideation facilitator, had a rich professional life with a lot different jobs and functions (in the interactive TV industry, a.o.). He went through successes as well as disappointment. “My failure teached me a lot. I have learned the hard way” tells the expert. Due to those experiences, Gregg Fraley is more convinced than ever:” innovation is the key thing in company”

Nowadays, Gregg Fraley advises companies all around the world. Beside, the author gives speeches about the ways innovation shoud be implemented.

Globe Corp.biz met the creativity and innovation expert at the Creawal Forum 2009 in Liège.

Innovation: not a isolated process

Two tips to avoid ineffective and without brainstorming overnight

Though, brainstorming requires some precaution: “Pay attention to what comes before and after the brainstorming. Before it must be prepared, be well aware of market needs. Clearly identify challenges that must be met. If you brainstorming out of a vacuum. You may come with great ideas but they wont necessarily sells or be applicable. After brainstorming it is important to  keep track of all ideas and take action on the basis of some of them. This step is strategic, by doing so you show that you take these sessions seriously. This way, your employees will be keen to generate quality ideas”

“Generate new ideas  doesn’t cost money”, Fraley stresses. Only their implementation requires an investment. You can even sell some of your ideas “because what attracts investors if it is a good idea?”

Difference between creativity and innovation, the definition of Gregg Fraley

Eventually, the consultant explains the difference between creativity and innovation. For Gregg Fraley Creativity is “a novelty that is useful” while innovation is “using a novelty that is useful and generate one way or another value. Whether it is money or improvement in processes. However, we should not limit the creativity to art and self expression, adds Gregg Fraley. Being creative can also mean making decisions or doing some analysis. “There can be no innovation without creativity, any business needs to encourage it”, sums up the expert.

Worth reading on the topic:

Emphasis on Innovation, Brand Building during Recession

Open innovation and other foolish ideas

Creative Problem Solving, interview with Gregg Fraley (Jack’s notebook)

The point on the Wikinomy (by Don Tapscott)

Is the link economy the key to innovation in business ? Definitely yes!

Very interesting post found on The Restless Mind, the blog of Mark Ury, architect and occasionaly entrepreneur. He reminds us of a few succesful companies, like Procter & Gamble, which have build their growth on a new innovation approach. Here is an excerpt.

BusinessWeek’s Chief Economist Mike Mandel recently penned “Can America Invent Its Way Back?” and highlighted that while the US spends on R&D, it doesn’t get its bang for its buck:

“Since 2000, the nation’s public and private sectors have poured almost $5 trillion into research and development and higher education, the key contributors to innovation. Nevertheless, employment in most technologically advanced industries has stagnated or even fallen. The number of domestic jobs in the computer and electronics sector continues to plunge while pharmaceutical and biotech companies lay off as many workers as they hire. And even the industry category that includes Google (GOOG)—Internet publishing and Web search portals—has added only 15,000 jobs since 2003.”

Mandel’s piece goes on to suggest that “innovation economics” are an important part of the road forward, stressing that idea management, culture, and “creation economics” are the antidote to traditional economic thinking that emphasize taxes, inflation, and cost-control.

He’s right, of course. Corporations (and the infrastructure that supports them like public labs, universities, and policy makers) are still in an industrial-age hangover, too blurry-eyed to notice that their organizational DNA—a military blueprint that favors information asymmetry and strict vertical hierarchies—is counterproductive to the post-grid era, a network model that encourages edge-competencies and group coordination.

Today, companies that act porously—enabling and encouraging the flow of IP and talent in and out of their sphere of influence—are winning. Google is an obvious example, an organization that thrives largely by coordinating—rather than suppressing—the flow of information between people and markets.

So remarkable is their success that the “link economy” has become an increasingly recognizable phenomena, a pattern that spotlights value wherever it resides and manages abundance rather than controls scarcity.

The rest of this very interesting post on the economy of innovation is to be found here.