InnovatorsDigest: 4.2 Create-to-Innovate

New "Plan-a-Date-to-Innovate" Calendar with Over 100 Innovation Events

Innovators seeking unique opportunities to learn at workshops, webinars, conferences and experiences should check out our new calendar by clicking HERE.

Find out the dates of leading-edge conferences such as the World Future Society's Conference, Pine & Gilmore's thinkAbout, a 2-day/4-webinar series called Accelerate-to-Innovate, plus convenient low-cost Questionate-to-Innovate & Decorate-to-Innovate webinars.

Additionally, you will find dates for webinars, networking events, training workshops and certifications for innovation trainers, facilitators and coaches. Click HERE to link to the calendar. Bookmark this page to review the calendar often as it is updated weekly. Download a PDF of the calendar by clicking HERE.

NEW Innovation Tool of the Month Club.com Provides Innovation Stimulus

CLICK to Learn About a New Club for Innovators!

www.InnovationToolOfTheMonthClub.com

20 Questions to Increase Digital Engagement

Internet marketing experts Leland Harden and Bob Heyman authored, Digital Engagement, to help people understand how internet marketing can capture customers and build brand loyalty. The book contains a superb 2-page "Digital Engagement Scorecard" that is ideal for identifying innovative growth opportunities by leveraging the internet.

Harden offered the following 20 questions to get started on the path towards better digital engagement.

20 Questions to Increase Digital Engagement
1. What is digital engagement?
2. Is your site instrumented for measurement, and which web analytics tools should you consider?
3. What metrics should you be watching? What should you be measuring?
4. How can you protect all relevant domain names?
5. How can you aggressively protect your brand on search engines?
6. Should you be using more than just Google in your search program?
7. What is entailed in doing effective search engine optimization?
8. What are the best ways to use blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts or webinars to reach customers?
9. What should you consider when you set up a corporate blogging initiative?
10. How do you identify and recruit important influencers of your customer base?
11. How can you empower your customers to be effective word of mouth/word of web marketers for you?
12. How can you incorporate best practices of web video on your site?
13. How can you make a video go viral?
14. How can you make sure your web videos help your search engine rankings?
15. How can you make your online advertising more effective?
16. How can you easily gain incredible competitive intelligence on the web?
17. How you can use social networks to reach customers?
18. How should I utilize virtual worlds in my marketing initiatives?
19. What questions should I consider for the mobile web?
20. What are some of the best practices being utilized by companies using Web 2.0 tools?

Naturally, the book begins to answer all of the above questions. You can purchase Digital Engagement from Amazon.com by clicking HERE.

Decorate-to-Innovate: 8 Great Questions to Plan Creative Spaces (Download Free Poster)

"If you want people to think outside of the box, don't put their brains in a box," states Gerald "Solutionman" Haman. However, most people meet in traditional box-like conference rooms and hotel ballrooms. Haman has helped many organizations design spaces or facilities that inspire innovation and creativity. Since 1992, his Thinkubator in Chicago has inspired thousands of people to think outside of the box.

While facilitating innovative design sessions for Hermann Miller, Capital One, the Singapore Quality Centre and several conference centers, Solutionman developed Question Banks of over 1,000 provocative space design questions. The "Space Design Question Banks" helped architects, interior designers, facilities managers, and customers "collaborate to decorate to innovate" while reducing costs. Do you want to start designing your own creative space? Here are some questions to begin creating your dream environment.

8 Questions to Help You Decorate-to-Innovate
1. Where do people do their best thinking?
2. How do/does environment and space impact creativity and innovation?
3. Where are people when they think of their most creative and innovative ideas?
4. Who works in environments or spaces that inspire creativity and innovation?
5. What characteristics, elements or resources from other people's environments might be applied in your spaces?
6. What might be changed or improved in the current environments and spaces to inspire more creativity and innovation?
7. How would you describe the ideal personal environment that might inspire you to be highly creative or innovative?
8. How would people describe the ideal environment that inspires collaboration and teamwork to produce more creativity and innovation?

Download a pdf of your FREE color posters of the "8 Great Decorate Questions" and "Quotes on Space Design" by clicking HERE. Take the 8x11 inch posters to your next meeting to stimulate some very provocative innovation conversations.

Get more information on the Decorate–to-Innovate™ Method by registering for webinars listed on our Innovation Calendar. Get more information or request to register by clicking HERE to send an email.

Affiliate-to-Innovate: 60,000 LinkedIn Innovators in Groups Can Use NEW Discussion Forums

LinkedIn just released a valuable new feature that allows Group members to engage in discussions about innovation, creativity and other interesting topics. Articles from Innovator's Digest will be linked to some provocative questions in Group Discussion areas.
Get ThinkedIn by joining in our innovation conversations via the LinkedIn Groups that now include over 60,000 innovative minds.

Click Below to Join Our Top 24 LinkedIn
Innovation Groups & Join the Discussions!

Do you want your free subscription to Innovator'sDigest? Click HERE to subscribe and receive innovation news that includes questions used for LinkedIn Innovation Group Discussions.

Telecommuters Have New Stimulus for Creativity

Telecommuting is quickly growing as companies struggle with real estate costs, space needs, attracting & retaining talent, and contributing to the "green" movement. Many employees welcome this flexible work option but wonder how their creativity will be affected without other employees to brainstorm with or bounce ideas off of.

Creativity? What's a telecommuter to do? Find new and interesting ways to be creative and innovative. Being in a location other than the traditional workplace, such as one's home or in the park or even in an airport, can offer a host of creative stimulus. Look around. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? What do you think? Utilize these impressions and thoughts to stimulate new thinking around a goal, challenge of problem you have at hand.

For example, if you're at home, take out Solutionman's KnowBrainer tool, go to a window and think about Card 50, "If the sky is the limit, what might be possible?" This blue sky thinking can yield great results! Or how about Card 56, "What ideas might be borrowed from movies, television, radio, music, books or the Internet?" Your home will most likely allow you better access to movies, television and music than the traditional workplace. Imagine the possibilities.

There are other techniques you can use to leverage others virtually as well. We'll discuss that in another edition, so stay tuned. For more on telecommuting, visit http://managingtelecommuters.com

New "Politicator" Brainstorming Technique: Use Obama and McCain's Words to Innovate (Download Free Worksheet)

Interesting innovation opportunities can be inspired by paying attention to the language used by American presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. I've created a new brainstorming technique called The Innovative Politicator™ for people who want to develop innovative ideas that are politically correct. Now you can now generate ideas that appeal to Republicans, Democrats and Independents by using the whole brain – not just the right of left sides!

Technique Background
Content for The Innovative Politicator™ was identified by applying rhetorical analysis methods I learned in Graduate School at the University of Minnesota where I earned a Masters degree in Communications. I took pages of notes while listening to weeks of speeches by McCain, Obama, and Vice Presidential nominees Joe Biden and Sara Palin. Over a 2-week period, that included national conventions of both parties, I kept track of the words used by each candidate and made note of which words generated high levels of applause and emotional engagement. I was fascinated by the similarities and differences between the rhetoric of both parties. There are over 900,000 thousand words in the English language and I identified 37 words (called Wordators in the worksheet) to stimulate ideas.

37 Political Brainstorming Words
RepublicansDemocratsBothParties
1. America
2. Better
3. Care
4. Change
5. Character
6. Children
7. Country
8. Democrats
9. Education
10. Energy
11. Families
12. Fight
13. Future
14. Going
15. Government
16. Health care
17. Hope
18. Independents
19. Jobs
20. Leader
21. Life
22. Love
23. Mothers
24. Nation
25. Party
26. People
27. President
28. Promise
29. Reform
30. Republicans
31. Stand
32. Taxes
33. Trust
34. Work
35. World
36. Years
37. Young

Download Your Free Worksheet
Individuals and teams can use this self instructional worksheet for a wide variety of goals, challenges, problems and questions.

Download your FREE PDF of The Innovative Politicator™ Worksheet by Clicking HERE. The worksheet is simple and self instructional. Consider it a gift that you can share with innovators regardless of their political views.

Politicate-to-Innovate,
Gerald "Solutionman" Haman

Success is Dangerous

It's that time of the year again. Dan and his senior management team are at their annual strategic business meeting. They're feeling pretty good having just come off of a few years of success. As they get into the their planning discussion, a sinking feeling starts to come over the team. Where's the 2008, 2009, 2010 growth going to come from? Do they have enough in the pipeline? Has success inadvertently led them into the danger zone? Have they taken their eye off the "innovation ball?"

Hit it out of the park, by infusing an innovation culture into your organization. Below is a Part I excerpt of the "LEADING INNOVATION Question Bank" covering process (based on SolutionPeople's Accelerated Innovation Process) and designed for leaders who want to enable, inspire and drive innovation. Stay tuned for excerpts from Parts II & III covering the other aspects of culture such as strategy, communication, reward & recognition, structure, learning & development, and work environment.

LEAD-to-INVESTIGATE

What mechanisms, processes & methods are we using to determine what is needed, wanted or wished by our customers?
What percent of our strategy should be focused on incremental innovation versus breakthrough innovation?
How should we fund, resource and organize our innovation strategy?

LEAD-to-CREATE

How might we collaborate with customers, suppliers, partners, employees, academia, or competitors?
How might we form whole-brain teams for diversity of thought?
What innovation tools might we provide?

LEAD-to-EVALUATE

How could we evaluate ideas, prototypes, and concepts?
Who could be on the evaluation team?
How could we nurture ideas, but know when to stop developing them if necessary?

LEAD-to-ACTIVATE

What internal and external networks must be created & leveraged to bring our product or service to the desired market?
Who from the "investigate, create or evaluation team" must be included?
What roadblocks must I, as a leader, work to eliminate?

Corinne Miller - Innovation Consultant, Facilitator, Trainer & Coach at SolutionPeople
Email Corinne

Innovate Like Edison: 8 Great Questions from Michael Gelb

When a security guard at the Thomas Edison Winter Estate museum in Fort Meyers, Florida discovered that the young Gerald Haman was sitting in Edison's desk chair, he promptly escorted the future Solutionman OUT of the museum with a stern warning never to return.

It turns out that the museum's velvet security rope was not in place, and Haman saw the opportunity to sit in Edison's favorite chair and try to channel the creative spirit of the world's most famous inventor.

It never happened for Haman, but authors Michael Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott (Edison's grand niece) may have indeed channeled the spirit of the great inventor in their new book, Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of America's Greatest Inventor.

QUESTIONATE:
8 Great Questions to Innovate Like Edison

Do I have a disciplined, systematic approach to innovation?
Do I focus my creative efforts toward the creation of value for others?
Do I consistently see opportunity in the face of adversity?
Do I cultivate "Master Mind Collaboration" through diversity in my circle of contacts?
Do I know how to make the most of my own learning style and the styles of those with whom I interact?
Do I cultivate balance between seriousness/play, intensity/relaxation, solitude/team and sharing/protecting?
Do I know how to make sure that people remember my message when I present?
Do I have a good understanding of my core competencies and how to link them to gaps in the marketplace?

If you answered YES to most of the previous questions, your future should be as bright as a 100 watt light bulb! If you answered NO… you may want read the book and learn HOW to Innovate Like Edison.

7 Improvements in the NEW KnowBrainer 4.0 Innovation & Creativity Tool

In 1989, Gerald "Solutionman" Haman released the Pocket Innovator, a tool FORTUNE magazine called "The World's First Creativity Tool." Tools created by Solutionman are now being used by over 100,000 people in 30 countries. The experience has paid off. Solutionman has released the NEW version 4.0 of the KnowBrainer Innovation & Creativity Tool.

Order KnowBrainer 4.0 tools for $98 at the SolutionStore and give them to your employees, families and friends. One company ordered 500 tools to distribute at a company meeting and everyone found the tool to be much more valuable than the traditional meeting handouts. The KnowBrainer's compact card-deck fan format puts the gift of inspiration for innovation in the palm your hand! Award-winning inventor, Solutionman, will be happy to include an autographed note card with tools ordered as a gift!

If people have an iPod, then they will enjoy getting the world's first innovation application for the iPod and iPhones – the PodBrainer. Computer users will appreciate the new FlashBrainer™ software also available at the SolutionStore.

What is "New and Improved" in Version 4.0?

Improved Content - 20% of cards were changed
Better Questions - Applied Questionation™ methods to formulate more provocative questions and added "Think" to popular "Be, Know, Feel, Have, Do" question cards
Clearer Directions - Instructional design facilitates better thinking and transition between Stages
Enhanced graphics - Improved color coding system
Innovation™ Process "Steps" are Renamed "Stages" - Provides opportunities to include "steps" within each Stage and integrates better with product development "Stage-Gate" models
Integrated with Software & iPod & iPhone eTools - Identical content to new FlashBrainer™ software and PodBrainer™ for iPods
Packaging Contains New ISBN# and Bar Codes - Convenient for distribution via book stores and Amazon.com

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4.2 Create-to-Innovate