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The Innovation Blog

Book Review: Little Bets, Big Insights

Posted by Creative Realities on October 5, 2011

In Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, a fantastic book about the creative process, Peter Sims builds a compelling case for why breakthrough ideas come about as the result of lots of little experiments. Drawing on everything from Chris Rock's method of developing stand up comedy, to the production process of the animation teams at Pixar, to the "HP Way" corporate culture inspired by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, to Frank Gehry's unconventional architecture designs, Sims advocates for a creative process that defies the common understanding of creativity. Sims slays the myth of the creative genius who gets hit with a bolt of inspiration out of nowhere like lightning. Sims argues that, instead, most people who are highly creative achieve success through a constant, deliberate cycle of experimenting, failing, adapting, and fine-tuning.  Here are a few of Sims key insights.

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Topics: Chris Dolan, creativity, Entrepreneurial, creative thinking, breakthrough, creative problem solving skills, creative thinking skills, approximate thinking, developmental thinking, implementation

Innovation. The worst failure of all is wasting a failure

Posted by Creative Realities on April 20, 2011

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Topics: Jay Terwilliger, Vijay Govindarajan, Learning From Failure, Innovation, creative problem solving, Innovation Metrics, breakthrough innovation, criteria for innovation, approximate thinking, developmental thinking

When cars poop #2 and Innovation skills & Tools

Posted by Creative Realities on March 23, 2011

Continuing the conversation about “When Cars Poop” from last week, my goal is to help people think differently, more innovatively, and to have some fun.  Along the way, we’ll introduce some innovation tools and skills.

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Topics: critical ideation skills, creative thinking, Innovation, strategic innovation, creative problem solving skills, brainstorming, creative thinking skills, approximate thinking, sustainability, technical innovation

Meet Art Fry, innovationist and the inventor of Post-it® notes

Posted by Creative Realities on September 5, 2010

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Topics: Jay Terwilliger, breakthrough innovation, approximate thinking, connection making, developmental thinking

Wake Up Your Creative Side: Skill #1 Approximate Thinking

Posted by Creative Realities on September 3, 2010

Skill #1: Approximate Thinking

Learning that you don't have to be right, right away.

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Topics: convergent thinking, divergent thinking, ban the bazooka, approximate thinking