Innovation

Where Does Creativity Hide Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex   Getting technical, it’s the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex that controls a person’s will to live, personality, and has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behavior. It is our filter or “gatekeeper”.  If a creative thought wants to surface and make […]

A Doodle Story Create a squiggle on a piece of paper. Use a phrase from the list below (or create one of your own). Transform your squiggle into a doodle, that visually expresses the phrase in some way. It could be literal or just a response to the phrase. Happy as a clam I can’t

Your Brain Is Messing With Your Head! Let’s talk about the brain…  Your brain.  Scientists and psychologists discovered long ago, generally speaking, analytical thinking is done on the left side of your brain while creativity is done on the right side of your brain.  Of course this is a gross generalization and in fact, when

The most important part of failure is not to take it personally.  Later on in this book, I will discuss a new concept of “Organic Innovation”.  This is where you look at your idea or creation as that, a creation.  Many entrepreneurs see their creations as a child. You give birth to the idea, you

The Failure Continues Here are two more quick examples of failure from companies and products you are familiar with. WD40 How about WD40.  It stands for Water Displacement, 40th Formulation attempt.  It was invented during World War II when the military was looking for a way to keep wires and other parts dry and water-free,

Try To Read This   Read this aloud… I cdnuolt bivelee taht I cluod aulacity uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer ni waht oredr the Itteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and Isat

Failure On An Epic Scale   Let’s kick off another first by talking about “failure” right out of the gate and get it out of the way. It wouldn’t be fair for me to just tout my successes and the successes of all the other people’s examples.  Yes, Henry Ford utilized the assembly line and

This is more of a challenge… Every day, I want you to write down 10 ideas.  Get yourself a journal, use Outlook, Word, or pages.  Just write down 10 ideas per day.  They don’t have to be award winning ideas or even good ones.  Just ideas. They can be about work, home, hobbies, family, or

The 30 Circles Test Take a piece of paper and draw 30 circles on it. You have one minute to turn as many circles as you can into objects. Examples: One circle could be drawn as a sun. Another could be drawn as a globe. Draw as many as you can!  Look for quantity over quality.

Look Elsewhere   The first collapsible baby carriage was invented by an inventor named Owen Maclaren.  Maclaren was inspired by the system designed for folding undercarriages for Spitfire planes in World War II. Innovator James Dyson was inspired by a cyclone vacuum system used to suck up sawdust in sawmills.  Dyson went on to design the