Stirring up Live Creativity

During the past few weeks, I've had the honor and challenge and pleasure of stirring up creativity with large groups in a range of settings.  Check it out:

A few minutes before "Who's Got the Biggest Fed Head?"

Last week, I designed and hosted a game show for a 100 Federal Reserve employees, which we called "Who's Got the Biggest Fed Head?" (email me for an audio clip of our theme song!),  testing the knowledge and collaborative abilities of teams in an interactive format.  As I've written previously, most people would be shocked to learn that our too-often maligned Federal Reserve embraces creative thinking and new approaches in service of innovation, learning and improving.  For the game show, I brought a percussionist, and we couldn't help wink at the irony of walking through the crowd of Chicago protesters, beating on their little drums, as we carted in two large congas to play for the actual Fed employees, most of whom, from what I can tell and from what Bernanke himself said recently, sympathize with the protesters.  By the way, that's a $100 bill tie I'm wearing (left).

I just got back from West Virginia, where I facilitated an innovation session for an energy consulting firm (Leonardo Technologies; check out the cool stuff they're working on).  In addition to exploring innovation and creativity through interactive exercises, we also discussed the importance of passion--how to empower employees to pursue their own creative talents and interests--and brainstormed possibilities for new clients and areas to expand their worthwhile work of shifting the energy paradigm in our country.

Stirring it up with kids and parents

I also had a chance to stir it up with younger groups recently, as a speaker for 750 kids at a middle school assembly and as part of the Malaise County Fair project I've been developing with a creative cast this past year. For Malaise, we had our first public performance with families as part of a fall festival here in Chicago, where we tested out new ways for an audience to participate musically and otherwise.  As those of you who know me know, I'm dedicated to helping all of us be creators and not just spectators, and Malaise County Fair continues to experiment with breaking down the wall between performers and audiences in new ways.

Next week, I'll be at it with another innovative program for kids, Poetry Pals, which brings together children of different faiths (in this case, kids from Muslim, Catholic and Jewish schools) to learn from each other and write poetry together.  We're always looking for volunteers to help us with this program, so please email me if you're interested in fostering interfaith relations with us.

Malaise County Fair performs

Steve Jobs Innovation Quotes

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."

"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations."

"A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets."

"Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected."

"I think we're having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we're always trying to do better."

"To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of discipline."

- Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, ex CEO and chairman

Innovation Hobnob and Articles

"In one way or another the American is an improvisation, the character in a play of his or her own invention, hoping that the audience--fortunately consisting of actors as makeshift as oneself--will accept the performance at par, believe the instructions." ~Lewis Lapham

It's been a while since I hobnobbed with the innovation crowd here in Chicago, so I wandered into the House of Blues on Monday night to check out the 500+ attendees of the Chicago Innovation Awards' annual Nominee Reception. With more than 400 organizations nominated for their new products and services this year, the Chicago Innovation Awards, now in its 10th year, does a yeoman's job shining a spotlight on creativity in Chicagoland industries.

While Chicago may or may not be the innovation hub it desires to be, I enjoyed speaker John Barron, publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times, wax eloquent about the grand innovations of this midwestern home of mine, pointing to our brave history of reversing the flow of our river, inventing public conversation and public sobbing (Oprah), with a brisk wind chill to focus our thoughts.

The truth is, innovation continues to be a leading conversation topic in cities, within companies and among politicians and writers throughout this country. And the innovation imperative remains strong--we must continue to change and invent, as we always have. As Lewis Lapham wrote in Harper's earlier this year, what truly unites Americans is not their pride or armies or GDP or common ancestry "but rather their complicity in a shared work of the imagination...If America is about nothing else, it is about making it up as one goes along."

Here are some recent articles from thinkers and improvisers trying to steer us through a bumpy ride of needed innovation:

*Tom Friedman is back with a new book, That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back. Click here for a link to a free chapter, interviews and more.

*Harvard Business School's Teresa Amabile (one of the leading researchers on creativity and one of my mentors) recently published a book, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work--read more about it here. More from me on it in the near future.

*Did you miss Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business issue? Check out the list here and a great guide to creativity by Conan O'Brien here.

*How did 9/11 spawn creativity and innovation? Read this Inc. article here.

*Innovation is dead, say PayPal founders. Check out this Forbes article here.

*Can innovation be part of a small company's every day routine? Read this Crain's Chicago Business article. And check out the video below--can songwriting techniques help business?

"Everyone Agrees" about Innovation (Whatever it is)

In an article this week in Time, Fareed Zakaria succinctly captures our national conversation about innovation: "Everyone agrees it's key to America's future" but "we don't really have a good fix on the concept."

Zakaria, the omnipresent commentator who works for both CNN and Time, has emerged as one of the most lucid and sane advocates for this buzzword we call innovation. He points out the ways the U.S. as a country is falling behind--and argues convincingly that innovation is "the only durable stength we have" in these troubling economic times. Both novel business ideas and new technology are crucial to innovation, he writes, and what's most important is the "ecosystem that encourages technological breakthroughs and their application."

Click on his picture above to see an interview last night for the Daily Show as he explains that while corporations are doing fine right now, the American labor force is not.

As the political game between two parties begins to pick up steam with Republican candidate debates, we find that "innovation," as Zakaria points out, is one of the few unifying forces in American culture right now. While researchers define innovation as "the implementation of creative ideas," national commentators tend to refer to it in terms of money--for research and development, for capital to invest in businesses, and for government programs that lead to new companies and products. Zakaria is particularly good at describing that ecosystem that fosters innovation, which includes the need for government investment (that fueled great breakthroughs like the Internet, the microchip and GPS)--and which Republicans are often less thrilled to publicly admit supporting.

Zakaria's new CNN series, Restoring the American Dream: How to Innovate, debuted last Sunday, and you can find great resources on CNN for better understanding the innovation conversation, including interviews with distinguished innovators, including John Kao, whose Innovation Nation is also a must-read on the subject, and author Steven Johnson in the video below.


I've previously referred to this conversation as the innovation imperative--the urgent need we have as a country and a culture, as organizations and individuals, to better learn how to be more creative and foster innovation. One imperative is a national and economic one, which includes creating the ecosystem and investments necessary to bring innovation here at home. Another is our own as individuals and in our organizations. I define innovation in that context as improving what's now and creating what's next. For our own innovation to flourish, we have to be constantly working on improving our current state of being--questioning assumptions, proactively seeking out better ways of doing things--and be constantly visioning and creating new strategies and possibilities for the future.

What have you been doing lately to improve what's now and create what's next for your own life, career or organization?

Reinvention, Week 3: Seeking the Power Source

For recent cultural creativity news and views, click here or here. For more on creativity from Adam, use search field (top left) or click on keywords (bottom right) on his Innovation on my Mind blog.

Since continuous "reinvention" has emerged as a hallmark of innovation in the 21st century (and I'm overdue for one), I'm in the process of attempting an actual reinvention. It's Week 3 with a new identity--which I'm calling the Warrior of Aliveness--and I've quickly realized that to think differently and be guided by a real shift of belief from within, I need fuel. I need to plug into some kind of power source befitting a Warrior to keep the process on track.

In my 20s, I remember reading the 20th century spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi, which introduced many westerners to eastern enlightenment through the life of Paramahansa Yogananda, the first yoga master of India to take up permanent residence in the West. Maybe, I thought, I needed to revisit Yogananda's wisdom to find a renewable power source.

I started by going to several yoga classes, which have generally revealed that I am pretty fat and lazy, with an unfocused mind that tends to drift and fall into its default, un-warrior-like patterns of distraction and complaints.

So to up the ante, I visited the local Kriya Yoga center here in Chicago to get some inspiration from Swami Kriyananda, the foremost living disciple of Yogananda. I was witness to a live feed via Skype of the old bearded man himself, who has many thousands of followers throughout the world. I listened intently to him for a message that could fuel me or at least steer me in the right direction. The Warrior within awoke as Kriyananda suggested that a life worth living is one in which you discover and pursue a mission worth dying for. You can't let yourself be limited by the "web of words," he said, referring to the cultural mindset around us. "Instead, create your own mantra."

Create my own mantras. Yes.

My inner guidance flickers and changes its message too often. Becoming a warrior is in large part mental, I know, and right now the natural "mantras" of my monkey mind are not empowering me. They change, they doubt. They point out how ridiculous I am. They sabotage with excuses and grievances that sound legitimate but do nothing to improve the quality of my life.

I know that to be equipped to battle for my own aliveness and the aliveness of others, I must think differently and be fueled by a different mindset. But, as Kriyananda reminded me, I have to create it. I have to choose this mindset. I have to rewrite my mental script in such a way that loose wiring becomes hard, and doubt insists on clarity. My power source must, at least in part, come from newly created mantras of my own design.

All right, Warrior, time to create.

The Groupon Phenomenon

Everyone is talking about Groupon, the Chicago-based start-up that has somehow taken an old idea of clipping coupons and leveraged into a company that has become the unrivalled new paragon of business innovation. Innovation fandom began quickly, with Groupon winning a Chicago innovation award in late 2009 when it was less than a year old and expanding throughout the country so meteorically and so successfully that Fast Company magazine has just selected it as the No. 5 "most innovative company" in the world. Yes, in the world. The magazine describes Groupon as "a savior for small businesses" and "the most exciting thing to happen to retail since eBay."

This week Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has selected Groupon co-founder Brad Keywell to be part of a new Innovation Council, dedicated to find creative ways to boost the economy. Primary founder Andrew Mason (left) has become the poster boy for innovation, quoted often, pictured playfully and suddenly a high priest of all that's creative.

Groupon is everywhere, not just in my inbox every morning and beeping me with its latest update thanks to an app on my smartphone (yes, I'm a user), but referred to constantly throughout the culture. Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart examined Obama's latest budget cutting attempts: "From now on when we buy office supplies," he mock-quoted the President, "we will join up with Canada and Mexico to look for deals on Groupon." The viral rise of copycat companies has reached absurdity levels, not just limited to those offering local deals of the day. "It's like Groupon, but with a twist," explains WeedMaps founder Justin Hartfield, offering deals, I kid you not, on medical marijuana. Check it out, as reported in Fast Company. National articles about Groupon are written everyday, including this one in this week's Time magazine.

The hype indicates how desperate we are here in Chicago and in our country to embrace, understand and promote innovation. Groupon has become the start-up model of the kind of innovation political and business leaders refer to: a creative idea with real value, in this case leading to impressive money-making, job creation and investment hunger so great that Groupon recently resisted Google's attempt to buy it for $6 billion. Yes, $6 billion for a company barely two years old.

Groupon does have a creative business model, which is primarily based on getting a large group of people to buy a discounted voucher (You have to pay for it, more like a gift certificate than a coupon from the paper) to various restaurants and local attractions. But there is some real question about its future--given that many businesses suffer real losses and have other problems. Check out this Chicago PBS television segment airing yesterday, entitled "Losing money with Groupon," which describes some issues. As customers, we like the deals but many of us are already at a saturation point, annoyed by expiration dates and too many offers we can't keep up with. So to call it one of the most innovative companies in the world seems a bit hasty.



I have found Groupon's technology to be top-notch, which is no small secret to its success. But overall I do have to give it real credit for brimming with creativity, from the wacky improvised descriptions of offers to its attempts to take risks and playfully try new things. Groupon originally came out of an altruistic attempt to bring people together for social causes and according to founder Mason, "There was a kind of freedom that came with not caring if it failed." And fail it has, included the offensive Superbowl ad campaign (video above or click here) which pissed a lot of people off and Mason later apologized for.

From its visuals to its relationships with customers and companies, Groupon embraces creativity in a way that bodes ongoing success. It's playful, snappy and engaging, and working on personalizing the experience more and more. And Mason, who acknowledges his own and the company's immaturity on different levels, seems to have the right attitude for innovation going forward. "One of the challenges of innovation is figuring out how to wipe your mind clean about what you should be doing at any given moment," he says, "and not having a religious attachment to what's gotten you there thus far."

An Innovation Blizzard hits the U.S.?

As a blizzard swirls outside my window here in Chicago, I wanted to reflect on Obama's State of the Union speech last week, during which he unleashed his own storm for innovation. "The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation," he hailed. Speaking of our response to Sputnik a generation ago, he said, "We didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs." He summarized his theme of "winning the future" through innovation in his weekly address video (below or click here if you don't see the video) by "out-innovating, out-educating and out-building our competitors."

Now, I'm not a big fan of "we must win" (and others must be crushed in defeat) language that is quite popular in business world these days, but it's good to see Obama thunder about innovation, which he hasn't dramatically done since 2009. This innovation imperative is exactly what has to be center stage right now. And because innovation does not just come from tax breaks or federal investment--but creativity throughout a culture--I particularly enjoy him saying, "What America does better than anyone else is spark the creativity and imagination of our people."


But is it true? Are we the best at sparking the creativity and imagination of our people today? Anand Giridharadas, whose book India Calling examines emerging India, recently made the point that America's culture, compared to India, is more destructive than creative:

When we talk about India and China in this country, we talk about an economic threat….[but] I think the real thing America needs to think about is that these countries pose a challenge of culture and spirit”…Here in America “we are all pulling each other down, we’re creating a culture of destruction…India and China, for all of the work that lies ahead for them, are starting to create cultures of hope and cultures of creation, where there is a consensus on saying, ‘How do we create something extraordinary’; we need to be worried not about an economic threat but the threat of that spirit in about two and half billion people.”

He may have a point, but there are plenty of ways that we can nurture a more creative spirit, and Obama's leadership can make a difference, in both business and education. But we also need new leaders to emerge, and a few fascinating signs have recently surfaced from members of our creative industries--those advertising, marketing and branding innovators who could play a greater role in raising the creative IQ of the nation. February's Harper's magazine challenged advertising leaders to reinvent Uncle Sam's debilitating reputation by creating a Superbowl-style ad campaign. How could we reframe government in a way that would inspire possibilities and positive change? Pick up a copy (or creatively scour the Internet) and see what they came up with. And check out this new initiative called No Right Brain Left Behind, supported by leaders in creative fields, to foster more creativity in education. No Right Brain Left Behind describes itself as "a speed innovation challenge, calling on the creative industries to concept ideas that can help the creativity crisis happening in U.S. schools today." Can't wait to see what they come up with.

New Year, New Call: for United States of Innovation

As we start a new year (and, some would say, a new decade) as an already reeling country now reeling even more from the shooting of a Congresswoman, I'm grappling with the state of the United States. There is no question that we are poorer than we were when I grew up, and there is much evidence that we are more divided and pessimistic than we've ever been. We need something (as opposed to "someone," which hasn't seemed to work) to rally behind. And I'm going to vote, once again, for "Innovation." Hear me out.

If there is anything that we've learned as Americans in this past decade it's that there are many versions of "America," and plenty of other Americans who don't see it the way you do. Red state-Blue state-Tea Party-Who's-the-smarty?-Obama-Drama, Hey! Our politics and media--which feed our sense of country and confidence--are so far out of wack that we don't know what is true or what to believe. We do know that from healthcare to housing, we've lost a lot of our wealth lately, and that as a culture and as individuals, we have more challenges than ever before. Some say that we are seeing the irrevocable fall of the American empire. Some say technology can save us, empowering us to write blogs like this that lead to less alienation than in previous years. Not all of us believe that though. What can really unite us?


It's "Innovation." I put it in quotes because we still need to collectively define what that means and to better understand creativity, the engine of innovation. But right now the political left and right, the CEOs and the artists, miraculously agree that innovation is needed, and that our future is dependent on leveraging our innovation capacity. I've called this the Innovation Imperative--that we need creativity and innovation more than ever, for economic, cultural and personal reasons.

Economic: America, with its diversity of ideas, free enterprise, university research and available capital, still has the raw materials for economic innovation. The Obama administration had been more quiet about "innovation" in 2010 than it had been the year before and, as I've discussed before, certain measures of innovation seem to be on the decline. But both political sides, as well as leaders everywhere, know that "innovation" is the key to us getting out of our economic hole. The "United States of Innovation" is the best rallying cry for getting us aligned and talking (!) under one unified banner.

Cultural: For economic success, we need an innovative culture in our cities, communities, schools and organizations. We have really difficult challenges now--from our healthcare to the environment to under-educated kids, that require a new mindset of innovation that can lead to real breakthroughs and better solutions. This blog has been dedicated to offering tools for an innovative mindset and culture, which include openness to new ideas, diverse perspectives coming together in new combinations, and the fostering of the "4Cs" of creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.

Personal: We live in a world without long-term job security, and that means we have to be more creative individually, able to learn constantly as adults and re-invent ourselves as needed. The world is asking us to truly leverage our unique talents in ways that provide value to others, and to do that we have to be aware of and build our competencies of creativity, which I've described throughout this blog. Perhaps the most important is flexibility--which is our ability to see things differently, seek out new perspectives, challenge our assumptions and embrace change.

Despite our current malaise, the United States is still a young country and a small shift of mindset, perhaps an inner rather than outer revolution, could lead to needed change much quicker than we think. What do you think? Can we get people to rally behind innovation? What else can unify us? Here's to a 2011 where more Americans embrace their own creativity and where we're more of a united state of innovation and collaboration.

Making Time for Think Time and Passion Time, even at Work

"There is never a day we come in and there are only a few things we need to do," explains an Obama staffer in Newsweek's current cover story about how overwhelming presidential responsibilities have become. The story makes clear that, for the President and people working with him, there is not enough "bandwidth," not enough "time to catch your breath" during the day. "Lincoln had time to think," explains one history professor. "That kind of downtime just doesn't exist any more."

Sound familiar? We are all our own president today--each of us the President of what every 21st century career counselor will refer to as the Brand called You--more than ever stretching our personal bandwidth to meet unceasing demands to get it all done. Time to think or downtime at work have become luxuries for most, and even much of what many of us consider free time is spent just trying to keep current: Checking our email, catching up with Facebook, gulping down some news, reading a blog like this (p.s. Thanks).

But for creativity to thrive in our lives--and for innovation to reign in any organization--we need that think time and downtime, that free time and play time, even at work. More than ever at work.

"We need to reinvent free time," writes Nancy Gibbs, in her excellent essay about invention for Time Magazine this week. Read it here. In the same issue, Time features the Best Inventions of 2010, celebrating the latest innovations of the year, ranging from jetpacks to spray-on hair, highlighting the very technological breakthroughs that require the time, experimentation and play that are too often in short supply. "One thing technology can't give us," writes Gibbs, "is time for serendipitous discovery." Here's more from Gibbs:

Many of us are too busy keeping up to pause for tinkering, conceiving, concocting or devising. Technology, that bullying child of progress and prosperity, gives us ever finer tools of invention even as it denies us the time to use them. We are so wired, so networked and so well equipped that one person now does the job five people used to, thus hoisting productivity while precluding creativity.

It seems we're on the verge of getting our jet packs--but no one has yet managed the time machine. Or better yet, the time expander. So we've got to play tricks on ourselves: schedule free time, however counterintuitive that may seem. Deep immersion in a task--no distractions, no interruptions--can give the illusion that time itself is receding. We feel lighter, braver, our brains more nimble; we free ourselves to try and fail and try again. I've always envied the Google engineers their "20% time": the one day a week they are told to allocate to a kind of intellectual R&D, working on projects that aren't part of their normal job description. This speaks to one of the ironies of innovation: too much freedom makes it harder, too little makes it impossible. But if we were ordered by our bosses to spend even one hour a week brainstorming, blue-skying, free-associating, I imagine the rest of the week would become more creative as well.

Dan Pink, the ever-insightful author who just spoke at the Creativity World Forum in Oklahoma last week, tackles the issue of play in this wide-ranging Blogtalkradio segment. Having time to play, to do things for their own sake on your own time, he says (start interview at 10:58), is essential both to human motivation and to creativity itself. "People are creative in situations where they have freedom and autonomy to explore," he explains, referring to Google's "20% Time," where unofficial projects became highly profitable innovations such as GoogleNews and Gmail. This is what I call "Passion Time," where employees are empowered to pursue passions during the workday along side their other work. Pink refers to this as a "form of recess from work," like a "Spring break," which is how he describes Twitter's recent "Hack Week," which allowed employees to work on whatever they wanted. He tells the story of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics invention of graphene, which came outside of regular work time research during "Friday night experiments," which was more of a play time.

As Pink explains, this idea of more autonomy, having the "passion time" to pursue creative ideas at work, is an "idea that is really spreading." Think Time, Free Time, Play time or Recess--whatever you want to call it--is becoming more common in the most innovative organizations, where leaders know their most creative resource comes from the unique brains and passions of their employees.

In these days of overload, we now need to be proactive about how we spend our time, actually scheduling it into our days. So give yourself--and/or your employees and collaborators--the gift of time set aside just to think, scheme, tinker and play. Give it a name, put it on your to-do list and see what happens.

Digging through the Innovation Awards Goodie Bag

Last week the Chicago Innovation Awards and a crowd of nearly 1000 at the Goodman Theater celebrated the innovative spirit that is indeed alive and well in the midwest. Keynoter J.B. Pritzker reminded us that many great ideas and companies like G.E., Microsoft and MTV began during recessions, and now is time for "the next generation of innovators" to step up. The evening, which included an appearance from "Visionary Award" winner and Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, honored the latest eye-opening products and services from local companies--for winner videos and more on the event, click here. There was also an overflowing goodie bag, which I'm happy to rifle through for your enjoyment.

In various ways, the award-winners reflected true innovation, which is taking the practical step of bringing creativity into the world, so let me dig in the bag to share a few with you. I'm reaching past the discount cards, freebies, magazines, promo pens and brainteaser game (thanks, John Kennedy). Now I'm briefly massaging the strawberry shortcake-flavored gum from Wrigley, the thumb-sized flashlight from Tripp-Lite, the natural sweetener from Pure Via and the noise-isolation ear buds from Molex. Not bad. Here are a couple more:

>>The Master Lock Speed Dial--Here's a sturdy lock for people who have difficulty remembering combinations (most of us?). Instead of numbers that you can easily forget, you open the lock using directional movements (like a video game joystick), so you can open the lock one-handed, without looking, based on remembering the movements you've chosen.

>>Probably the most unusual goodie-bag item I've ever gotten, here's a "Water Saving Fill Valve" from MJSI, whose HydroRight won this year's award. You actually install this one in your toilet to save water.

Innovation can be best defined as actualizing creativity in a way that provides real value or, as designer/innovator Dan Buchner recently asserted in this video (click here), "the implementation of an idea that improves someone’s life and brings meaning to their life.” Just as MJSI's innovation can make a meaningful difference, so can these other award winners whose actual products did not quite make it in the goodie bag. They include:

>Abbott Labs' recently FDA-approved HIV test, with much earlier detection ability.

>SoCore Energy's portable solar panels that can be rented and installed more easily.

>Smart Medical Technology Liftaem Patient Transfer System, which uses a cushion of air to reduce time and injury from lifting patients.

>CrowdSPRING, now the world's largest online marketplace for creative services.

>Chicago Transit Authority's Bus Tracker, an online tool to tell you exactly when your bus will arrive.

You can decide how meaningful these innovations are to you or others--and learn more about them here. But clearly the creative spirit is infusing some companies here in the midwest. If Rocky Wirtz can turn around the very recently woeful Blackhawks, miracles can indeed happen, especially if we make time for, promote and honor innovation, as these awards have aptly done again this year.

Scary to be an American? Part 2

My previous blog made the point that pessimism and fear--currently irrationally amplified by our divisive politics and media--is incompatible with creativity and change. Our midterm election may be over, but the belief that it's scary to be an American right now persists. And the truth is, wherever you might plug into the American conversation, even if you tap the more reasonable, harder-to-hear-amidst-the-shouting sources of information, it's hard not to be scared, which closes down our individual and collective creative solution-making ability.

For some hope, I had turned to Time magazine's cover story last week--the positive-sounding "How to Restore the American Dream"--but found myself again shaken by the dark "realities" it outlined. Fareed Zakaria, one of the more intelligent and solution-focused media voices today, primarily made the case that our mood is bad for good reason, with many accompanying graphs "charting the decline" of what was once the land of opportunity. The rational media may not scream fear but they do supply a torrent of facts about the economy and American decline that are just as scary.

Zakaria captures this troubling reality well in this video (below)--while at the same time making clear that we need to think differently in order to restore the American Dream. This is the great challenge for us as individuals and for American organizations of all stripes: To find a new reality, a different mindset--a more optimistic belief in being, as Zakaria says, masters of our own destiny. While we may not be able to escape the current cultural narrative (though unplugging from media would help), we have to realize it's not as true as it seems. Yes, unemployment is higher and it's harder to sell my condo, but most people I know have kept their jobs and are only "sour" when they tune into our public conversation.

When it comes to offering ideas and different thinking, one could argue, especially of late, that Republicans are the main political obstacle. This from this month's Esquire: Republicans "haven't had a new idea this century. Unless you count teabags and fear, which we don't." But it definitely takes creativity to cut the budget, and, amazingly, both Democrats and Republicans find common ground on innovation. Yes, perhaps more than any other policy point, both political sides join leading commentators like Zakaria in support of "Innovation" again and again. So the great news is that we as a nation have a real opportunity to come together to support creative ideas and investment in innovation right now.

But to have some room to do that, we can't let fear and extremism rule our airwaves and infect us individually. Last weekend's Rally to Restore Sanity made an attempt to change the conversation, and Jon Stewart's "Moment of Sincerity" is well worth viewing (below). Stewart makes the point that "we live in hard times, not end times," and rightly highlights the media distortion: "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing...the press is our immune system--if it overacts to everything we actually get sicker." "The 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictonator," he explains, is not reality: "The image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It's us through a funhouse mirror."

The truth, Stewart says, is that we work together to get things done every day. We do. But real innovation--taking the time and effort to create something new and then actually implement it--is not easy. As Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado says, "It's easier to stop bad things than to pass good things." Our challenge is to shift our mindset from fear-mongering noise to another even-more-valid reality of possibility. Most often real creativity and change come after crisis, or as new California Governor Jerry Brown just said in his acceptance speech, "Breakdown paves the way for a breakthrough." How might we help each other break through?

Swinging through the Trees on a Path Less Travelled

I had the doubly natural pleasure this week of facilitating a retreat for the Nature Conservancy in lovely Door County, Wisconsin. Like most organizations, this leading advocate for preserving lands and water is looking for innovative ways to more effectively accomplish their mission and attract more supporters (this was the marketing group). In keeping with the retreat's theme, "Innovation: Freeing your Inner Brilliance," I invoked our surroundings to make the case that individually and collectively they needed more often to swing from the trees (as in the classic Piraro cartoon, left), not only during our time together but also when they returned to the workplace.

For any culture to be to be truly innovative, it must honor individual divergence and originality. Are you empowered to follow your own passion and encouraged to support and build on your colleague's tree-swinging ideas without squelching them? We can learn to do this better when we separate diverging time from converging time, when we put off judging an idea much, much longer than we normally would. Instead of jumping to what is weak or wrong with a suggestion, we instead place it into consideration, let it breathe, build on it and play with it for a while. Later we can converge and decide which course to go.

Too many organizations today do not allow for breathing room--the instinct to judge and dismiss quickly (that's what smart people have learned to do) is so strong, that most half-baked ideas get smothered before they even have the possibility of rising. Without an environment for at least some half-baked, oddball or zany ideas--originality disappears and innovation becomes impossible.

I left the Conservancy group to brainstorm among themselves yesterday and I took to the road around the still-leafy County. I found myself walking through the woods, stimulated by how yellow the leaves were. Then it hit me--the yellow woods took me right back to a memory of the classic Robert Frost poem that I hadn't looked at for years. Let me refresh your own memory with this excerpt of Frost's "Road not Taken":

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear...

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

If you can't literally swing through the trees, at least you can more often explore paths less travelled.

Creativity highlights so far in 2010

As we head into our final quarter of 2010, I wanted to recap some of the most important headlines on creativity and innovation this year. In a year full of lingering economic and cultural malaise, the innovation imperative--our need to be more creative as a culture and as individuals--is as urgent as ever, particularly here in the U.S.

Stunning news (at least for me) broke in the spring when the largest IBM CEO survey ever identified "Creativity" as the "single most important leadership competency." In a business world that loves to overuse the word "Innovation" (most often defined as "applied creativity") but shies away from the more personal "C" word, creativity itself was heralded like never before, as I summarized previously. Now you can read the full report, called "Capitalizing on Complexity," and even access an interactive version by clicking on the graphic on the right. "CEOs now realize that creativity trumps other leadership characteristics," states the report. "Creative leaders are comfortable with ambiguity and experimentation. To connect with and inspire a new generation, they lead and interact in entirely new ways."

In July, Newsweek weighed in with a cover story called "The Creativity Crisis," which explored new research that has found that creativity test scores have declined since 1990 in the United States. The authors note that other countries are making creative development more of a national priority, with the European Union actually designated 2009 as the "European Year of Creativity and Innovation." "While our creativity scores decline unchecked," write authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, "the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses. The problems we face now, and in the future, simply demand that we do more than just hope for inspiration to strike." You can read the story and hear a fascinating radio interview about Torrance creativity tests, schools and adult creativity myths here, and can experience your own creativity test here.

Both of these headlines are calls for action, and one new source of inspiration comes from Steven Johnson, whose subtitle alone in his new book "Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation," makes its release a worthy event this month. While his book takes a wide-lens and historical approach to human innovation, he shared some of his more contemporary conclusions about creativity in the workplace in this interview with Salon.com yesterday. "The problem," he says, "is that most traditional companies...talk a big game about innovation and making their workforce more creative" but do very little to change the culture or allow for ideas to be nurtured in the normal structure of daily work. He argues for "innovation time off"--like the "20% passion time" Google allows for employees to work on what they wish--so that "you're always spending a little bit of your time working on something weird that's not part of the official plan," a "permanent track of hunches and half-baked ideas that runs alongside the regular work-week with its immediate deadlines and fixed concepts." Yes.

A local upcoming highlight here in Chicago local inspiration is the always entertaining and eye-opening Chicago Innovation Awards, scheduled for November 1, which honors our region's most innovative new products and services. If you live here, rush to reserve a free ticket (this link should work) and come join me as we see some positive examples of how humans are demonstrating the #1 leadership competency and combatting the creativity crisis as best we can during this time in our natural history...

Committing Acts of Innovation: Help Needed...

I keep thinking about my friend George asking me how much I actually "commit acts of innovation"--it's one thing to write about creativity and innovation but quite another to actually do it. In its rawest form, the creative process is simply the opening up—and then closing—of possibilities. We are engaging in it all the time. When you have a decision to make, you open your closet door of ideas, rummage around to see what’s available, and then choose one as you close the door. A more complicated decision or challenge may require much opening and closing of different doors, the pivot between divergent and convergent thinking. To be creative, we have to open wide to a divergent stream of possibility—fully turn on our faucet of ideas—but also know how and when to filter, evaluate and narrow the stream so that we’re left with the best, nourishing drops.

Innovation requires sustained creativity, repeated diverging and converging, leading to a result--a product, an outcome, a more courageous and risky perseverance that makes a positive impact. That's not easy. Right now I'm trying to bring two acts of innovation more fully into the world--a new kind of theatrical show, the Malaise County Fair, and an interfaith program for kids, called Poetry Pals. Perhaps like other acts of innovation, I realize there are two challenging realities for me here: 1. I don't really know how to do it. 2. I need help from others. And I'm trying to bring these two projects to life while at the same time sustaining my consulting business of live learning, leadership and innovation events that provide me with the money I need to live (also a particularly difficult enterprise in this economy).

Both of these projects have the goal of helping us get out of our malaise, the numbness I believe we all feel living in a culture of information overload and political paralysis, where we express ourselves less and isolate ourselves more, where we distrust our neighbors and prefer cynicism to creative possibility and personal participation to change the world. I know for many these attempts are "unrealistic" and have questionable "market value." But I've chosen to take them on. And I need help.

The Malaise County Fair is designed to be a new form of entertainment, one in which the audience participates and stretches their own comfort zone, steps beyond the typical spectator role and acts as part of the story. It's a love story and multi-arts performance that takes place at an unusual fair--where creativity abounds and there is singing and opportunities for the whole community to jam together. You can experience a free introduction to it yourself this Sunday as part of the Gypsy Jam showcase (this Sunday at 3pm at Arts at Large, 3318 N. Lake Shore Drive, just north of Belmont, in Chicago). I'm looking for more creative folks to participate, help shape it and share their talents. Can you help? Can you come to the event to support us, get involved, recommend it to friends who might be itching to be involved in an innovative project?

Poetry Pals brings together kids--and their teachers and community--who usually would not meet. Our main program has been partnering Muslim, Catholic and Jewish school kids to get to know each other and write poetry together. Everyone involved agrees that it's been wonderful and so needed in a too-divisive culture that focuses on extremism and keeps us insulated from others who are different. Click here to read more and see me on a television program sharing what we're up to. But we need help. Are you interested in helping interfaith communication and learning about other cultures? Are you good at facilitating groups of kids and fostering friendship, conversation and a little poetry writing? Do you have access to diverse groups and can help us bring in more schools and partners and money? Do you know others who might? Please contact me for a flyer, help spread the word and come to a meeting.

I know we're all busy and that these may not be the projects that interest you. I would appreciate any way you might be able to help, including donations. I also encourage you to commit your own acts of innovation however you can, starting today.

The Fallacy called Patents -Time To Discipline!

Vivek Wadhwa writes,"Patents make a lot of sense in many industries; they are needed to protect the designs of important components or design of physical products. But in software these are just nuclear weapons in an arms race. They don’t foster innovation, they inhibit it. He adds, That’s because things change rapidly in this industry. Speed and technological obsolescence are the only protections that matter. Fledgling startups have to worry more about some big player or patent troll bankrupting them than they do about someone stealing their ideas". A recent Berkley patent survey shows,venture backed business file for more patents as against startups across industries including software. Brad Feld points out to the absurdity behind the idea of patents. Bob Warfield with multiple startup credits and himself a patent holder points out how difficult it is to fight suits against patent trolls. He points to several absurd situations that we all come across in the name of patents while defending genuine progress.

Earlier we covered why patent systems need to be disciplined and went to the extent of saying that its time to abolish patents for atleast software industry. On the other hand some people think that we have reached the dark age of innovation – Physicist Heubner says that rather than growing exponentially, or even keeping pace with population growth, major innovations & scientific advances peaked in 1873 and have been declining ever since. While examining number of patents granted in the US from 1790 to the present. when he plotted the number of US patents granted per decade divided by the country's population, he found the graph peaked in 1915. The global rate of innovation today, which is running at seven "important technological developments" per billion people per year, matches the rate in 1600. Despite far higher standards of education and massive R&D funding "it is more difficult now for people to develop new technology”.

Patents impede innovation and not encourage innovation. Innovation may be the core to success and it is not be mistaken against patents or R&D budgets. As Michael Scrage wrote brilliantly, the simple fact is that R&D spending is an input, not a measure of efficiency, effectiveness or productivity. Ingenuity, invention and innovation are rarely functions of budgetary investment & pointed to the fact that Wal-Mart, Texco and Dell have miniscule R&D budgets, their quality, procurement and growth requirements have probably done more to drive productive innovation investment than any competing initiatives. Growing market competition, not growing R&D spending, is what drives innovation. A successful innovation policy is a competition policy where companies see innovation as a cost-effective investment to differentiate themselves profitably. John Hagel adds that it is a fallacy in equating patents with innovation. Normally the focus is on product innovation, ignoring process and business model innovation. Process innovation is far more powerful than product innovation – it has a multiplier effect that product innovation can rarely match & notes that the only effective measure of innovation activity is the rate of productivity improvement in an enterprise – the growth in value added generated per employee. Static productivity measures can be misleading & what may really count is the ability to sustain and amplify productivity improvements through innovative products, process improvements or new business models. Lets all shout for more innovation and whatever comes in the way that may include patents – lets get rid of them!

Apple iPhone 4 - New Design Innovations

" When creating iPhone 4, Apple designers and engineers didn’t start with a clean sheet of paper. They started with three years of experience designing and building the phones that redefined what a phone can do. iPhone 4 is the result of everything they’ve learned so far.

And it’s all contained in a beautiful enclosure a mere 9.3 millimeters thin, making iPhone 4 the world’s thinnest smartphone."

Engineered Glass

"All the breakthrough technology in iPhone 4 is situated between two glossy panels of aluminosilicate glass — the same type of glass used in the windshields of helicopters and high-speed trains. Chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, the glass is ultradurable and more scratch resistant than ever. It’s also recyclable."

Retina Display

"The 960-by-640 backlit LCD display boasts a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch, making it the highest-resolution phone screen ever. To achieve this, Apple engineers developed pixels so small — a mere 78 micrometers across — that the human eye can’t distinguish individual pixels. That makes text remarkably sharp and graphics incredibly vivid. IPS technology also provides excellent color and contrast from almost any viewing angle."

Stainless Steel Band

"Created from our own alloy, then forged to be five times stronger than standard steel, the CNC-machined band is the mounting point for all the components of iPhone 4. The band provides impressive structural rigidity and allows for its incredibly thin, refined design. It also functions as both iPhone 4 antennas."
Apple A4 Processor

"Apple engineers designed the A4 chip to be a remarkably powerful yet remarkably power-efficient mobile processor. With it, iPhone 4 can easily perform complex jobs such as multitasking, editing video, and placing FaceTime calls. All while maximizing battery life."


Advanced Gyro + Accelerometer

"iPhone 4 includes a built-in three-axis gyroscope. When paired with the accelerometer, it makes iPhone 4 capable of advanced motion sensing such as user acceleration, full 3D attitude, and rotation rate. Translation: More motion gestures and greater precision for an even better gaming experience."

Innovative Camera and LED

"The iPhone 4 camera shoots gorgeous 5-megapixel photos and stunning HD video. And with its advanced backside illumination sensor, it captures beautiful images even in low-light settings. The built-in LED flash does double duty. When you’re taking pictures, it works as a flash. When you’re shooting video it can stay on to light up the scene. And on the front of iPhone 4, the built-in camera is perfect for making FaceTime calls and shooting self-portraits."

Dual Mic + Speaker

"While most phones have only one microphone, iPhone 4 has two. The main mic, located on the bottom next to the dock connector, is for phone calls, voice commands, and memos. The second mic, built into the top near the headphone jack, is for FaceTime calls and for making your phone calls better. It works with the main mic to suppress unwanted and distracting background sounds, such as music and loud conversations. This dual-mic noise suppression helps make every conversation a quiet one."

Hyper Multi-Touch

"With its large Multi-Touch display and innovative software, iPhone lets you control everything using just your fingers. How does it work? A panel laminated on the glass senses your touch using electrical fields. It can register multiple touches at once to support advanced gestures such as pinch to zoom, two-finger tap, and more. The panel then transmits the information to the Retina display below it."


Bottomline:

Apple iPhone 4 has leapfrogged the competition in a big way... It will take mere mortals at least one to two years to catch up to the latest iPhone 4 features & functions. But to overtake iPhone 4, well that's another story. Importantly, Apple has created an amazing engineering feat with the latest iPhone 4 that possibly makes it the best designed iPhone to date. Steve Jobs will agree...

iPhone Units & Revenue Growth



The new iPhone 4.0 will accelerate the stalled iPhone Units & Revenue Growth beginning the current quarter (assuming iPhone 4.0 goes on sale on June 24), and jumping in the subsequent quarters. Importantly, the new iPhone 4.0 will contribute at least $2 billion in new business for Apple during the first 4 quarters of launch. That's another successful innovation from Apple. Would it fend off the onslaught of Google Android devices, and the impressive success of surging HTC, Motorola, LG, Samsung and others remains to be seen...

How does Apple, the #1 innovative company in the world, innovate and create game-changing innovations such as the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad and more? What is Apple's secret recipe for innovation success?

What is Apple's Innovation Strategy? Download these Apple Innovation eBook insights and learn to be like Apple... like Steve Jobs, the innovator and CEO of Apple.

"There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote
that I love. 'I skate to where the puck
is going to be, not where it has been.'
And we've always tried to do that at
Apple. Since the very very beginning.
And we always will." -Steve Jobs

Apple innovates through:
• Creativity and Innovation
• Innovation in Products
• Innovation in Business Model
• Innovation in Customer Experience
• Innovation and Leadership
• Steve Jobs Visionary Leadership

This Apple Innovation Strategy ebook provides insights, strategy, best practices, facts and much more...

Apple has built an Innovation Factory – one that harnesses creativity in its people, stimulating new ideas, and launching successful, profitable new innovations... Apple leverages its diverse culture, innovation processes, partners and networks to seize the new opportunities in the marketplace and grow its business...exponentially…

How did Apple do it?
• Increase revenue more than 400% in 8 years…
• Increase net profit more than 650% in 8 years…
• Increase market cap more than twenty times to over $170 billion and
counting…

The Apple Innovation eBook has been revised in 2011, and includes new insights, Steve Jobs interview, and much more.

Download Apple's Innovation Strategy and learn to innovate, like Apple, today!!

Design Innovation Source: Apple.com

Putting on a Show in the 21st Century

I really like the two theater trends I've noticed in the past decade or two--going to a show often offers an experience that feels much more like the circus or a rock concert.

Take a look at the final scene (right and video here) of Lookingglass Theater's production of Hephaestus here in Chicago (now extended for two more weeks to June 20), playing in our esteemed Goodman Theatre. The story of Hephaestus, the Greek god who could forge anything out of metal, is played out in an amazing array of physical and circus performances, swinging from the rafters, flipping from ribbons and navigating the trapeze. Yes, those are seven high wire performers, including veteran members of the Wallenda Family, Ringling Bros. and Cirque du Soleil, way up above the audience (click the pic to see video of it live). I believe the future here is in the merging of narrative and acrobatic acts of wonder, as seen in Hephaestus, illustrating how innovation comes through hybrids--the combining elements in ways not quite seen before.

Now I am someone who sometimes finds myself disengaged during theater, so I welcome these physical feats as a way to draw me in. The popular physical acts of our time--Cirque du Soleil, Blue Man Group, Stomp and others--are also tremendously creative, surprising us with new ways to entertain and astound. Here in Chicago I've been dazzled by the circus-like spectacles of Redmoon Theatre (the pic I took below is a Redmoon spaceman above the crowd at the recent Columbia College Manifest) and the acrobatic wonders of the smaller Ameba Dance ensemble. I find, though, that the narrative element that I need to be fully drawn in is not always there.

The other theater trend--the full-band, rock out shows perhaps first popularized by"Rent"--also works in engaging me and has thankfully updated the musical for a post-Beatles world. I'd like to hear what your favorites have been.

But I'd still like to see theater innovate further by engaging the audience even more, experimenting with removing the fourth wall from the performance. I always ask myself, how can a show enable the audience to participate even more, perhaps even shape the content of the evening? Certainly we see occasional attempts toward audience participation in improv shows, who-done-it capers (where the audience decides on the villain or outcome), Tony 'n Tina's Wedding and the like. But generally the roles are minimal and we are still seated spectators, not exhilarated participators. For years I've been working on my own version of the audience-participation show, The Malaise County Fair, which would allow audience members, if they choose, to play a role in the performance (contact me if you'd like to get involved).

What would you like to see more of as a ticket-buyer? What trends have you noticed? Do you have any other ideas for more audience participation or innovation in shows?