Your Adjacent Possible – It’s Bigger Than You Think

Why didn’t  Leonardo da Vinci invent the helicopter? In the 1480’s he drew a vertical flight machine. His notebooks reveal that he built small models of it. So why wasn’t he the first person to make a helicopter?

Loose Connections Stimulate Innovation

How many friends do you have? How many acquaintances and contacts? 5, 50, 150, more? Often innovation is about making unexpected connections. A diverse network of contacts increases our chances of making these connections. Your network is a great asset in expanding your thinking, providing new inputs and generating novel solutions.

Twitter: The Amplifier and the Fishing Rod

I was speaking with the social media director of a large company recently and he described Twitter as the amplifier in the social media system. His company posts interesting content into different platforms (Facebook, Pinterest, blogs etc.) They know it will be read by the users of those platform and reach a significant number of people.Continue reading “Twitter: The Amplifier and the Fishing Rod”

Enterprise Social Networks: Build It and They Will Come (Maybe)

Enterprise social networks (like Yammer or Jive) are great for sharing information, having conversations and developing ideas. I seen a number of businesses implement enterprise social networks. I know that some of them have been disappointed with the outcomes. They’ve invested in the implementation and roll out. Technically the implementations have been great. Yet peopleContinue reading “Enterprise Social Networks: Build It and They Will Come (Maybe)”

Capture the Creative Energy of Everyone in your Organisation

Have you thought of running innovation challenges? They can: solve your most pressing problems increase productivity, reduce costs capture the creative energy of everyone in your organisation They’re engaging, interesting and motivating.

Time your Tweets for Maximum Impact

When you Tweet has a big impact on how effectively you get your message across. If you’re organising a Tweet campaign you have to think about your tatget audience. Ask yourself when they will be most receptive to the message you want to deliver. Then time your Tweets so they have the maximum impact.

Social Creativity = People + Appropriate Technology

Crowdsourcing, collaboration, co-creation – there’s a lot of interest in how to involve more people in creative processes. It is often referred to as ‘social creativity’. But do we really understand how to combine people, technology and creativity to generate new solutions? Here’s a simple four step model that can help commercial organisations, not-for-profits and social enterprises: