Creativity and Imagineering - Session #1

[ckata]

Hi everyone,
I hope our first Creativity and Imagineering session gave you a good solid understanding of what it is that we are attempting to acheive.

Thee three sections covered in this session were:

1. Transforming Your Organization - how can we become more innovative
2. The 10 Types of Innovation - where in the organization we can innovate
3. The Innovation Process - how we can implement a formal process for identifying innovative ideas and seeing them through to implementation.

As discussed, please use this forum for discussing the session. Post your comments and questions.

I am proposing a challenge! The first person to post the following gets a free lunch from me:

1. List the ways in wich a company can become more innovative
2. List the 10 areas of innovation.

[agreen]

Chris -
Thank you for your hard work and effort in organizing our first Innovation session. As for the answers to your questions, and some input of my own... please read on.
1. List the ways in which a company can become creative:
Phil (if I can use his first name) talks about the following 5 ways in which a company can become innovative.
1. Have a good story to tell
- In the short month that I have been at TechWyse, I have realized that we have many great stories to tell which can help in many areas of our business. Specifically, these stories have helped and will continue to help the sales process.

2. Create your own language
- TechWyse has a great brand and unique "Wyse" language which we can internally adopt... in fact, I believe we are already doing so!

3. Don't mistake token change for real change
- I believe this point is one of the most critical statements Phil makes. Employees can become easily frustrated if all they see is "lip service" from management. Following through with creating an innovative culture and workplace can do wonders for moral and the company's success.

4. Make innovation a group activity
- Again, relying on my month of experience with TechWyse, I am humbled to see the creativity of my coworkers. There are so many creative individuals in the organization and collectively, we can be a force to be reckoned with. Enabling group sessions like this and others in the future will result in positive change for the organization and will help us to stay on the edge of our industry's developments.

5. Expect setbacks
- I am glad this point was made, no innovation process is a walk in the park. Failures are inevitable, and can lead to frustration. Often that frustration can lead to a desire to give up and stick with the status quo. We should encourage each other through this process if our ideas have merit and help one another to see them through.

B) List the 10 areas of innovation.
The following were the 10 areas of innovation identified by Phil.
1. Business Model - Incorporate innovation into the DNA of your business model.

2. Networks and Alliances - How can we joining forces for, mutual benefit, with others in our industry. Some examples could include advertising agencies or branding agencies.

3. Enabling Processes
4. Core Processes - Creating and adding value to our offerings (product or service). For example, taking an existing process like PPC and adding analytics for our clients. This allows us to up-sell with a foundation of data and professional opinion.

5. Product Performance - New products, changes to existing products.

6. Product Systems - How you provide a platform for multiple products (innovation pipeline, customer feedback loops)

7. Service - Providing value to customers and creating good relationships with buyers.

8. Channel - Getting your product or service to market, how you do that creatively

9. Brand - Communicating TechWyse to both our existing customers but also our potential clients and our competitors.

10. Customer experience - Focusing on all "touch points" we have with our customers is a great way we can innovate.

I believe the above answers your challenge questions Mr. Kata. Do you like sushi?

Adam

[DJ]

Be careful Adam --- you might start gaining too much weight with fast responses like that!

I like these ideas and I think they are great. The important thing is inspiring this kind of talk amongst us all! It will keep us all fresh and insprired.

I wish I had more time to do this because I have so much to say but for now Ill sit and see what others feel about thse types of things!

Now who is next? hmmmmm.... Im betting its JIHAD JOE

[ckata]

Adam
Thanks for the post - sorry for getting back so late - this week was retarded at best !

Did I mention that I LOVE SUSHI?

Let's organize a Sushi lunch next week, and yours is on me!

Cheer,
Chris