Tag: "cultural enablers"

Creating Creativity: Diverse associates stur the pot of new ideas

Having trouble with getting thoughts of creativity?

Identify a problem, and  and writing nothing but questions about it for 10 minutes a day for 30 days. He says that over that period the questions will change, and so will your understanding and approach to the problem. To build your observation skills, identify a busin ess, customer, supplier, or client, and spend a day or two watching how they work so you can better understand the issues they have to deal with. In a recent CNN interview, Marc Ventresca, a lecturer in strategic management at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School, agrees that innovation is not an inherent trait, but a set of skills that people can learn.

He says the goal is not simply knowing lots of people, but knowing people from varied backgrounds, who work for different companies, in different industries, have different skills, and deal with different issues, so that you are exposed to varied ideas.

When it comes to developing your ability to innovate, Ventresca recommends simply setting aside 30 minutes a week to talk with a contact you wouldn’t normally talk to — for example someone you met at conference six months ago. Ventresca says about 10 of those members yield something interesting, and two of those 10 let you do something new and valuable — by investing just 26 hours a year you’ve come up with something pretty remarkable.