What Is The Relationship Between Dissonance And Innovation?

A music theory book might seem like an unusual place to find inspiration for innovative thinking, but there is a musical principle that provides a useful metaphor for how innovators find inspiration – and also happens to separate the great composers from the mediocre ones. That principle is dissonance. The Power of Dissonance In its […]

dissonance

5 Innovation Blind Spots That Nokia and Kodak Overlooked

When the mantra “innovate or die” is invoked, two companies who are often mentioned as examples are Nokia and Kodak. But in what ways, exactly, did these two companies fail to innovate? and what lessons can we learn from their failures? Here are 5 innovation blind spots that I identified that ultimately doomed them to […]

Lucid Dreaming Can Help You Be More Creative

In the 1984 movie “Dreamscape” starring Dennis Quaid and Christopher Plummer , government researchers found a way to have people join another persons dream and then actively participate, and in some case disrupt it. The core of the movie is to use this new found ability to do both good and evil. After I watched […]

How To Create Innovations By Re-purposing Old Ideas

If you look up the Merriam-Webster’s definition, it says that innovation is “the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices, or methods.” However, in a world of continuous technological and ideological advancement, how much is really new? The truth is we are creative beings, but we don’t create alone. While some will try to […]

12 Tips From Elon Musk On How To Be More Innovative

For many innovators, making a splash through social media is the subject of long thought and a lot of trial and error. On the other hand, innovators like Elon Musk tend to have the Midas touch when it comes to combining innovation and social media. For example — on March 30, Elon made a vague […]

How To Use Crowdsourced Creativity for Innovation

Everyone knows of the old saying “Great minds think alike,” usually said as a kind of joke when two people have the same idea at the same time. But just how true is that statement? In fact, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that bigger, better innovations happen when people of wildly different backgrounds and […]

See Your Frustrations As Inspiration For Breakthrough Innovations

Had enough of Barbie’s Dream House? Ever wonder why dolls and tiaras and pink party dresses fill the “girl” aisles of the toy store? After one such stroll down the isle with one of my grand daughters, I was reminded about the stereotypical thinking around “girl tech”. In one of my previous roles, a team […]

How Brave Do You Need To Be To Innovate?

Do you consider yourself a brave person? A person of courage and conviction in the face of a challenge? Most of us don’t, but as an innovator, you practice bravery every day. Bravery means opening oneself up to criticism and overcoming the fear of failure in order to do something extraordinary – to create a […]

Here Are The 3 Skills Needed For The Emerging Innovation Economy

A few years back, I was invited to participate in a meeting with leaders from the US Department of Education. Others in attendance at the meeting included university presidents, representatives from the teacher unions and a handful of others. All told, there was about 20 people in the room. The objective of the meeting was […]