Entries from November 2008 ↓

You’ve heard that guests and fish smell after three days? Sometimes it’s even sooner.

Be a good guest—a friend, not a freeloader. Don’t eat someone out of house and home. Don’t appear at someone’s door uninvited every afternoon. Don’t reserve a permanent seat in front of a friend’s computer or television. Continue reading →

When you’re voicing an objection to someone else’s ideas (or your own), try saying, ‘Yes, I hear you. AND let’s brainstorm some new solutions for a potential hurdle I’m anticipating.’ Or, ‘The things I like about that idea are . . . Now let’s build something around those qualities.’

Think about an idea (whether yours or someone else’s) that was recently rejected out of hand. Write down things that could have been said to consider the possibilities behind the idea.

We have deadlines to meet, kids to pick up, email messages to return, voicemails building up . . . let’s hurry this up! Gotta go, gotta run, see you later.

It seems inefficient to take 15 minutes at the beginning of a meeting to get people emotionally engaged, to set the context appropriately, to set the right mood, to discuss how we’re going to interact. And yet, if you take that 15 minutes, the meeting will have a life of its own.

Also, you have to protect against interruption. The creative process builds momentum and picks up steam. Ideas start flying, and breakthroughs happen. This buildup of energy can’t take place if cell phones are ringing, people are ducking out, or supervisors are poking their heads in ‘just to see how the meeting’s going.’

The creative process needs to be approached in the same way you approach physical exercise. You don’t run into the gym in your business suit and hop right on the Stairmaster. (Well, perhaps you do, but . . .) There’s a series of steps to the ritual: You enter the gym, you proceed to the locker room, you change your clothes, you stretch, you begin to exercise. Your mental focus changes. The preparation gives you time to turn your attention and energy to the task at hand. Once you begin your workout, you don’t undercut it with interruptions every other minute. If you don’t build momentum, no benefits are gained.

The process of opening yourself up to new ideas is no different-there is stretching involved. Just as in working out, warming up and allowing yourself sufficient time to focus and prepare is crucial. Begin each project by deciding how long you’ll spend on the divergent part of the diamond, then how much time you’ll allot for the convergent side. Have team members discuss what it would take for the project to exceed their expectations and what the obstacles or dangers facing the project are. Appoint a team member to be the voice of the client or customer throughout.

You’ll have better ideas, the work will get done faster, and people will be happier and more engaged. It works like magic.

Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition

The UCA cash-flow format was designed primarily with the lender in mind. A major advantage for the lender is that it focuses on net-cash income to determine whether the company is liquid on an operating basis. A current ratio or a quick ratio tries to answer that question from a static balance-sheet point of view by relating current assets to current liabilities. But bankers also need to know the answer from an operating perspective. That is to say, did the enterprise cover all cash operating costs and outflows and pay interest on its debt from internally generated fuel? If the net-cash income line on the UCA cash-flow statement is positive, the answer is yes. The same is true of the net cash from operations lines on the other two
cash-flow statement formats. Continue reading →

It’s list-making time!

The lists don’t have to be orderly and neat. Jot down anything you can think of under the following headings. What are . . .

• All the great ideas I’ve ever had in my life: (Think about decisions like whom to marry, where to live, a great outfit you put together, the lighting fixtures you chose for your kitchen, your idea for a great vacation or outing, your way of distracting a crabby toddler.)
• What I’ve created in my life: (Meals, great family dynamics, enough financial well-being to support yourself/others, a successful team at work.)
• What I’ve designed: (This could be a new report at work, a new way of making kids’ school lunches, a process to disengage from work at the end of the day, a Christmas letter . . . anything.)

Look at those lists. Does your tally match your assessment that you’re not creative?

What’s Going On Here ¿

Reminding yourself of how you’ve been creative in the past will open the doors wider to future creativity. Remember, the point of this book is that creativity doesn’t have to be some abstract pie-in-the-sky artistic endeavor. It really has some very practical results-results that you can generate if you take it on as part of your job.

I’m an idea person. Given any situation, I have hundreds of ideas about how to make it better, more fun, more effective, more innovative. Nothing stops me cold like someone who shuts down my idea fountain.

‘No, that’s a bad idea.’

‘That’ll never work because . . . ‘

‘We did that before, and it failed.’

It makes me absolutely crazy.

At the same time, I’m not a detail person or a process person. So while I might have a vision of what the end looks like, I’m pretty clueless about how to actually get there. I love, love, love people who’ll say to me, ‘Yes, cool idea. Help me brainstorm some ideas about how to solve this potential obstacle.’

When it’s framed that way, I’ll have some more ideas about how to overcome that barrier. The point is to use the energy derived from friction to propel a process forward, rather than having it shut somebody down completely.

If you ever study improvisational comedy, you’ll find that one of the basic rules is, ‘Never say no.’ A comic scene needs to have conflict, but if one of the participants blocks the way, the scene is doomed. For instance, a basic comedy setup might be a person with 12 items going head-to-head with an express- lane cashier. If the shopper says, ‘Fine, I’ll go somewhere else,’ and leaves the store, then obviously the scene is over. If either participant refuses to engage in the developing idea, then there’s no point in continuing.

On the other hand, nobody wants to watch a scene in which two people agree about everything. Conflict provides interest; the key is that the conflict mustn’t shut the process down.

You can see shades of all the other enemies of innovation here: fear of failure; listening for logic instead of listening for energy; ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’; ‘it’s not my job.’ It’s a pervasive way of thinking that is difficult to break out of until you recognize it in its many forms.

In idea-generating meetings, it’s important for the most senior person in the room to sincerely ask the participants for their help in creating new solutions to the given business problem or opportunity and to empower them to question the rules (even if she’s the one who made them up). If this doesn’t happen, the session can turn into nothing more than everyone toadying up to the senior person to see who can score the most points. When it does happen, it keeps the door open, allows friction, and creates the kind of energy that can propel a project forward. Remember, friction is good. Conflict is good. It makes things interesting.

And it provides the energetic fuel to power up new ideas.

Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition

State and local government municipal obligations. The risk of the instrument depends on the condition of the issuer, the purpose of the debt, and the time to maturity. Most municipal issues are revenue securities, backed by the revenue streams and future earnings that are generated by specific projects, such as tolls from roads or rental income from leased facilities (i.e., a new airport). General obligation securities, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the issuer, are repaid from taxes and any other source of income to meet the debt payments. Not all authorities, however, have the power to tax. Municipalities also issue certificates of participation where securities are issued for large capital investments, which in turn are pledged as collateral for the issue. Municipal obligations are generally exempt from federal taxes.

Imagine that you’re talking to Gandhi. What would his advice be?

How about Eminem?

What about Hillary Clinton?

General Patton?

The guy who used to be your best customer?

The woman you wish were your most loyal client?

List three more people of your choice from different walks of life. What advice do they have for you?

It’s everybody’s job to be creative and to participate in life. Refusing to take part in the creative process immediately closes a mental door and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: ‘I never have any ideas.’

This is yet another enemy of innovation that is rooted in fear. After we’ve avoided risk for long enough, we become apathetic. The creative muscles atrophy from disuse, and we forget that we ever had them. We label ourselves as ‘not creative,’ and then our creativity dies.

We all have a mental composite of ourselves constructed of labels, some of them positive and some negative. Once we have decided that a label fits, we limit our behavior to conform to it. We live those labels as if they were facts (scientifically provable), rather than judgments that we might be able to shift.

So, it’s not your job? Make it your job. Take the risk. Take responsibility for your own creative development. Take ownership of the creative things you’ve done in the past. Seize opportunities to flex your creative muscles in the future.

What it all boils down to is that you need to rip off that ‘not an idea person’ label. The only thing that makes that label true is your own belief in it.

Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition

“A frown, a spoken word, or a kick is a message that a sender conveys by means of his own current bodily activity, the transmission occurring only during the time that his body is present to sustain this activity.”
— Erving Goffman, “Behavior in Public Places”

If you happen to be watching a football game on television, chances are that you will see a familiar scene. The quarterback fades back and throws a pass that goes in and out of his teammate’s hands. The Continue reading →

Fill in the blanks. Seriously.

‘What if . . . ‘

‘I wonder . . . ‘

‘Why don’t we . . . ‘

‘If only . . . ”I wish . . . ‘

‘If I had a magic wand, I’d . . . ‘

‘In a perfect world . . . ‘

‘Wouldn’t it be great if . . . ‘

‘How could . . . ‘

‘It might be that . . . ‘

Most businesses look to their competitors for benchmarking or case studies. But too often, it’s easy to succumb to insular thinking: ‘I’ve been in the widget business for 10 years; I know the widget market like nobody else. I’ve studied how Acme Widgets and Universal Widgets run their shops. I under- stand what the widget consumer needs.’

That may be laughable, but insert your top product in place of ‘widgets,’ and it starts to have a familiar ring.

There’s a short distance between using your experience and judgment as a guide and simply trying to repeat your past successes with no new element. That’s safe evolutionary thinking instead of revolutionary thinking.

To use a movie analogy, movie sequels strain to duplicate the success of the original blockbuster. They have the same stars, the same stories, the same special effects. But here’s the rub: What was ‘Ooooh! Ahhh!’ the first time around is ‘Ho hum’ the second, third, fourth, and fifth times.

Revisit Enemy Two, having a fixed rather than a fluid point of view. Are you trapped in thinking like an industry giant rather than a hungry start-up? Are you creating movie sequels to products rather than thinking up new genres? You can see how this enemy of innovation fits into the pattern of all the others: no-risk logical thinking.

I encourage my clients to look beyond rather than within their own industry. Direct your focus outside the world of widgets, and think about what feedback you might get from people who are far removed from your particular field.

Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition

At this point you have the template open and ready for use. To avoid overwriting the original template workbook—after all, you might want to use it again—you need to save it with a new name or in a new location (or both) before you enter any data or make any other changes. Here’s how: Continue reading →

Thus, the standard deviation is essentially a weighted average of the deviations from the expected value, and it provides an idea of how far above or below the expected value the actual value is likely to be. Martin’s standard deviation is seen in Table 3-3 to be 
65.84%. Using these same procedures, we find U.S. Water’s standard deviation to be 3.87 percent. Martin Products has the larger standard deviation, which indicates
a greater variation of returns and thus a greater chance that the expected return will not be realized. Therefore, Martin Products is a riskier investment than U.S. Water when held alone. Continue reading →