Coles Innovation Forum 2012

Dear Registered Attendee,

It is with heavy heart that I write to tell you that the 2012 Coles Innovation Forum scheduled for June 7-8 has been cancelled because of circumstances beyond our control.

Although we had the generous support of KSU, a wonderful group of speakers, as well as dedicated volunteers and supportive promoters who helped us with the effort, and in spite of  the high SEO rankings of our website, other logistics have not lined up in a way that allow us to confidently execute this event.

Your payment will be fully refunded tonight and, unless you request otherwise, we will keep your name in our database to let you know what happens next. Rather than a failure, I approach this setback as an opportunity to rethink the event and create a format that will be better for the effort. I welcome your participation in the exploration of future options and invite your suggestions.

We sincerely appreciate your advance registration and apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me by reply to this email or by phone call.

Thank you from the heart for your understanding and interest,

Harry

Harry Vardis
Creative Focus, Inc.

http://www.creativefocus.net

http://coles.kennesaw.edu/centers/innovation-creativity/index.htm

404 285 1086 Mobile
404 256 7000 Office

Certified FourSight consultant

http://foursightonline.com/

By Debbie Ellison, Laughter for Wellness

When was the last time you allowed yourself to feel like a kid – when you just acted silly, giggled for no reason, felt unbridled joy? Can’t even remember, can you?

We come into the world with a natural joyfulness. We laugh for no reason. We have fun. But somewhere along our journey to adulthood, we lose the joyfulness, the curiosity, the laughter. We become serious, “responsible” adults, killing our creativity, enthusiasm, and joy. Laughter and a childlike attitude keep creativity alive and well.

Creativity and laughter are both “the process of bringing something new into being.” Both depend on seeing something new or experiencing something familiar in a new light. Both stretch your imagination and force you to combine ideas that are usually not associated with one another.

Other benefits of laughter: decreases stress; massages all internal organs; strengthens the immune system; reduces blood pressure and heart rate; promotes a positive mental attitude; relieves many illnesses; releases endorphins, natural pain killers and joy producers; stimulates creative thinking; changes your perspective; makes you feel good; and much more.

Ways to develop laughter and childlike playfulness:

• Lighten up. Be willing to laugh at yourself and situations. Quit being so serious.
• Try to see the humor in things.
• Give yourself permission to laugh and have fun.
• Play with laughter cues (finish sentences with “Ha Ha Ha” or “Tee Hee Hee”). Share embarrassing moments and then say, “Ha ha ha!”
• Come to a Laughter Club (email Debbie for info)

Debbie Ellison is Director of Laughter for Wellness, laughter coach, and Certified Laughter Yoga Leader & Teacher.

For info on laughter trainings and presentations for individuals, corporations, and organizations, laughter coaching, leader trainings, and free laughter clubs:

LaughterForWellness@gmail.com, 770-843-0940.

By Dimis Michaelides

A new report from IBM

In my role of Master of Ceremonies at the Creative Problem Solving Institute held in Atlanta, Georgia in June 2011, I had the pleasure of introducing Susan Thomas, Senior Managing Consultant and Steve Gray, Senior Consultant from IBM. Susan and Steve offered a preview of the latest IBM report to which they themselves were contributors. The report which has now been published, begins with a question:

Why are some organizations consistently good at innovating and adapting while others seem to be blindsided by change?

The authors argue that innovative leaders will use the necessary tension between business trade-offs (such as local vs global, zero-sum vs expand the pie, systems thinking vs design thinking) to forge new ways ahead – “leaders who embrace the dynamic tension between creative disruption and operational efficiency can create new models of extraordinary value.” The path to organizational creativity calls for action at three levels:

Uncover – find the key skills, understand how the world works, seek new opportunities, make new connections.

Unlock – develop people’s creative potential through powerful learning that is relevant to real business challenges, promote small diverse teams to work on bold ideas, create inspirational role models, and build a vision powered by trust,

Unleash – grow and multiply the competencies and the ideas, expand and share information and expertise globally, build constituencies with common goals

As its title suggests, the study is based on a conviction that we strongly share: that organizational creativity can be cultivated by inspired leadership. It is an excellent follow-up to previous IBM reports (see below) and includes quotes from thinkers, experts and practitioners. Here are some strong and memorable excerpts from the main body of the report:

“Yesterday’s market-leading “best practices” can all too often turn into tomorrow’s recipe for disaster.”

“Creative leadership requires harnessing the dynamic tensions between the dualities that define today’s complex business environment – to drive toward both creative disruption and operational efficiency at the same time.”

“Bottom-up innovation is better harnessed through influence rather than power, a challenge to the more prevalent organizational mindset that views leadership through the lens of control. An organization that fails to fully embrace these modern dualities may miss the opportunity to generate a rich and critical source of creative energy and may, ultimately, risk irrelevance.”

“Creating a culture with a bias for action requires having rewards aligned with the taking of considered risks in an environment where failure is a necessary and mutually defining opposite of success.”

The report was authored by Barbara J. Lombardo and Daniel John Roddy. It can be read at http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/gbe03418usen/GBE03418USEN.PDF

Background notes

In a study by IBM in May 2008 (before the recession) the following characteristics of the enterprise of the future were highlighted: Innovative beyond customer imagination, hungry for change and disruptive by nature.

In 2010 the IBM survey of 1540 CEO’s on Complexity concluded that Creativity is the single most important leadership competency and called on CEOs to Embody creative leadership, Reinvent customer relationships and Build operational dexterity.

This article does not refer to IBM as in the International Brotherhood of Magicians, an association of which I am a member, but to the IBM that was once known as International Business Machines. IBM today has nearly 400,000 people on its payroll and has just celebrated its 100th birthday. IBM has successfully reinvented itself a few times over. IBM features consistently on all published lists of “most innovative” companies in the world and has deservedly earned the respect of creative people all over the world.

By Gregg Fraley

It’s easy to say and hard to do — Deferring Judgement.

Alex Osborn the original guru of creativity suggested that during brainstorming, participants should “defer judgement.” Osborn wrote Applied Imagination many years ago, which defined brainstorming. He actually coined the term. It’s a rule from the master – you don’t critique ideas during brainstorming — it’s challenging.

But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about Deferring Judgement as a daily habit, as a continuous way of being. I heard Sid Parnes talk at CPSI, and this was his lifestyle “add” to the original Osborn guidance. As a fundamental way of being, it’s a big shift. But wow, what benefits for your creativity!

Let’s face it, we are all pretty much judging all the time. A friend of mine once said, “I can’t go 5 minutes without major judgements.” Think about it and then go about your daily business for about an hour. Then review your thinking. You’ll have a list of judgements as long as your arm, like:

* “She really doesn’t know how to dress professionally.”

* This iPhone application is needlessly complex”

* “His Dad was a bum, I think he is to.”

* “He never gets it right first time.”

* “The bus company is hopeless.”

Now, many of these judgements may in fact be true. It doesn’t matter. When you think judgmentally, all the time, you’re pushing possibility out of your head. You are saying, mentally, you don’t want to know different, you don’t want ideas, insights. I have an image in my head of a large living room with lots of big windows. This is your brain. If the windows and shutters are closed, no new ideas are going to come in. Creative thinking is possibility thinking, like, “What If…?” It’s like opening those windows and letting in light and air, it changes the room.

I’m not saying Never Judge. I’m saying defer it, put it off. The time will arrive when you have to decide something, and then, you’ll need to use critical thinking. But by giving things a bit more time, who knows, you might discover something important. The other distinction I’d like to make is deferring judgement doesn’t mean just shutting up and not saying critical things. That’s a good start, but there’s more. It means really, giving a concept, a person, an idea — a chance. Looking at things with an open, or neutral mind to see what’s there without preconceptions. In a decision making mode, you might even look for what is right about it, or what it’s potential is, not for what is wrong about it.

Yes, it’s very easy to talk about here, and in reality, very difficult to do, this deferral of judgement as a lifestyle choice. But if you can do it, even for brief periods of time, you’ll be opening those windows in your mind to the fresh breeze of opportunity.

Try deferring judgement. For your creativity’s sake. Open the windows to your brain and let more ideas in.