All this is not to say you should not learn the lessons experience is teaching you. By all means, learn what experience has to teach you. But don’t rely on experience along. Utilized all the other methods of learning first. Experience is perhaps the most inefficient and dangerous method of learning.

Innovation can be approached from several sides. It can be approached as a process, a strategy view, and an organizational structure or even as a toolkit. Each approach can be a little different.  What works for one organization may not work for another. Creating a   culture that encourages and promotes is easier said than done. Developing a culture within an organization that encourages innovation takes time and many organizations have the will but lack the time. Those organizations need to look externally for help. Bringing an organization together overnight in order to translate product and service initiatives into sustained results is tricky. But here are 5 quick tips:

1. Challenging Assumptions.

This is a very difficult thing to do. Why? Because we make so many assumptions we do not even recognize them as assumptions. Most of them are correct but a great many are incorrect. The problem is we do not know which ones are right and which ones are incorrect. Because, if we knew which ones were incorrect we would change them immediately. So the first step to effectively challenging assumptions is to identify them. Start with the question, “What else would have to be true for this to be true.” More often then not you will discover that your idea is not a fact but an assumption and therefore something to be challenged. No good ideas will be seriously looked at without overcoming the assumptions that are held by an organization or industry. These exist in service industries such as banking, health care and hospitality as well as products industries such as, consumer electronics and personal care products. It is usually easier to start challenging your own assumptions by looking at industry level dogmas. Challenge everything!

2. Involve the End User.
It is a lot easier to be creativity if the creativity is not trying to solve a problem of provide a purpose. The purpose for any business or organization is the customer. If an innovation fails eventually to provide value to the end customer then the innovation fails. Any organization that believes it can provide value to a customer without involving them in the process is deceiving itself. Most consumers are intelligent and can contribute so much to the creative process. While it is true that often time people may not be able to voice their needs and desires in a manner that makes sense to you, your job is find creative ways to understand their needs, values and behaviors. Then you must figure out how to include them in your process.

3. Build an Innovation Team.

At the executive level innovation requires guts. Not everyone is cut out for it. But without executive support the needed resources will never materialize. Businesses that are vibrant yesterday may not be vibrant tomorrow. So the executive must be courageous enough to take dollars away from yesterday’s businesses and give them to tomorrow’s businesses even though they are as yet untested. That takes guts. The majority of executive just are not capable of making innovation happen.

The innovation team needs to be made up of people from across different functions and business units. The team needs people not only will a range of skill set of also a range in temperaments. In addition to the nature instinct to put people on the innovation team who are idea people i.e. those who are abstract thinkers, the team will need those who study the facts carefully, people who are strong organizers, and finally those who have strong people skills. Start with a small team and gradually expand to add more people. At some point, you will be ready to make this an organization-wide.

4. Innovation is a Business Process
As with any business process innovation efforts should be managed. It cannot be done in a box. Develop metrics to tack the activities that make sense. I would warn against metrics that measure only results. Innovation is a process and as such you want to insure the process is active. The effectiveness of the process can be measured by the desired results. When you do get either a big or small win, ensure you communicate it across the organization. Innovation is a team sport. And every team needs it cheering fans.

5. Utilize Techniques to Improve Success Rate

It is not uncommon to hear people claim that innovation project have failure rate of about 98%. That is most likely because they are not approaching it in a systematically. Define a system that is sustainable with in your organization. Should involve problem identification and definition, and early communication. Utilizing techniques and tools such as open innovation your success rate should be high. It is true that failure is part of any innovation process, but improving the chances of success is also part of an innovation strategy.

Your customers, employees, and co-workers often will misdirect or confuse you. Unlike the magician their misdirection is usually not intended. The misdirection is the result of mistrust. They believe that if they are open and honest with you, you will cheat them. So they believes they must be cautious. The obvious solution is to build trust. But that occurs over time. So what do you do in the mean time. You can easily misjudge the importance of a thing. So how do you guard against misdirection?  How can you tell what is truly important? Waiting until the trick is over or the contract is signed is too late. Because what is thought to be unimportant it is not remembered. Why should it be? You thought it was unimportant.

During a magic trick the magician moves relentlessly through the routine making your mind both process what just happened and at the same time try and keep up with what is currently happening. All that information is difficult to process. Unlike a magic trick, we can stop an customer, employee or co-worker and test what we believe is important. This allows us to identify potential problem areas before they are agreed to

The best tool I found for stopping the misdirection is to simply rephrasing what the person said, in your words, with your inflection, and your understanding. Then asking the simple question “Is that correct?”

Try it I think you will find its work magic for you.

1. Only certain people or types of people are creativity. This is absolutely untrue. We are most likely to think there certain jobs attract creativity types and certain jobs do not.  Jobs like product development, marketing and advertising have creative people while accounting does not.  The reality is, nearly all of the research in this area agrees, anyone with normal intelligence is capable of doing creative work. Creativity depends on things like: experience, knowledge and technical skills; and intrinsic motivation i.e.  people who are excited by their work are often creative.
2. Money Motivates Creativity. Experiments show that bonuses and pay for performance can actually have a negative impact on creativity. The reason is that when people believe that ever move they make is being watched and will impact their paycheck they be more risk averse. But money can be a demotivater. If people feel they are not being fairly compensated they will also have reduced creativity. Again the research indicates that people put far more value on an environment were creativity is supported, valued and recognized.
3. Time Pressure Increase Creativity. Often people will say they are more creative when they are under pressure. The research indicates just the opposite. They only think they are more creative. They are not. In fact the research indicates not only are they not more creative while under the time pressure. Creativity is reduced for the next two days.
4. Fears Force Breakthroughs Again the research indicate that the emotional state we are in effects our creativity. In fact it can often be a predictor. If someone is happy, joyful, feeling loved etc. The next day they will be more creative.  If that person feels anxiety, sadness, anger, etc. The next day they will be less creative.
5. Competition Enhances Creativity. It is widely held that competition between 2 of more teams will produce more creative results. The facts are that it is collaboration not competition that increase creativity. Once the competition begins information is no longer shared. And without the sharing of information ideas are not debated and refined.
6. Streamlining or Right Sizing Forces the Organization to be Creativity. There are some concrete reasons why creativity is reduced. Line of communication between organizations have be severed and need to be rebuilt. Teams have been destroyed. And need to be regenerated. But there are also the less tangible areas. When people feel fear they are less creativity and less productive. The worse of all situation is knowing the cuts are coming but not knowing how each individual is effected prolongs the anxiety.

The research sited here was conducted in 2004 by Teresa Amabile at Harvard Business School

There is a great debate as to rather or not creativity can be taught. If something has been done then there should be no doubt it can be done. I believe creativity can be taught because it has been taught, thus proving the thesis. The debate is really over rather some people are naturally more creative than others. It is the classic nature versus nurture debate.

Creativity is an art but that does not mean that it does not have rules and guidelines to follow that allow us to be better at it just as all other forms of art do. There are technique and tools can be taught to allow people to be better than they were before. And some people learning the skill is easier that with other people. But the skill can still be and has been taught.

There is some innovation training available but after learning how you will not suddenly be creative. After being taught how to play the clarinet, I could actually make music with the instrument rather than just annoying squawking noises. But it was only through practice I became any good at it. Practice also plays a important role in being creativity. Like other art forms you improve the more you try. I was never, what you would call really good at playing the clarinet. I was just too lazy to practice the amount of time that being good required. But I was pretty good. Today, however, I can barely play the instrument at all. Why? I have not practiced in a very long time. Playing a musical instrument is a perishable skill. I lost the skill of playing the clarinet by not continuing to practice the clarinet. I still know what to do, I just can’t do it. I have the knowledge but not the skill.

When you start practicing being creative, the probability is you will not be good at it. That’s ok! When you start playing a musical instrument you aren’t any good at it either. The only way to become good is to stay at it. It is work but I believe you will find it the most fun work you will ever do.

The educational system is too slow to respond to today’s world. It is attempting to do the impossible. It attempts to train students for be able to perform specific jobs in the real world and by the time the student graduates the real world has changed. The reason for this is very simple. Colleges and universities see themselves as trade schools. They teach you to be a computer programer. They teach you how to be a marketeer. They teach how to be an accountant. They teach you a skill. They do not educate. With the availability of today’s technology skill development can be done online. No one needs the type of  four year program we have today learn a job skills. Our education system does not understand that. They keep trying to turn out students with a specific skill set. And by the time the student graduates the skills are out dated.

But part of the problem is businesses do not know what to ask for.  They ask for someone who can do task x. Not realising that by the time they get that person out of the educational system task x no longer need to be accomplished. Rather, they now need task y completed.

How to solve the dilemma? Stop having colleges and universities trying to be trade schools. With web 2.0 people can self educate themselves in skill development.  Colleges and universities need to get back to a liberal arts education and teaching students to think critically.

I think it is thoughtful of Apple to protect dumb kids, senile old people, and all the rest of us from ourselves. After all we are all just too stupid to make our own decisions. My mother recently fell and hurt herself very badly. It was life threatening. So to continue with this line of thought we need to ban all ladders, and rugs (tripping hazards)   We need to shut down Home Depot these guys actually sell high-powered welding machines, bandsaws, nailguns, great big heavy pieces of lumber, bottles of sulfuric acid and muriatic acid, pesticides, and many other scary dangerous products it anyone that can pay for it. That’s right, anyone could walk in off the street and purchase literal truckloads of lethal implements and chemicals. It’s a good thing none of the titans of tech own the hardware stores.

The argument then comes back to intellectual property rights. What I find amusing is these same Titans of Technology got to be titians by doing exactly what they don’t want anyone else to do. Taking apart devices and figuring out how they work and then (hopefully) improving them. Are we to believe products like the Apple/Mac, the PC, among many other examples just “popped” into their heads one day and sprang into being without ever a backward glance at what came before them!?

With the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1997. Many of our rights dissappeared and much of our future innovation went over seas. Innovation is not dead but we are trying really hard to kill it.

A few years ago I did a show for a church in Texas. The after the show I spent some time with members of the audience as I always like to do.  A little boy came up after wards and was all excited about what he had just seen. He was telling me how much he enjoyed the show and he thought I was really cool. Then he asked me something that I have never forgotten. He told me his mother had recently died and asked if I would perform at her funeral. I expressed my condolences and politely declined his invitation.

Seeing the wonder of magic at such a traumatic time had an impact on him. It touched him deeply. He still calls me on occasion just to talk for awhile. I enjoy our short conversations. I was able to touch his heart with a silly magic show at a deeply emotional time. But he continues to touch mine.

You should not think of a trade show magician simply as an entertainer. Because when you hire a trade show magician you are not hiring an entertainer. You are hiring another member of your sales staff. The time they spend is considerable prior to the show. They will spend time with you and your staff, to better understand your company and the goals for the tradeshow. Trade show magicians will then carefully select the tricks they will use that can illustrate you message with impact. They script their shows prior to the show with enough time for you to review and modify the script. This interaction allows you to be sure you will receive the maximum benefit of having a magician in your booth.

An experienced tradeshow magician charges anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 a day, but the expense is well worth it because they provide a blend of sales and sleight of hand that bring prospective customers to your booth.

Here is a common error. Assuming any entertainer can work your exhibit. All they need to do is draw a crowd. Drawing a crowd should not be your goal. The goal is getting the name and contact information of qualified leads. This is requires the work of an experienced sales professional and entertainment professional not just an entertainer.

Trade show magician