The Importance of Innovation

This is the sixth in a series of 16 daily posts celebrating my 16th anniversary in business with 16 lessons I've learned. Scroll down to read others, or read the introductory post here.

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Creativity and innovation has been something I've done more than dabble in over the past 16 years. I think I have always been interested, but while I was still at Chevron, I had the chance to teach a two day creativity and innovation workshop that I loved. It spurred my thinking, peaked my curiosity and got me on a learning path about creativity and innovation.

I've studied the subject, read about and applied many techniques - both for myself and for our clients. I've taught, wrote and spoken on the subject, and developed some techniques myself.

Through all of this, I've learned some important things. . .

All of us can be creative.

We have the capability at birth. Look at kids. They get a new toy, but play with the box! They have imaginations, ask curious questions (a necessary precursor to creative thought) and aren't afraid to ask those questions or try new things.

You were that kid once. You didn't lose those skills, you lost the behaviors and habits that allowed your creativity to be exposed. It is still inside, ready to be tapped. We just have to allow it to come out - and maybe practice some too (this is where creativity exercises and techniques help us most).

When we allow ourselves to think and be more cretive, good things will happen to us. I highly recommend it, AND . . .

Creativity itself is just part of the game.

As adults, in business or in trying to solve any problem or meet any challenge, fnding cretive ideas and solutions are really important! Ifwe don't create the ideas, we can't possibly try them. If we don't get the more creative approaches into the conversation they can't be used.

So . . .

Creativity is fun, but innovation makes the difference.

We can't get the big innovations without creative ideas and practices, so we must cultivate our creativity. But we can't make creativity the goal (at least in terms of creating success for ourselves and in our organizations). Creativity is a wonderful waystation - and fablously fun and rewarding endeavor, but it isn't the end game.

Because . . .

Innovation is about action.

And I can prove it. Ever had an idea and later you saw that idea being used, or the product on the shelf? Your idea was great, obviously, but it is of no real value (other than the excitement of the initial creative process) unless you take action on the idea - unless you take a risk, and take some action.

Innovation is about action.

So . . .

I chose to talk about innovation as my personal lesson today, because today we are unveiling the third part of our 16th Anniversary celebration. this is the most creative part of the celebration - an online live streaming television show where you can ask me questions, I will share thoughts and ideas, you can listen to special guests and have the chance to learn about 16 surprises I will announce during the show.

This idea was a bit different (and the seed of the idea came from Jenny Pratt), but once we took action on it, we had other ideas, other streams of thought, and it all began to come together.

One of those creative ideas was to use a video to promote our online party. I've included it here - I hope you enjoy it - and I hope you go to our party invitation, and choose to join us (and tell your friends) on October 16th!

Labels: innovation

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