The other day I was giving a talk about creativity, and was asked whether brainstorming was the only way to be creative. I thought this was a good question, because although a free wheeling “Brainstorm Session” is often seen as the main way of having new ideas, for most people other techniques will work better. Continue reading Beyond the brainstorm
You can’t eat consultants
A friend emailed me the other day about an awards event he’d been at for innovative early stage social enterprises. As seems to be increasingly fashionable these days, the “prize” was “support” rather than money, and in his closing address, Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society glibly said “Innovation doesn’t flourish when there’s money about.” The audience wasn’t impressed. Continue reading You can’t eat consultants
crisis creativity
As I write this, it’s been a rough month.
First an obscure Icelandic volcano grounded all European air travel. Then three young bankers were burnt to death by rioters in Athens, while Greece’s debt levels suddenly looked like bringing down the Euro. Finally a blowout in the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico turned BP’s exploratory well into a financial and environmental nightmare. Continue reading crisis creativity