Just the other day, a friend was telling me recently of how she was asked to help a major company tackle a business problem they had been having for months.

They had tried all the traditional methods but had got nowhere..As a mother of 3 young children, my friend decided to try something different with them (they were mainly middle-aged men). She suggested they look at the problem with the eyes of children. To put them in the right mindset, she took them outside the office and sat on the grass and asked them the question, “If you were a 7-year-old child, what game would you play to solve this challenge?”

The answers she got were remarkable, from the ridiculous to the imaginative, from the subtle to the blindingly obvious. It opened up a whole new range of possibilities that eventually led to a successful solution.

Getting Back to Your Childlike Mindset

One of the problems of experience is that it limits our creativity. The more we think we know about the world, the more we reject what we think doesn’t, and won’t, work. Someone once compared it to being given a block of marble when we are born and chipping away at it to create our view of the world. By the time we’re adults, we’ve created a sculpture from our block but it is only one way of seeing the world. In the process, we devise a set of rules of what works and what doesn’t and so constrain our creativity. The only answer is to get back to a child-like mindset.

Re-Discovering Your Natural Creativity

To return to the natural creativity you had when you were a child, do the following…

• allow yourself to wonder like a child

• be completely present here and now

• allow yourself to become detached from what you thought was “real”

• don’t look outside yourself for answers; believe all the answers are inside yourself just waiting to be discovered

• don’t live for others’ views and opinions• kick away intellectual mindsets of the ways things ought to be.

Try these simple things each day from now on and not only won’t you age, you’ll also find endless innovation for your small business and never short for creative ideas.

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

One evening, a Chief was telling his tribe a story about two dogs that live in his mind. One of the dogs he described as fearful and pessimistic, the other confident and optimistic.

“These dogs are involved in a constant struggle,” he told them. One of the members of the tribe asked, “Which dog wins?”

The Chief answered,“The one I feed.”

And so it is with each of us. Every day we have a choice. We can choose to focus on all the things that are wrong with the economy and our business or we can choose to focus on the infinite possibilities available to us and the power we have to affect positive change. It’s our choice.

Consider two separate conversations I had with two small business owners.

To each of them I asked, “How are things going?”

The first answered, “Things are really tough. This is the slowest our business has ever been.  We’re just trying to keep from going under.”

The second answered: We’re a little slower than usual but we’re using this time to do all the things we’re not able to do when business is booming.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“We’re brainstorming clever ways to cut costs, improve quality and serve our customers better. We’ve also added new services, updated our website and started a newsletter. While our competitors are cutting corners and services, we’re innovating. We’ll come out of this slow time a stronger and better company – we always do.”

Same economy. Two different ways of looking at it.

If you have completely bought into the idea that the economy is bad and the source of your faltering business, of course you won’t believe in your power to affect change and, therefore, you’ll most likely take no action to innovate and you’ll be stuck with the same old ideas you’ve always had.

If, the other hand, you believe that every economy presents new opportunities to serve and make money, you will go about every day with a hopeful, optimistic attitude as you seek and respond to the opportunities that present themselves.

It’s your choice but if you’re looking for innovation, all you have to do is change your mindset.

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

One of the biggest challenges facing small businesses these days is translating IDEAS into INCOME.  Most organizations are fully aware of the need to come up with big ideas and many have sophisticated systems, processes and techniques for doing just that.  Unfortunately, this is often where creativity and innovation meet a roadblock.

Large and small organizations just don’t always know what to do with those ideas that are generated.  They don’t know how to translate those ideas into income – into results and outcomes. They don’t know how to bridge the gap.

So, as an entrepreneur/small business owner your success lies in knowing how to close that gap.  So, then, you ask, how exactly do I do that?

Here are a few suggestions and questions to get you started:

• First, define your challenge – the problem – you are trying to solve or need (unmet need) you are trying to meet.  Be clear on the challenge and what success looks like, including a big goal that will compel you to make a change and inspire creative thinking and action.

• Then, check how you are going about the process of getting insights.  Secondary research is important – statistics that is, about what people like or don’t like about your products/offerings, however, it is equally important to observe your clients, watch them in their natural environment and spend time understanding them to come up with fresh, novel ideas for value.

• Also, check your idea generation processes.  How are you generating ideas?  How do you challenge those in your organization to come up with big, bold innovative ideas – different from what your competition down the street comes up with?  Remember to be aware of your beliefs and the beliefs that don’t serve you or limit you from taking risks.

• Once you’ve determined that your idea generation process is most effective, what system and tools do you have in place to capture those ideas, vet them, approve them and find sponsorship – that is, someone who is willing to go out on a limb and support the ideas?

• And finally, gain success and momentum by piloting or testing your ideas on a few or a limited population.  Through some trial and error you will help to realize your success more quickly if you test (prototype) your ideas and then work out the kinks before a full-scale launch – our FREE guide can be downloaded at www.ivibeglobal.com to get more details and implementation tips.

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Imagine showing up to work each day truly happy that you are there…getting energy from your colleagues, having fun in meetings, feeling like what you do counts.  It’s possible.  You can be happy at work and it doesn’t take much money, effort, or time – you just have to spark your small business creativity!

The creative genius is that part of each and every one of us who is stimulated – full of excitement, energy and ideas…the part of each of us that has a possibilities-oriented, “can-do” attitude and way of being that communicates to the world around us that anything is possible.  Follow these simple steps and you will find more happiness in your work:

• During the workday, ask yourself, “How might I make what I’m doing more fun?”  Is there a favorite colleague of yours that might take a few minutes to brainstorm some ideas around a task you are working on?  Or maybe getting yourself out from behind your desk and into a different environment will give you the energy you need to spark your creative genius? A little music to lift the mood?
• Take a positive approach.  Think about and focus on the aspects of what you are doing that attracted you to this job in the first place.  How might you do more of that?  How might you get back to the reasons why you picked your career, your place of employment, etc.?  Write these down, take a look at this list and see how you feel.
• Ask yourself – what is it that I really want from my work life?  Is this meeting my needs?  Is this the right environment?  Giving yourself permission to do some light exploration will empower you to make the best decisions for you, give you hope, and open yourself up to the possibilities.

Want your employees to stay?  Making sure the right creative conditions are in place to keep employees loyal to you and your organization while at the same time helping them be productive, think big and come up with bold ideas to satisfy your customers.  As a leader, here are some simple things you can do today to add to people’s job satisfaction and create the workplace conditions that make employees want to stay and be engaged:

• Catch them doing something right and let them know about it.
• Encourage employees to express themselves creatively.
• Trust your employees – give them the space and freedom to get the job done.
• Walk the talk – behave in the way that models how you want others to behave.
• Take an appreciative approach – focus on what is working, what is good and how to do more of that.
• Always seek first to understand.
• Celebrate – find ways to celebrate the good things that are going on with your employees.

- Andrew

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

With the uncertainty in today’s economy, creativity is no longer a luxury, it’s a survival skill.  Whether you are unemployed, underemployed, happily or unhappily fully employed, creativity is a skill that needs to be nurtured and developed to keep yourself in the game.

Most likely, no matter what you do, the economy has impacted you – at least on some level. Maybe you’re looking for creative ways to make ends meet or ways to stretch your hard earned dollars to work for you in an economy that is shaky, at best.  Or, maybe you’re just looking for ways to more creatively express your talents and use your time.  Either way, creativity is critical for survival in this new world economy.

Survival skill is defined by Wikipedia as “a technique a person may use in a dangerous situation…to save themselves or to save others.”  So, while you may not be in the wilderness trying to remember how to start a fire to keep warm, you do need to survive in your everyday life – which isn’t always easy, given the state of what’s happening in the world around us.

So often we forget that we have so much to give to this world in terms of our creative abilities.   And even though we’re not necessarily talking about becoming the next Picasso (although, that’s great if that’s where your passion and creativity lie) – we are talking about doing what you love or at least loving what you do.  So, here are some big questions to have a think on:

• Am I doing what I love to do?
• If not, what might I do differently to either figure out how to love what I’m doing or go about doing what I love to do?
• What support do I need to make this happen?  Do I need to speak with a boss or spouse/significant other – who are my key stakeholders?
• What creative endeavors make me feel good?  How might I go about ensuring that I’m able to do more of those?  Maybe through volunteering, maybe through a more drastic means like changing careers?

Periods of uncertainty have proven to be some of the most creative.  During the Great Depression more businesses were created than ever before.  If these periods of uncertainty can be some of the most creative times from a national or international level, why not on a personal level?  Give yourself permission to explore the possibilities of creativity and not only survive in these uncertain times, but thrive.

- Jeannine

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

According to German writer and Theologian,  Meister Eckhart, “what we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.”  It  is through action that we find our small business  innovation solutions – committing to action so that our ideas can take root.

We must harvest all of our creative activities to advance what we call “spark moments” (those moments when we know we’re on to something big – the next, new big idea) in order to make those moments real – into tangible results that you can touch, see, or feel.

Do you know anyone who always comes up with great ideas but never does anything about them? Maybe that person, at times, is you! Sometimes coming up with the idea isn’t the problem, it’s knowing what to do next, that’s hard. And, don’t get me wrong, it is hard! But, the only way to reap the benefits of your ideas  – your creativity – is to take action.

Once we make the effort to make things “real” will we start to see the results of our creative endeavors – the small business innovation. In fact, the wonderful thing about taking action is that it will likely spark even more ideas for you. The mere act of taking action allows the creative energy to take on even more power and propel you toward great things! It’s just the way it works.

Ask anyone who has ever manifested an idea that at one time was just a “whim” or just a “spark.” Even though that person didn’t know where the spark would lead, they took action and can now see the results. Every great product, service, offering, and even lifestyle all started with the seed of an idea. Only until someone (or several someones) took action, did it manifest into reality – into an innovation.

Here’s a challenge for you. Ask yourself the following questions:

What sprout of an idea is ready for you to harvest?

What’s one thing you can do today to reap the benefits of this idea?

Write it down – the idea, the action and then, of course, do it – take action – today!

You’ll be one step closer to reaping the rewards of your creative activities that led you to the idea in the first place. Here are several strategies for not only coming up with spark moments but harvesting those moments into reality.

• Take one of your ideas (or sparks) and translate it into a tangible idea.
Whatwould it look like if it was “real” and you had no limitations? Play with it, sketch it, talk with someone you trust about it and “massage” the spark of an idea until you have a clear picture in your mind of the possibilities.

• Come up with many different ideas by building on the first one – the crazier the ideas, the better.
It will lead you to where you need to go. Don’t judge, don’t criticize, just have fun with this!

• Begin a harvesting journal – capture all of your thoughts, sparks, and ideas and sketch them or write them in the journal.
Keep it close by so it’s available when you feel stimulated!

Harvesting stimulated outcomes represent a cycle of activity that continuously puts us in the frame of mind to advance our ideas, seek abundance, and keep working until we create something of value or something concrete. So take action today and being harvesting real innovation.

- Andrew

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

What’s the simple secret to creating products and services that sell like crazy?

In 1996, a month after I launched my first website and couldn’t find it in the search engines, I knew I had a problem. I’d spent $34,000 on the site and it was hardly getting any visitors much less generating any income. It was clear I needed to find out how to get it noticed and get it to the top of the search engines so I could start bringing in more traffic.

The answer? I wrote one of the first ebooks on search engine marketing – and it sold like crazy. Not only did I need a simple system for improving my search engine rankings, but so did thousands of others.

In 1999, I was doing some freelance marketing for Fortune Magazine and struggling to research topics for advertorials and to research advertisers. It was incredibly difficult to get the information I knew must be online. Remember this was before Google had become the de facto search engine.

The answer? I created a website that ranked and reviewed search engines and directories for every market niche, primarily for my own use. It took me about two weeks to put the basics of the site together and then I spent an hour or so a week adding reviews.

It turned out, at the time, I wasn’t the only one looking for the best search engines and within 12 months my site was attracting over 300,000 visits a month. And along with the huge number of visitors came a very attractive offer to buy the site.

I’m not sharing these two stories to brag. I just did what legions of other smart entrepreneurs do. They identify a problem they are having, come up with a solution they’d want to use themselves and then share it benefiting everyone involved.

You can do the same!

It’s true, the marketplace is highly competitive, it’s also true that people are always looking for a better solution and happy to pay for it.

Take Jason Freid and David Hansson. They had a fledgling company consisting of a handful of employees. It was a virtual company with their team scattered across the globe and they were looking for a simple way of helping their team work more effectively.

The solution? They created an online application called Basecamp. When their friends heard about it, they wanted to use it too. Pretty soon they had over 300,000 people using it. Since then they’ve added Backpack and Campfire to the toolbox and their small virtual company is bringing in millions in revenue each year.

No big business plan, no big marketing plan – just an interest in solving a problem they had and then selling the solution.

Troy Rhodes, Jr. did the same thing his first year in college. When he sold his textbooks at the end of his first semester for $18, after paying $600 for them he decided there had to be a better way.

The solution? Troy started MyBookBorrow.com, a service where college students can rent textbooks for a nominal fee each semester. A great idea and growing fast.

Ever heard of the outdoor clothing supplier, Patagonia?

It started in much the same way. Back in 1957, the only pitons used for attaching ropes to rock, were made of soft iron and could only be placed once and then were left in the rock. For ambitious climbers like Yvon, this was not only costly but limited the length of the climbs he could undertake.

Yvon realized the solution was a reusable piton. A visit to a junkyard resulted in the purchase of used coal fired forge, a 138 pound anvil and a few blacksmithing tools. Starting with a used harvester blade, he created his first reusable pitons.

The word spread and pretty soon he had a business. Now over 30 years later, his company Patagonia has an annual revenue of about $260 million.

In my office, my bedroom and my study I keep a stack of post it notes. They’re a great way to remind yourself of things to do or make short lists but do you know how they came to be?

In 1970 3M was trying to develop a super strong adhesive. A 3M employee, Spencer Silver was working on the project and came up with a formula that instead of being stronger and stickier, the adhesive was super weak.

Nobody knew what to do with Spencer’s adhesive until one day when another scientist, Arthur Fry was singing in his church choir. He’d placed pieces of paper in his hymnal to mark the pieces for the service but they kept falling out.

Remembering Spencer’s super weak adhesive, back in the lab, he tried coating his hymnal markers with it and found not only did they stay in place, but he could remove them without damaging the hymnal pages. Today the 3M Post-it ® Notes are one of the most popular office products available generating annual sales of $17 billion.

Of course you don’t have to make billions or sell internationally to be a big success. Take Ben Trevits and Cavan Meese of West Glover, Vermont, population 966. Trevits and Meese grew up in this small town which was rich in history but they were always grumbling about the lack of things to do as teenagers.

A few years after leaving West Glover for culinary school and theater design they returned and found that the general store, one of the key gathering places for the community was closing. Trevits and Cavan saw the opportunity to create something they’d always wanted, a place to hang out in town. So they started the Parker Pie, Co. to sell top quality pizza, cooked on stone.

How about you? How can you create top selling products and services?

The key of course is identifying a common problem and then coming up with the solution.

Whether it’s finding information on the Internet, reusable pitons, post it notes, or pizza as a way to bring the community together – there are an infinite number of ideas for making your life and other peoples’ lives better.

- Charlie

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Many say that taking a short snooze can do wonders for creativity.

Okay, I confess that the idea of sleep delights me, whether it’s a brief nap, forty winks or a prolonged swoon.   As authors and entrepreneurs, you might think that we have more freedom to control our schedules and therefore, catching some z’s would be easy.   However, we feel just as guilty about taking a “power nap” as our clients and corporate professionals.   So what do we do?

Our biggest creativity challenge comes after lunch. Over the years we have adopted a few different strategies to cope with the unavoidable lunch tranquilizer that beckons us toward a blissful state of oblivion.

I have three strategies: lunch-lite, lunch-late, and lunch-long.

In its extreme form, lunch-lite involves substituting lunch in place of well, light.   We’ll take a walk outdoors and soak up some sun or a jaunt on the treadmill to boost our creative energy.  The main thing is we don’t eat.

The trouble is that the rest of the day we are likely to spend all our time dreaming about dinner. With lunch-late, we mean postpone lunch to avoid that early 1:00 pm-ish drowsy feeling.   With lunch-late, you might find yourself comatose by the time it is to go home and in the same position you would be at 1:00 or 2:00pm had you eaten earlier.

And finally there is lunch-long.  If you get tired after eating, the strategy is to keep eating.  Of course, if none of these work and you are increasingly frustrated with either starving yourself or increasing your gravity, then we recommend that you take a nap to boost your creative genius, what else?

Researchers say that napping is especially good when you are working on a problem because just as you dose off into oblivion, you start tapping into your lush alpha state where the seeds of creativity lay germinating and it is at this point where you are likely to have a spark moment.  Further more, researchers say that an afternoon nap can lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of a fatal heart attack.   So in other words it is good for your health in addition to your creative matter.

Napping also makes sense when you are on a plane or on a train but it is not so cool when you are in the office.   There are so many norms about staying busy that napping seems like a forbidden practice while you are in the office.

Many studies have shown, that sleep deprived workers are bound to make numerous mistakes and accidents. So what do you do when sleep beckons you while the rest of your colleagues are busying themselves? Should you nap at work or not?  Our advice to that question is to, well, sleep on it.

- Jeannine

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

This was a question posed by a small business leader recently.  Are you wondering the same thing?  Everyday all around us there are stimulating spaces and places that we can use to get people out of their rut and come up with creative new ideas.

On an average day, we have about 60,000 thoughts.  If these are the same 60,000 thoughts each day, we may need to look to our surroundings for inspiration.  For example, while driving over the same bridge I cross daily, I decided to look and think differently about the structure, shape and vibe of the bridge.  

The “vibe” is something deeper then what you see on the surface. It is more about the feel you get from something.  Similar to when you are around people with positive energy that seem to light up a room when they enter it.

As I tried to sense the bridge’s vibe, I noticed the sun was rising saying “good morning”.  I turned off the radio to take in the tranquility and beautiful vision of sunlight shimmering on the water.

At first I felt the car bounce up, down and a little sideways depending on which way the small pot holes left over from winter directed the car. Then, while looking up and off into the distance, I noticed how the beautiful gently curved bridge created a perfect intersection with the land, a beautiful natural design that looked timeless.

I wondered what the architects of the bridge were thinking when they decided where the bridge should meet the land and how to shape and curve the bridge across the water at just the right angle.

Architecting these choices is something leaders of innovation choose every day.   Shaping innovation efforts and creating space for other people to contribute is one of the key roles of an innovation leader.

When defining a new creative goal a leader of innovation is architecting and shaping as well as mobilizing and aligning innovation team members.  Just like choosing where the bridge intersects with the land an innovation leader needs to create an intersection between the innovation project and the overall innovation strategy.  You also need to make architectural choices involving the resources needed for the project, the right mix of people as the core team to attract and generate the best ideas and keep things moving forward.

As a leader of innovation think of yourself as the architect of possibility, building a bridge that can be sustained over time and that helps keep people moving forward.  Get your people out of the office and help them focus on spaces and places differently, have them look for the vibe…

- Andrew

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

When you want to get into shape, you exercise your muscles and change your diet.  You work your abs, arms, legs, shoulders, back and start eating healthier. When you do this consistently and often, you gain energy, feel better, and look better.  Your life and work flows better.  Your confidence increases.

When you want new, fresh and inspiring ideas to help grow your business, bank account or relationships, you must exercise your right brain to stimulate a break-through.  Like our body, our mind and spirit thrive on exercise and stimulus.  When you are creative, you shift the continuity of your circumstance and sow the seeds of possibility.

However, in today’s economy and with the fast pace of change, we can easily become distracted,  overwhelmed and stuck in a rut – all of which can lead to a feeling of a loss of control as well as stress and anxiety about the future.

Coming up with creative ideas and taking the time to develop them nowadays seems like a luxury.  However, it’s not a luxury – it’s an essential life skill.  Our survival as human beings depends on it.

So, why not stay creatively fit all of the time and turn your circumstances into possibility, prosperity and positive change?

Set a creativity goal: What is it that you want to achieve when it comes to your ability to create, be creative or allow yourself the necessary time and
energy for creativity?  Set your goal, write it in the current state, as if you’ve already achieved it.  Post it where you can easily see it and be reminded of it every day.

Take baby steps: If you wanted to lose weight, you wouldn’t expect to drop 20 pounds overnight.  Same is true for your creativity goals – starting small is key to continued success.  Break your goal into baby steps for a more reasonable way of achieving what you set out to do.

Celebrate your small and large successes: As you achieve your goals (both baby steps and your big goal), be sure to set aside time to celebrate. Give
yourself time to celebrate all that you have accomplished – even small celebrations signal that you are serious about achieving your goals and will reward yourself for all your efforts.

Maybe a nice walk or treating yourself in some way is all you need to reinforce and reward your results.  Celebrating successes gives us a little extra motivation.

The road to possibility, prosperity and positive change takes some intention.  Specifically, goal setting, breaking those goals into baby steps and celebrating both large and small successes will help you stay creatively fit.

- Jeannine

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..