Drea Knufken
Image: Chuck Coker/Flickr
Innovate or die. Those words hold especially true in today’s globalized, hypercompetitive and recessionary business environment.
Unless you’re lucky enough to have innovation in your DNA, however, it won’t come by itself. You have to take conscious steps to cultivate an attitude and environment that fosters innovation. This applies to everyone from solopreneurs to big corporations.
Here are 50 tips to help you make innovation happen, whoever and wherever you are.
Tips for Individuals
Innovation isn’t just a matter of coming up with good ideas. It’s a process. From invention to finding partners, patenting to marketing, mastering innovation takes an entire range of skills. Here’s how you can start developing the necessary facets to innovate successfully.
The top 7 events for innovative thinkers.
How to train your own brain.
What’s your 20/20 vision?
When you innovate, what do you need to do to protect that innovation? Here’s a blog devoted to the topic.
If you’re looking for change, develop a resource list first.
The myth of people stealing your ideas.
The innovation matrix explains different types and levels of innovators.
How hanging up a blank canvas inspires everyone who looks at it.
There’s no greater success story in recent history than Apple’s amazing comeback.
Mastermind groups are known to spur innovation, especially if you’re in business for yourself. Here’s a post all about the mystery of mastermind groups.
Tips for Companies
As they grow, companies create natural enemies to innovation, from bureaucracy to complacency, or perhaps a stifling corporate culture. Rev up your company’s innovation engine with these useful tips and explorations.
Profit is a gift, for inspiration, invigoration, and more.
The crucial role of networks in helping firms execute new ideas.
Boring meeting venues lead to boring innovation.
Large-scale solutions without large-scale organizations.
Challenging conventional thinking.
Facilitating creative ideas upward.
The 50 best inventions of 2010.
Innovation mercantilism: The bad, the ugly, and the self-destructive.
Innovators as change managers.
Five reasons you don’t have time to delay innovation.
Group genius and collective intelligence.
Who owns the innovation in your company?
How many people does it take for innovative thinking?
Why do companies who care outperform all others?
General Innovation Tips
The tips below work for everyone, from individuals to megacorporations. They’re simple pieces of wisdom that, when you use them, give your innovating process a helping hand.
Innovation starts with “blank.”
100 awesome quotes on what it really takes to innovate.
Playfulness is one of the most important aspect of innovation.
Why innovation matters now.
5 characteristics of future innovations.
One effective way to innovate is by doing both.
The art of innovation in 10 steps.
Is it knowledge, creativity or innovation?
In the world of media innovation, everything old is new again.
Pitfalls Around Innovation
If innovation was easy, there wouldn’t be countless books and articles about how to do it. Here are some common pitfalls that stifle this oft-delicate process.
Success can be the enemy of innovation.
The five uncertainties of innovation.
Why smart people defend bad ideas.
The three threats to creativity.
Don’t let fear of change block out innovative business ideas.
Focus on worst practices instead of best practices.
A me-too strategy never differentiates.
How government structural barriers can hurt innovation.
Make Innovation Easier by Smoothing Out Related Issues
Innovation requires a certain kind of environment and supportive human behaviors. Here’s how you can set the stage.
What you do when you can’t win.
If you want to partner for projects, the person you like least may be the person you need most.
Value is created in the future, not the past.
Change your organization’s mindset by renaming your strategic plan.
If you keep finding out new things that are true, add them to your core truth—don’t delete this new information.
Eliminate 75% of your corporate communications.
Here’s a nice set of essays on entrepreneurship and leadership.
