Day: September 7, 2019

Motivation

Did you know…

Posted on by profjay

Did you know…

… that today is Eat a Dagwood Sandwich Day? The comic strip “Blondie” first appeared on this day in 1930. Blondie, an American comic strip created by cartoonist Chic Young, features a blonde and the zany antics of her sandwich-loving husband. Celebrate by eating a Dagwood sandwich today!

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Today’s Inspirational Quote:

“When you let go of control and commit yourself to happiness, it is so easy to offer compassion and forgiveness. This propels you from the past, into the present. People that are negative spend so much time trying to control situations and blame others for their problems. Committing yourself to staying positive is a daily mantra that states, I have control over how I plan to react, feel, think and believe in the present. No one guides the tone of my life, except me!”

— Shannon L. Alder

Motivation

Brand Fox – The quick Brand Fox jumped over the sleepy brand

Posted on by profjay

What makes a brand ‘Foxy’?
> Different – A Foxy Brand catches the audience attention and makes them want to learn more
> Relevant – The Foxy Brand understands your pains, wants, needs and desires and speaks in the language you use every day
> Credible – It doesn’t matter how different or relevant your brand is, unless it is also believable
> Simple – Positioning and messaging is about reduction, and less is oh so much more

Time and time again the quick Brand Fox always jumps past the lazy or mis-targeted brand.

Shouldn’t your brand be a little more ‘Foxy’?

via Brand Fox – The quick Brand Fox jumped over the sleepy brand

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Motivation

5 Techniques For An Innovation Culture – BIZCATALYST 360°

Posted on by profjay

WHAT IS INNOVATION? Just how much is innovation worth to us? How do we get innovation to work here, in our culture? It’s hard to get a handle on innovation. It’s hard to understand it. It’s hard to practice it. It’s even hard to support it. Innovation is not a set of skills, methodologies, or knowledge. Innovation is a set of behaviors and habits that allow us to “connect unconnected things”. Most of us aren’t prepared for innovation or to be leaders for innovation.

To get us prepared and become the leaders we need to be here are the 6 techniques to establish the innovation culture.

Technique 1 – Reinforcement. This is what a lot of us currently do to be innovative. We have lists in our mind of what we must do. We take fifteen minutes to reflect. We look at our flashcards or insights from our leadership quote calendars. We take innovation and leadership training to build up our competency. Though these methods are useful to reinforce our innovation habits, they are not the best at building our innovation habits.

Technique 2 – Big Picture. The best way to get unstuck and become innovative is to take a step back so we can go forward. Rather than focusing on the problem at hand, we look at what we’re dealing with and how it fits into the big picture. The big picture can be literal like our org structure diagram, figurative like an analogy or story, or emotionally inspiring like a vision and mission. We take a step back to become more focused and more open to options and opportunities so we can march forward with creative and innovative ideas.

Technique 3 – Mind Hand Activities. We learn with our minds, we learn with our hands. We become innovative when we use both at the same time. We become innovative by drawing metaphors/stories on the whiteboard, doing diagramming, assembling business concepts using Lego (SeriousPlay), or pulling together sheets of paper into a slide presentation. All of these spark in us innovational leaps and insights. We can further our innovation by doing activities we normally don’t do. Activities like accounting, mechanics, or laying down concrete, activities that pull us out of our perspective into a new one. Some executive coaching retreats go the extra mile with acting classes, caring for horses, and living off the land.

Technique 4 – Interaction Rules. Rather than focusing on training and processes, we can narrow our focus to a small set of simple rules and use these rules to guide us to our innovative outcomes. Examples of these rules are found in “parallel thinking”. This is where we go around the table and each person shares a concise idea (rule 1); the idea is recorded (rule 2); the group listens to the idea without challenging it (rule 3), and then the group discusses where the idea best fits within the rest of the ideas shared (rule 4). All ideas are used to quickly construct a creative concept. Through these four simple rules, we guided ourselves to developing a very innovative idea.

Technique 5 – Innovation Processes. The best way to become innovative and establish a sustainable innovation culture is through our habits. With repetitive succinct processes that connect unconnected things, we build our innovation habits. Tools such as whiteboard brainstorming, TIPS, and USIT are techniques that use repeatable patterns and cause/effect diagrams to help us as individuals and us as groups to be innovative through brute force repetition. With enough practice, innovation becomes second nature within each and every one of us.

It’s hard to establish an innovation culture. It’s much harder to sustain it. Corporate America craves innovation and at the same time incents employees to think inside the box. To make us innovative, to make us an innovative company, it all hinges on our acceptance to exercise and practice our innovation habits for connecting the unconnected.

via 5 Techniques For An Innovation Culture – BIZCATALYST 360°

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