Scott Berkun, Author of “The Myths of Innovation”, in an interview with Guy Kawasaki:
the foundation is that ideas are combinations of other ideas. People who earn the label “creative” are really just people who come up with more combinations of ideas, find interesting ones faster, and are willing to try them out. The problem is most schools and organizations train us out of the habits.
Glad to see that. In my Thinking about Thinkings seminar, I talk about how Ideas trigger ideas.
So it helps to keep an idea log. And keep going back to it. Ultimately, you need to try a few after your own filtering process. In software today, it is so much easier to try out ideas with all the great tools we have at our command. That is one of the reason mashups are taking off. It is so easy to try out ideas in a few hours.
A few more pearls from the interview:
Innovation is a practice—a set of habits—and it involves making lots of mistakes and being willing to learn from them.
New ideas often come from asking new questions and being a creative question asker.
Innovation is difficult, risky work, and the older you are, the greater the odds you’ll realize this is the case.
Here are some more from 10 Lessons of Innovation Idris Mootee Keynote
- Innovation is like ping-pong where ideas are bounced back and forth
- Innovation is a mindset
- Innovation occurs at the intersection of previously unconnected and unrelated planes of thought
- Prototype a lot, fail often, fail early