Innovation Insights
by Stephen Shapiro
Contrary to conventional wisdom, opposites do not attract. In fact, it has been scientifically proven that opposites repel. The reality is, like attracts like. As a result, your organization has a bunch of people who think the same way. People
An article of mine was just published in the European Business Review. It is a concise summary of my overall innovation philosophy. Here’s the introduction… In today’s fast-paced business environment, the ability to innovate is not enough. You need to
Yesterday on my blog, I announced 3 new regular features, including the Monday Morning Movie. Today, my video comes to you from a hot tub in Orlando. I discuss how you get new insights by reducing how hard you think.
Starting tomorrow, I will be creating 3 blog features every week: Monday Morning Movie – I will shoot a brief video to share a concept around innovation. This, as you probably guessed, will run Monday mornings. Tuesday Transcription – A
I love to take baths as home. But the water never seemed deep enough. When I would fill the tub up with 9 inches of water, the overflow plate would prevent more water from entering the bath. I tried a
I am now just returning from a month sabbatical. This allowed me to reflect and spend time with friends and family. As part of that month off, I did a two week intensive retreat where they sequestered my phone. No
I decided to get with the 21st century. Starting today, in addition to my regular writing, I will be recording videos for this blog. Today’s video is a rant about a topic that has been on my mind lately. Although,
Some will claim that a component to happiness and success involves detachment. That is, not worrying about how things turn out. But this is easier said than done! People want what they want. And the more you try to not
Sacha Chua, a “sketchnote artist and experimenter-at-large” from Toronto, developed this very cool infographic of my Best Practices Are Stupid book. And she was kind enough to allow us to share it under the Creative Commons Attribution License. So spread
I recently attended a meeting where we were going to be taught the secrets of becoming a “7-figure” professional speaker. That is, we would learn how to make $1,000,000 a year. The presenter is part of an elite group of
Today I am thrilled to share with you a 45 minute conversation between me and Oliver Burkeman, the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking. I met Oliver several years ago. We got connected through
I have now spoken in 43 countries (#44 coming soon). As you can imagine, I spend a lot of time in airports and going through security. TSA Pre is amazing, and has sped up how quickly I get through the
About 10 years ago, I developed the Personality Poker® system. Since then, I gathered a mountain of anecdotal evidence supporting its value. But one question remained in my mind: Is Personality Poker truly valid? That is, do the words actually
You are alive today. You were alive yesterday. You were alive the day before that. This is good news from a survival perspective. Unfortunately it is bad news from an innovation perspective. Your brain is wired to keep you alive.
Back in 1995, I was driving Accenture’s (then Andersen Consulting) business process reengineering practice. I traveled the world helping companies downsize. Although downsizing wasn’t the objective of reengineering, it was often the outcome. While working on one particular project, I
In my book, “Goal-Free Living,” I talk about the importance of Seeking Out Adventure. Trying new things is one avenue for enhancing your creativity. As Steve Jobs once said, “Creativity is just having enough dots to connect. Dots being ideas
For the past couple of months, I have suffered from writer’s block. I have not been motivated to write. That is until this week, when I wrote five articles in three days. My rut has ended. Why? The issue stemmed
The other day I was speaking with a CEO who wanted me to help facilitate a conversation around the crafting of the company’s purpose statement. I asked her, “Why do you want to do this?” She explained that she wanted
The 4-Hour Workweek (by Tim Ferris) is the ultimate book title. Who doesn’t want to work only 4 hours a week?* I was hooked by the title, but disappointed by the premise. In a nutshell, the book suggests that if
TopCoder is one of the best-kept secrets in open innovation. I had the pleasure of spending time with them. They are a fun bunch that is passionate about what they do. After a full-day deep dive in their Connecticut offices,
The October issue of SUCCESS Magazine recently hit the news stands. The cover story – Innovate or Die – is 3 pages dedicated my perspectives on how to innovate more effectively. If you get the physical copy (with CD), you
“Work smarter not harder.” This dreadfully overused phrase is meant to address the apparent lack of time, money and resources we experience in our work and personal lives. But how do we translate these words into something actionable? Here are
If necessity is the mother of invention, then laziness is sometimes its father.* Some of the greatest innovations were developed by people who were too lazy to do a particular task. Professor John Atanasoff, along with graduate student Clifford Berry,
Think about this problem. You run an airport. It takes on average eight minutes for luggage to go from plane to baggage claim. Customers can walk to baggage claim in one minute, resulting in 7 minutes of impatient waiting. Complaints
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