| | Estimated reading time: 3 minutes | Creativity & Innovation
Tip for 2012: Be Specialized—It has worked the last 10,000 years

What happens when you cut off the ability for people to specialize and exchange? The answer is that you slow down technology progress—or even regress. There are studies to prove this, e.g. what happened Tasmania 10 000 years ago when it was isolated as the waters rose. But we don’t have to look back some 10 000 years. Look what has happened with societies such as North Korea or some of the Arab countries when people have been cut off from the ability to specialize and trade.

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| | Estimated reading time: 1 minute | Creativity & Innovation
The Tiny but Brutal Difference Between a Ta-Da and Oh-Oh

For some strange reason, kids (again) solve this creativity process so much better than both CEOs and business students.

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| | Estimated reading time: 1 minute | Creativity & Innovation
Idea Generation is a High-volume Business that Takes Time

The more ideas you produce, the higher is the probability that one of them is a bright one. But are you spending enough time and do you have the right processes in place to boost ideas within your company? So what does this YouTube clip tell you about your creative processes?

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| | Estimated reading time: 2 minutes | Creativity & Innovation
Communicate the Future to Drive the Present

Being creative and coming up with ideas is important, but having the skill to communicate ideas or a vision is business critical too. Being able to describe the future in rational terms (numbers or products) is just as important as describing the future in emotional terms (how it will feel for all concerned).

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| | Estimated reading time: 2 minutes | Creativity & Innovation
How to Revive Commodity Products and Make More Profit

As a marketer you have a few parameters to differentiate your product against the competition. Take a scale for example. Some people might prefer a digital display and some prefer a retro analog style. Some people might want a black descret scale and someone else wants one in a strong and personal color – maybe purple. But does it really stop here?

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| | Estimated reading time: 5 minutes | Business Technology
Apps for the Enterprise – The Super Obvious and the Generic-Specific

Yesterday I commented on the fact that the first thing I have realized in recent months discussions with customers and colleagues about what apps we should build for our enterprise applications suite, is what apps we should NOT build.

In all fairness I guess I should also explain what I have realized that customers DO want and what I think we should build.

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| | Estimated reading time: 1 minute | Creativity & Innovation
How to Generate 60 Innovations in 2 Hours

I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dragon’s Den, a reality television series featuring entrepreneurs pitching their business ideas to secure investment finance from a panel of venture capitalists. We used that concept at our R&D event last week—and the result was 60 ideas in 2 hours. Do you want to know how?

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| | Estimated reading time: 2 minutes | Creativity & Innovation
Attention Addiction Helps in the Creativity Process

Every now and then I update my Facebook status. Afterwards I can see myself falling into the trap of measuring my personal success based on the number of comments or “Likes” my post received. Sound familiar? This incentive of getting people’s attention is a very powerful tool to use in a creative process. It can make wonders.

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