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Recently I blogged  about redundancy. At the end of the post I mentioned I would share how I try to create redundancy in my life. I think a key way I create redundancy is a good work-life balance. I’m deeply convinced working more that 40-50 hours per week is unhealthy and inefficient . Having time to be with my family in the evening and weekends helps me be creative and efficient during work hours. Some other ways I do it are: Go out to jog or mountain bike Read a good book Block time in my agenda to think deeply and without interruptions Work from home (less distractions and traveling) Don’t plan anything, just see what happens Go on vacation – of course Visit a conference ;-) Do you have others ways to create space in your life? Let’s learn from each other.

I really enjoy going to conference every now and then. I’m at the great SocialNow [link] conference now. I go to conferences to meet people and to learn more about a certain topic. This is key for a conference. I’m not going if the people and the program aren’t interesting. But in my experience the result of a conference is the greatest thing about conference visits – at least mine. I find conference visits always trigger news ideas. Not always because of the speakers at the conference. More often it’s just because of the different environment I’m in. I’ve always found this a weird effect of conferences. The weekends or a nice long walks also have this effect but to a lesser extent. Can you relate to this? Would love to hear what conferences do to you.

It’s a priveledge to work with many different people and organisations. One reason why organizations work with us is to bring “external reference” to the table. So they want us to share with them what others are doing and what the trends are in the market. I enjoy this role. I find it very important to stay in touch with what’s going on in my area of work (and even the broader context of my work). And sharing our insights is a way to stay in touch. There are others different ways to do this as well: talk to people from other companies visit conferences read books read trend and research reports read newspapers read news and updates on the web work for many different organizations etc. The good thing about today is that there are many tools to help you keep your “trend periscope” up. For instance, I use Feedly for RSS feeds, Pocket for storing and reading online articles and getting recommendations for this to read from followers, Twitter - still one of the best platforms for trend watc...

Back to blogging! Man, I really missed it and have tried several times to get back into the habit of blogging regularly. Typing a few lines of text, but never finalizing the post and hitting the ‘publish’ button. I’ve been wondering for some time why I could cram out a post and I now think I’ve found the source. As I’ve mentioned I’ve been very busy with all kinds of projects. I’m happy to say that almost all projects have been going and are going great. It’s a joy to work for clients and help them improve their communication and knowledge processes using web technology. But there’s this one project that is not going right. It’s been going wrong for months and just when you think the project is back on track it derails again. You’ve probably been there. To me this is my creative blackhole. Loads of thinking and energy is poured into this project. Every little detail is thought over. Sucking away creativity and therefore also time to blog. Horrible but true. Of course there...

Enjoyed participating in the Lego serious play session . Some pics... The Lego pieces we got to use Working hard on the assignment My tower... Add caption

Volgende spreker is Paul Iske over 'Innovatie in de 4de dimensie, de 4 ruimtes van kennismanagement'. Net als de vorige spreker Pierre benadrukt Paul dat de wereld wordt steeds complexer. Hoe blijf je bestaan in de wereld? Hoe pak je een rol in deze wereld? Het vraagt om Agility. Paul laat een leuk voorbeeld van agility zien aan de hand van dit filmpje . Veel organisaties komen snel terecht in routines. Routines zijn een deel van leren; je kunt zo dingen sneller leren doen. Maar het kan ook beperken. Je mist dingen als je niet de moeite neemt om even buiten je routines te kijken. In deze tijd wordt er van ons gevraagd om de snelheid van ons leren te verhogen. Want we leven in een tijd waarin de snelheid van het leren, sneller gaat dan de verandering. Innovatie is dan het proces om (bestaande) kennis toe te passen in een markt/omgeving. Een omgeving bestaat uit 4 ruimtes: social space virtual space physical space process space Het klimaat is ook belangrijk voor ...

I enjoy reading Seth Godin ’s daily posts. I share them via Twitter regularly. Recently Godin posted a short one about importance of asking why . I agree, we should ask 'why' more often. It’s an essential question. Easy to ask and hard at the same time. It’s a great way to find out: what the other thinks, what their underlying convictions  are, whether someone really means what he/she is saying, etc. However, can asking 'why' also be wrong? I’ve been in an environment where lots of people asked 'why' all the time. But not for the better… Asking 'why' was a way to kill innovation and slow down the organization. It was used to make sure new ideas were not shared openly and conforming with the status quo was norm. 'Why' was used so that the questioner didn’t have to think about the idea he/she was confronted with before asking 'why'. To me someone can ask me 'why' and I just know it’ll start a great convers...

I love challenges like in this post . Andrew Winston has an interesting post about asking customers to use less of your product. So you're in the printing business: ask your customers to print less. Or you sell hamburgers or books, ask them to buy less. Thinking in this way can open you up to new opportunities and business. Sometimes you are forced to think this way. Let's make this concrete. If you were a printing company, would you advise your employees to add a footer to every email saying: Please don't print out this email! Of course many would say: Hey, but this would cannibalize my business! True, but as the above-mentioned article says: It's better to do it yourself, than that someone else is doing it to you. I think we can also flip this challenge to ourselves. Think about what you would do if your customer (member of family, friend or client) would use less of your product/service. What would you do?

During the Social Business Summit we were also taken into the wonderful world of Jazz. Michael Gold of JazzImpact told us about creativity, innovation, leading and supporting in jazz. Here are some quotes from his talk. Of course he also showed us what he meant by playing wonderful pieces of jazz and getting us on our feet, out of our comfort zone... Here are some quotes: Lead and support are the two core roles in organizations and Jazz bands. The Liminal Zone: threshold between what we know and don't know. Jazz constantly moves back and forth over that boundary. Business should as well. Elements of a good Jazz ensemble are: A utonomy P assion R isk I nnovation L istening (listening is key) UPDATE April 6, 2011 Added pictures, updated links and corrected text.

Just for fun and for the weekend. :-) Have you already watch the movie Inception ? I did and loved it. I was wondering: What if inception was really possible? And you could do it. What would you do? How would you change you colleague's or manager's mind? Maybe this is something to start influencing...

It's been a while ago since I read the great Shift Index 2009 report . I've been wanting to blog about it, but haven't had time yet. It's loaded with interesting insights. One big question I had is: This report is focused on the USA; how does this compare to Europe or Asia? One thing from the report that stuck with me, was the importance of 'creative talent' and getting them to engage in 'creative problem solving, often by connecting with peers inside and outside the firm' (p. 11). On page 70 the report goes on to talk about 'worker passion'. The findings are pretty saddening. Lots of workers are not passionate about their work and self-employed workers are much more passionate than the firm-employed. The larger the size of the firm the less passionate workers get... I went back to the Shift Index after reading a couple of things: Steve Denning's post about the H in HR , which also points to the Shift Index and the importance of eng...

... motivation filtered through opportunity. Recently I read this quote in an interesting interview/discussion betwee Clay Shirky and Daniel Pink . I've been thinking about this quote ever since. Is this true? Why am I thinking about this quote so much? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this quote. Its context can be found in the article, of course. Another nice quote from the article that was an eye opener to me is: I think our nature is to be active and engaged. I’ve never seen a 2-year-old or a 4-year-old who’s not active and engaged. As a father of kids and as an old kid, I know this is true...

Some time ago prof. Andrew McAfee had an interesting post about what's most important for the success with Enterprise 2.0 . One of the things he mentioned was: Slack exists in the workweek Slack... This term has been buzzing in my head for some time. For one because of the fact that there hasn't been much slack in my agenda the last couple of weeks... But also because many people say they are "really busy" and "don't have time for social media". I organize slack. I work from home regularly if I really want to concentrate on something, like reading and writing (a blog post). Even though I work hard from home I experience it as slack. And when I'm at work I almost always make sure I have one or two hours to read feeds and reflect on them (possibly leading to a blog post, tweet, etc.). A couple of weeks ago we had a cleaning day at the office. We organized slack for a specific reason. I love these days. Everyone is in a different mode, we're a...

Very interesting Wired article about problem solving, objectivity, creativity and innovation. Two great (and true to my knowledge!) quotes from this article: The best way to solve a problem? Try explaining it to somebody outside your field. And the second one: "But experiments rarely tell us what we think they’re going to tell us. That’s the dirty secret of science." - Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up | Magazine ( view on Google Sidewiki )

Recently I read a couple of interesting posts/articles about innovation and invention. First of all, Dev Patnaik has a nice post about what empathy has to do with innovation . Dev has seen "companies prosper when they're able to create widespread empathy for the world around them". Empathy is: the ability to reach outside of ourselves and walk in someone else’s shoes, to get where they’re coming from, to feel what they feel. And this should be widespread in the organization. People within the company are able to stand in each other's shoes and in the shoes of their customers. They understand what's happening outside and respond to that accordingly. In this way the edges of companies start to blur. Dev says we're lacking empathy not innovation. This is an interesting point also related to the posts stressing the importance of an innovative culture . One of the facets of empathy is praising others. Steven DeMaio over at the HBR blog has an inter...

If I had no budget limitations, who would I invite to speak about innovation for my colleagues? Recently I was asked to provide a list of inspiring speakers about innovation. The focus of the talk should be in the area of creativity, innovation and invention. This is the list I came up with. If you have other's you would recommend, please leave a comment! My list, again , in no specific order: Scott Berkun, author of 'The Myth of Innovation'. Nice book about what innovation is and what it's not. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of 'Flow: The psychology of optimal experience'. John Seely Brown, ex Xerox PARC director, talks, publishes and thinks about new forms of learning and education and the role of technology. Wrote an interesting report for McKinsey called ‘The next frontiers of innovation’ with the next person on this list John Hagel, thinker/author about mega trends (shifts) in the world and its meaning for enterprises. Clay Christens...

Wow, looks like there's a new interesting book out. It's called Borrowing Brilliance . The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others by David Murray. I'm definitely going to buy it. Why? Well, the review in BusinessWeek triggered me. This book seems to look at ideas, creativity and innovation being sparked by other (older) ideas. I think this point is often overlooked. Your idea has to be brand new to be a good idea. Your invention has to be done all by yourself or else it's not really an invention. This book says: That's not true. Lots of inventions and innovations are sparked by old(er) ideas and innovations. And it provides six steps to help you apply this fact in your personal practice or in your business. As I understand the first step is: define the problem you want to solve. What I'm hoping is that the book will say: Try to define your problem as a wish. My experience is that looking at a problem can limit the creativity...

Chris Brogan had a fascinating post some time ago, called 'The value of wonder' . 'Wonder' is a great concept. It's basically a way of life. He says: ...let’s think about those moments when we see or experience something that makes us breathe in deeply, and then causes us to pause and just be there. And he wonders: Do we experience this enough in our work as we do when we look at our kids for instance? Very good question. Do we look around us, at the people we work with, the technology we use, the things we see happening, a colleague's great idea, and step back in wonder. Do we voice this 'wonder' to each other regularly? 'Fascination' is a comparable powerful concept. It also relates to kids and the way they do things. Blocking out all else, fully concentrated. 'Wonder' and 'fascination' are concepts that keep me going. It helps me look at things in a new ways. Do it with your mouth open, because you forgot to close ...

Great pod- and vidcast by Tom Kelley of IDEO at Stanford ! (Thanks for link @frogpond .) The title of his talk is "How to be an innovator for live?" He give five practical (but hard) tips to tap into the innovator in you. Yes, the innovator, the artist, is in you, Tom says. He shares an interesting anecdote about an artist who went through the classes of an elementary school asking all classes the same question. The question was: 'Who's an artist here?' As you understand in kindergarten everyone was, in 6th grade almost nobody dared to say they were. And if they did, they would look around to see what their friends thought about it. Tom encourages all of use to stay childlike (not childish). 'It's OK to be an artist!' Don't accept the common saying 'Deja vu', but say 'Vu ja de' ('Deja vu' backward...), as they say at IDEO. I love these talks. They inspire me to the max. Maybe because in the adult world we see so little ...

Interesting Harvard Business Review article on "How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity" by Ed Catmull (issue September 2008). It's inspirational to read how they cultivate creativity in their organization. Although I find this article doesn't really bring much new approaches to fostering creativity and being an innovative organization, it is healthy to read and re-read these kinds of articles and test yourself and your organization: am I, are we fostering creativity? And if not, what are we going to do about it? What I really liked was what Ed said about being "scared" of your customers and your competition. They want the very best from you every single time you launch a product! That is scary. And it's a good starting point for creativity! Pixar's philosophy is: "You get creative people, you bet big on them, you give them enormous leeway and support, and you provide them with an environment in which they can get honest feedback from everyone...