Today biz wants innovation to be centered around their perceived goals. The goals as set by those only familiar with the direction they can imagine the company should go. Goals to be achievable must be measurable. How does a company  measure the value of an innovation that goes outside of their knowledge?  It is the purview of the innovation side to go into completely new directions . General goals can be set but the when the goals become set in stone true innovation will be stifled.

Innovation by accident has been around for quite a while. When an experiment goes awry and the result is unexpected.  The result of going the wrong direction to create something has been done for years. The concept may be right to start out with  but the results of the little experiment can yield innovation . Examples include

So the next time you set down to discuss an conceptual directions that management wants you to use consider it and then experiment with it. You can stick with the company line of thought but what kinda fun is that? Leap over the set direction and take the idea to where it belongs. Dead ends no problem. Branch it out. Invert it. Redirect it.  Re-purpose it.

Think big, act confident and let your ideas fly!

Related articles

• Don’t Wait, Innovate(avaya.com)

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Basic idea

Its’ an idea in the rough with a lack of qualifications and limitations. The first task is to give it a direction. What problems is it going to solve. It can be an immediate feeling of need or it might just be a little rub in how things work. Most smoothing of ideas involve improving an existing product. Don’t ignore these pushes. They can be quite profitable. But they rarely light up the world.

More onsite

It’s a simple thought that will let you take the basic idea and throw it all over the place. Many times the idea you found might be obvious for the place you started but putting into a new zone of action can make it unique and much more valuable.

Lets go back to our little garage problem.

1) Don’t start the car if it is inside the garage and the garage door is closed

a) The control needs to know if the car is in the garage or just parked out front

b) Then perform operations in the correct order

c) If garage door doesn’t open stop process.

O1) Front door?

O2) Opposite side. If I open the garage door and it’s at night turn on the driveway light (if at night) and other lights as needed.

O3) If I shut off the car in the garage at night and leave the garage door open over 1/2 hour alert and close the garage door automatically. Must have a local override and know that there is no one moving around in garage.

O4) Where else can the auto open/close be used? Like auto lights on/off in the house or power up PC automatically in the morning. Same idea but when you control something unexpected it changes the effect.

O5) Mobile device. Turn on an alert when your ex-girlfriend

gets t0o close.

Conversions or observation of your fellow workers behaviors can yield great starting points. Seemly innocent remarks like “Why can’t I …or it just won’t let me..” . Dumb off the cuff statements can contain little jewels of an idea. Don’t be afraid to play with them.  Bouncing the idea back to the originator lets them know you are listening, rephrasing the idea in the form of “Did you know what you just said or did?” Clean it up a little and then bounce it around a few times. Inspiration comes from communication at first. Later other things needs adjusted.

I’ll be adding more at the site beyond these posts.

Springfield is reaching for another minority group to get money from. They need more money to spend and really can’t control spending so now the new tax request is delivered with a health angle. It’s like the way they ask for money for teaching. It’s presented in a way that to be in opposition to it would be foolish. Great way to corner the consumer.

Let me propose another method of increasing taxation that could help the state in bunches of ways.

Henceforth all public officials for state government will have their taxes increased for life after two times in office.

Since they have all sorts of means to pad their bank account adding penalties to staying in office too long would be great way of bringing in extra cash. Picture this some politicians would actually only want in office for a few terms rather than being a career!  This approach should also be used for congress. Imagine that a build in turnover of politicians instead of ossification in office. If the tax was aimed at them there would be scream about being to narrow a focus but aimed at smokers that’s OK.

I’ll submit that this method could solve more problems than their present proposition.

Cigarette