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In what is sure to be a severe blow to those Blackberry and text messaging addicts (you know who you are; in fact, we ALL know who you are!), research conducted for Hewlett Packard by Kings College of London University has found that using email extensively can actually lower your IQ – significantly more than using drugs. Gee, thanks, guys!

This dramatic news comes to us via Dave Snowden at Cognitive Edge, who quite wisely follows up with an excellent list of 7 reasons why managers should restrict their own use of emails:

1. You will get time to walk the floor (and sometimes even walk the talk) not to mention think and talk strategically.
2. Looking people in the eye tells you more than trying to make sense of emoticons, and an apology in the flesh is worth far more (in both directions) than any virtual communication.
3. You will get a chance to check for reaction before you press send, and to recover in real time if you make a mistake; before it becomes fatal.
4. The human brain is designed to see patterns, not process small chunks of information, but if you spend your time processing said chunks you will loose the patterning capability (the neurons will die out) and end up as an information processor. Another name for that function/capability is clerk not manager.
5. Its far more likely that you will pick up that something is going right/wrong by meeting people in their own environment; you will sense multiple audio and visual tools that are not available in email.
6. It is far too easy to come across as authoritarian using a keyboard, and it’s more difficult for people to say no to you face-to-face than it is in writing.
7. Your eyesight and general disposition will improve, not to mention your flexibility to negotiate a win-win result with your staff and to see them as humans not avatars.

If you think about it (please, I beg you!) I trust you’ll take note of the social dimension of each item above. I realize that being a manager sometimes means processing large amounts of information in ridiculously little time, but at the same time it’s up to us to make sure it’s not at the expense of our people skills. After all, even if managing is a bit like herding cats, your people are usually the ones doing the actual production work!

“Now I know that sometimes people live in different geographies and face to face contact is hard, but there is always the telephone. Yes email is better for things like organizing meetings etc. It may be easier to attempt to manage as if you were games master of some on-line simulation game, but it’s a damn sight more rewarding to treat people as people.”

OK, suppose you’ve managed to start walking around the office again, and you’re really starting to regain those personal connections with the people around the office. Productivity is up, people have stopped referring to you as “that recluse”, and you’re no longer under the tyranny of your inbox. You’re also learning to concentrate only on what we’ll call “legitimate” emails.

But what about those emails YOU send? After all, if everyone is doing what you’re doing, the question now is, how do you get their attention in that vast black hole called the inbox? Hey, you’re in luck! Sally McGhee, a “consultant and productivity expert” (whatever THAT means) has an excellent list of 7 guidelines to ensure your emails are read.

1. Make the purpose of the message clear.
2. Tell what action you want the recipients to take.
3. Provide the proper data and documents.
4. Write a subject line that relates to what you want.
5. Send the message only to relevant recipients.
6. Use the CC: line wisely.
7. Ask “final questions” before you hit “SEND”.

There you have it folks – a “pair of sevens” that, if well played, will win every time!

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

To round out this week’s focus on innovation, here’s a few last thoughts…

Never forget that if you choose to get into innovation, you may not have much help. Rather than flock to your banner, most people will likely as not consider you to be a little “out there” at best, and completely insane at worst. As illustrated by this curve, innovators are sadly in the minority. It’s up to you to realize this and gather your own resources and resolve.

As Sir Lawrence Olivier once said, “No matter how well you perform, there’s always sombody of intelligent opinion who thinks it’s lousy.”

And finally…

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

To add to our discussion this week about innovation and creativity, here’s a brief list of websites (in no particular order) you might be interested in checking out. There are literally zillions of websites like this on the Internet, so this representative group was more-or-less chosen at random. Knock yourself out!

Creative Think – a new blog by Roger von Oech, author of “A Whack on the Side of the Head”, and more recently, the “Ball of Whacks”

The House of Innovation – a weblog of innovation and marketing with plenty of “short, sharp” entrys on innovation

Global:Ideas:Bank – a sort of worldwide suggestion box: “These ideas we term social inventions: non-technological, non-product, non-gadget ideas for social change. These are a
mix of existing projects, fledgling initiatives and new bright ideas.”

StartupJournal – The idea file from the Wall Street Journal’s online Center for Entrepreneurs

iinnovate – a blog/podcast on innovation and entrepreurship by two Stanford students

Innovation Tools – an outstanding collection of tools, tips, guidelines, etc. focused on making innovation easy

Principled Innovation – Jeff de Cagna’s blog on innovation and its impact in society

Broken Bulbs – an Asian-based blog on innovation in the Far East

Innovate on Purpose – Jeffry Phillip’s thoughtful blog on sustainable, repeatable innovation

Innovation.net – blog dedicated to fostering open innovation among senior business leaders

Stories from the Intersection – an interesting blog from Hans Johansson with stories that illustrate the theme from his book, “The Medici Effect”

Creativity Central Blog – a place where people create, share and comment on intriguingly innovative ideas from the community

Idea Champions – a set of 10 simple techniques from Idea Champions for loosening up those creative thought processes

GoCreate.com – the “Creative Center of the Universe”, with a veritable plethora of idea-generating helps

Whatizit Creative Idea Generator – a fun, free online version of the idea generator used by Dave DuFour in his seminars

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

One thing many people struggle with when it comes to innovation is the thought that innovation is 1) easy; 2) hard; 3) impossible for “me”; 4) all of the above (take your pick). Sure, it’s not necessarily like turning on a light switch, but thinking innovatively (is that a real word?) is possible for just about anyone who really wants to.

In this post from Dave Snowden over at Cognitive Edge I found even more great thoughts on innovation, so I figured what the heck, let’s continue the thread on innovation and just call this “Innovation Week” here at MZM.

“I have long argued that there are three necessary, but not sufficient conditions for innovation to take place. These are:

• Starvation of familiar resource, forcing you to find new approaches, doing things in a different way;
• Pressure that forces you to engage in the problem;
• Perspective Shift to allow different patterns and ideas to be brought into play.

Creativity is just one way, and not necessarily the most effective to achieve perspective shift. In fact I am increasingly of the opinion that creativity is not a cause of innovation, but a property of innovation processes, it’s something that you can use as evidence of innovation, but not to create it.”

What he seems to be saying here is that just because you’re a creative person, it doesn’t necessarily follow that innovation will naturally occur. These three conditions must be present as well (and their presence does not guarantee it either - it just “sets the stage”, so to speak) : starvation, pressure, and perspective shift. Allow me to illustrate by personal example.

A few years ago there was a severe downturn in my industry (Engineering), causing a huge glut of engineers on the market. As a result, I experienced an exceedingly long period of unemployment (it was, alas, years, not months). During this time I joined a job networking group, and weeks stretched into months as our savings slowly ran down. One day while attending the networking meeting I discovered quite by accident that there were about 25 PhDs in the group (it was a very large group).

Over coffee later that day, I and two friends got to thinking, what can you do with 25 PhDs? The obvious answer was (and you knew this was coming) “consult”. Since this was something of a non-answer, we realized that despite the amount of knowledge and expertise this group represented, the real challenge was to harness such a group in a productive way.

So I formed a new company called Mars Hill Group (coming up with a really good name was a real bear. “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” was already taken. As was “The Society of the Large-Brained”), and we started with 19 members, all with PhDs, who together represented a combined 80 or so degrees (one gentleman had 5!) in a variety of disciplines. After brainstorming for suitable ideas, we decided to address Homeland Security, and eventually produced a proposal and submitted it for consideration.

I’d like to say we received a contract with the DHS and all of us are now working for the government – but alas, the only true part of that statement is that we’re all now working again.

Be that as it may, I think it illustrates what Dave was saying above. Starvation and pressure forced a perspective shift. Thus our need (for positive cash flow, for jobs, for a creative outlet for our passion and expertise) led us to try something new. So instead of waiting for someone to come along and offer us a job, we basically created our own.

Now you’re possibly thinking, “But what kind of illustration is that? You failed!” But did we really? Is that even the point?

No, I think the real point is if we had continued to look at our situations from the same old perspective, we would have wasted the opportunity to have a great experience with something completely new. And from that, we all managed to benefit.

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

OK, it’s been 24 hours since you read about having fun with innovation in my last post (you DID read it, didn’t you?), and you’re stuck. Try as you might, not one hair-brained idea has surfaced in the last hour or two. Well, little buddy, sometimes ya gotta stir the batter before making flapjacks (with a nod to Scott Adams).

For inspiration, check out some of the innovations from Business Innovation Insider. It’s likely the discussion that initiated every one of them probably started this way:

“You know, what if we…”

Each one of these innovations started with a “eureka” moment (and probably over a beer, by the looks of ‘em); perhaps they might prompt a few wild thoughts of your own…

Latch-Hook Rugs

No, silly, it’s not an innovative new wig hair replacement, it’s exactly what it sounds like: A rug. On a wall. Framed. It seems NY artist Rob Conger is making big bucks (up to $4,000 a pop!) for his latch-hook rug portraits of famous CEOs, like Sam Walton (Wal-Mart), Vance Coffman (Lockheed Martin) and many others. Those New Yorkers are such a crazy bunch! Actually, this one makes me a little sick to my stomach, when I think of what passes for art these days. But it DOES illustrate a previously-overlooked innovative niche.

The Luxury Loo

The Wall Street Journal has a story (sorry, subscription required) about the portable sanitation industry and how it is being transformed. So now, when you throw that big society outdoor shindig and a guest has to hit the can, no longer are the only options finding a strategically-placed tree, or tiny, smelly blue boxes. Now you can pay up to $5,000 a day for a truly sumptuous temporary John with marble counters, porcelain flush toilets, and air conditioning – even an attendant! A little pricey, no doubt, but look at the, ahem, bottom line - this way you don’t have to worry about your guests wandering around the house lifting the silverware while pretending to look for the loo.

The Stone Bed

If you’re one of those people who just can’t get a firm enough mattress, here’s an idea – why not try a stone bed? Apparently Koreans have been using these for some time, and one company is now marketing them in the U.S. Yeah, sure – sounds like a case of Chinese Math at work in the marketing department (“…but sir, there are 220 million Americans, and if only 1% buy one, we’ll make a fortune!”) On the other hand, the beds are good-looking, heated, and to prevent lawsuits, made for ground-floor bedrooms only. Please don’t hate me for saying this, but I predict (ahem) a “hard sell” in the comfort-centric U.S. market.

The Extremely Personalized T-Shirt

A manufacturer in Canada is now producing “top-5 list” t-shirts that buyers can fill in from their website with anything at all. Now you can share with the world your 5 favorite books (No. 1: Spider-Man #1), your 5 favorite foods (No. 1: gravy, and lot’s of it!), or even your 5 worst fears (No. 1: people who share extremely personal information with you for no reason at all).

And, as a last resort, if these ideas aren’t enough to inspire you, just Google “innovation” and start hitting websites at random. Have fun!

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

I haven’t been to a movie theater in quite a while, but recently my wife and I started attending one of those new satellite church services being held on Sundays in a local movie theater. I have to admit, it’s a pretty good example of cooperative marketing, and in my humble opinion, quite effective. (I must admit, though, we’re still “old school” enough to be bothered by the thought of bringing cups of coffee INTO the church service. Gasp! We just now got over people wearing casual clothes to church. I’m not old. Really.)

RANT: We rarely never go to the movies anymore. Mainly because there’s nothing on the big screen that’s worth the ridiculously high cost of a ticket, paying $10 for a small soda and small popcorn or $5 for a $.99 candy bar, all for the privilege of hearing multiple profanities tossed out by even the youngest of actors. No matter how “good” (a debatable point for the most part) the story might be it’s just not worth it. /END RANT

One thing that caught my attention (but not during church, of course!) were the armrests between seats – they have built-in cup holders! I expect you’ll be somewhat less than amazed at this revelation, since apparently movie theaters have had them for quite a while now, but the thing is – my wife invented that!

OK, how about this? How many times have you been seated at a restaurant table that, due to uneven floors, every time you put your elbow on the table the coffee spills everywhere? Maybe it’s an etiquette training device? Well, my wife invented a clever little gizmo (basically a small wedge of plastic) that you slip under the uneven table-leg and eliminates the wiggle. There’s a little display tree in the center of the table with these wedges stuck in them, and each one has the restaurant’s name and logo on it. You can take one with you (it’s free) and use it anywhere.

Or how about the Master Gardener, a device I invented that you attach to your hose, that knows and adjusts exactly how much to water every different plant in your garden? Or the adjustable couch, that can reshape itself to virtually any butt on the planet? What’s that? Never heard of them? Gee, perhaps it’s because… they don’t exist, except in our minds.

Here’s the thing. I don’t want you to think innovation is just an exercise restricted to “someone else”. Any one of us can have a great idea, given even half a chance. The trick is to not think about practicality when you’re generating ideas. (There’s no more of a downer than coming up with all the reasons an idea is NOT practical!) Have some fun, be creative! Shake up the ol’ grey cells a bit. Get out of the same old way of looking at things.

Oh, sure, taking something from the idea stage to “on the shelf at stores” is quite an undertaking, and something not everyone is cut out for. I know that. But sometimes it’s fun to just toss ideas around and see what sticks. It keeps the brain cells busy, it opens your mind to new ideas and thought processes, and you never know, you might just accidentally (or on purpose) come up with something truly practical in the real world, like those armrest cup holders.

Maybe subconsciously there’s another reason my wife and I no longer go to movies – so she won’t have a chance to poke me in the ribs and say, yet again, “Hey – my idea!”

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!