How creative thinkers tinker

Did you know that developing your ability to think creatively is simply utilizing the priceless gifts you've been given: a fertile mind, a colourful imagination, and an endless array of newspapers and magazines!

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Elements of Change

The key to achieving more than you currently are, no matter which area of your life or work you are focusing in on now, is change. The old saying rings true: If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you’ve already got. If you keep eating and exercising the way you currently are, you will weigh the same a year from now. If you continue to sell to the same people on the same schedule, you will make the same amount of money next year. In order to move forward, we must change.

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The blogosphere and customer-focused innovation

What do the blogosphere and customer-focused innovation have to do with each other? More than you think, according to Patricia Seybold, author of Outside Innovation: How Your Customers Will Co-Design Your Company’s Future. Thanks to blogs, more people are communicating publicly than ever before in the history of the world. This trend is reshaping how we communicate with one another and how we share ideas and experiences. Because of its growing importance as a communications medium, Seybold says it would be a mistake to ignore it as part of your innovation efforts.

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Leading in Times of Transition

12 Leader Competencies: What It Takes In Times of Transition

For many leaders, managing the business and addressing the needs of workers are at odds. They ask, "How can I make the tough decisions if I have to focus on the emotions and concerns of my employees?"

The answer isn't about choosing either the people or the business, according to CCL's Kerry Bunker. Instead, the answer lies in being authentic and building trust.

Article continues

Goal Number One

... my first and most important goal in Change Management: Get Management Buy In .

Get it first and get it solid and remember the Goal One Corollary: Keep Cultivating It. Nothing goes very far without management support of the project.

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Quote for the week on change and creativity

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.

- R. Buckminster Fuller, 1895-1983, American Architect and Engineer

More quotations on the Pivotal Quotations pages

Innovation on the Cheap

I've just returned from the PDMA's Fall innovation event and had the chance to talk to a number of people who are involved in innovation initiatives. It's clear that many senior executive teams are very interested in becoming more innovative. It's also clear that few of them understand the commitment and
investment necessary to innovate on a consistent basis. They want innovation on the cheap.

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Jut for fun - Bob Hope

Bob Hope’s self-deprecating humour was one of his most endearing qualities and one of the basics of his success. Here is a little of it, just to make you smile ...

ON TURNING 70: 'You still chase women, but only downhill.'
ON TURNING 80: 'That's the time of your life when even your birthday suit needs pressing.'
ON TURNING 90: 'You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.'
ON TURNING 100: 'I don't feel old. In fact I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap.'
ON HIS EARLY CAREER, BOXING: 'I ruined my hands in the ring...the referee kept stepping on them.'
ON SAILORS: 'They spend the first six days of each week sowing their wild oats, then they go to church on Sunday and pray for crop failure.'
ON NEVER WINNING AN OSCAR: 'Welcome to the Academy Awards or, as it's called at my home, 'Passover'.'
ON GOLF: 'Golf is my profession. Show business is just to pay the green fees.'
ON PRESIDENTS: 'I have performed for 12 presidents and entertained six.'
ON RECEIVING THE CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL: 'I feel very humble, but I think I have the strength of character to fight it.'
ON HIS FAMILY'S EARLY POVERTY: 'Four of us slept in the one bed. When it got cold, mother threw on another brother.'
ON HIS SIX BROTHERS: 'That's how I learned to dance. Waiting for the bathroom.'
ON HIS EARLY FAILURES: ' I wouldn't have had anything to eat if it wasn't for the stuff the audience threw at me.'
ON GOING TO HEAVEN: 'I've done benefits for ALL the religions. I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality.'

This item comes from the Pivotal Just for Fun Pages

Change or die

What if you were given that choice? For real. What if it weren't just the hyperbolic rhetoric that conflates corporate performance with life and death? Not the overblown exhortations of a rabid boss, or a slick motivational speaker, or a self-dramatizing CEO. We're talking actual life or death now. Your own life or death. What if a well-informed, trusted authority figure said you had to make difficult and enduring changes in the way you think and act? If you didn't, your time would end soon -- a lot sooner than it had to. Could you change when change really mattered? When it mattered most?

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Using the Greiner Curve - Surviving the crises that come with growth

Fast growing companies can often be chaotic places to work.
As workloads increase exponentially, approaches which have worked well in the past start failing. Teams and people get overwhelmed with work. Previously-effective managers start making mistakes as their span of control expands. And systems start to buckle under increased load.

While growth is fun when things are going well, when things go wrong, this chaos can be intensely stressful. More than this, these problems can be damaging (or even fatal) to the organization.
The "Greiner Curve" is a useful way of thinking about the crises that organizations experience as they grow.

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More on change

Blogs for idea mining

From Dorai's Learnlog

Blogs are a great source of ideas. Some of the bloggers are the smartest people I know. They comment about products. They track trends. They predict future products. They compare and categorize. And they share it all free.

So how about mining ideas from blogs? And using them to improve your products, projects. For example if you look at a list of mashups, you will certainly get ideas for other mashups. If you enjoy using Web 2.0 products, you already know a specific user interface you like. By tracking the most popular Web 2.0 products, you are getting some free market research.

All these are talked about in the blogosphere.

blogging, creativity, innovation, self improvement

Change Equals Stress: Adjusting to your New Job

Preparing physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually for new job can limit the stress that is associated with the
change.

Change, even positive, exciting, beneficial, seizing-a-great-opportunity change creates and environment of stress.

And, if there were storm clouds brewing, alligator-filled swamps boiling, backstabbing cutthroats plotting, or don't get it bosses at the old site; the "nervousness" might be stronger than if the last job experience had been happy.

Making Change Profitable

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Change Begins with Choice

by Jim Rohn

Any day we wish; we can discipline ourselves to change it all.

Any day we wish; we can open the book that will open our mind to new knowledge.

Any day we wish; we can start a new activity.

Any day we wish; we can start the process of life change.

We can do it immediately, or next week, or next month, or next year.

We can also do nothing.

We can pretend rather than perform.

And if the idea of having to change ourselves makes us uncomfortable, we can remain as we are.

We can choose rest over labor, entertainment over education, delusion over truth, and doubt over confidence. The choices are ours to make. But while we curse the effect, we continue to nourish the cause.

As Shakespeare uniquely observed, "The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves." We created our circumstances by our past choices. We have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices beginning today. Those who are in search of the good life do not need more answers or more time to think things over to reach better conclusions. They need the truth. They need the whole truth.

And they need nothing but the truth.

We cannot allow our errors in judgment, repeated every day, to lead us down the wrong path. We must keep coming back to those basics that make the biggest difference in how our life works out. And then we must make the very choices that will bring life, happiness and joy into our daily lives.

And if I may be so bold to offer my last piece of advice for someone seeking and needing to make changes in their life - If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree. You have the ability to totally transform every area in your life - and it all begins with your very own power of choice.

To Your Success,

Jim Rohn

This article is excerpted from Jim Rohn's best-selling book, The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle.

To learn more go to http://books.jimrohn.com or call 800-929-0434.

Art Journals

Art journals are a form of daily devotion. They areexperimental and a great place to explore new materials and techniques. They are an excellent way to record a full and immediate life.

As I become more present with everyday life as it occurs and not so invested in long range goals, everything feels meaningful. A scrap of junk mail, a fragment from a magazine, a word, old letters. Everything can be gathered with a new frame of reference and be seen with new eyes and fresh meaning.

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More on creativity

Mental exercise

Mentalrobics™

You exercise your body to stay physically in shape, so why shouldn't you exercise your brain to stay mentally fit?
With these daily exercises you will learn how to flex your mind, improve your creativity and boost your memory.
As with any exercise, repetition is necessary for you to see improvement, so pick your favorite exercises from our daily suggestions and repeat them as desired.

Try to do some mentalrobics every single day!