Thanks for following along with the Think For A Change, LLC Blog so far.  Starting today, I am going to try and infuse some life into the blog and make it a little more interesting.  To date, the blog site has merely been a place to announce upcoming events, website changes and interesting creativity/innovation related quotes.  So...effective immediately, the weekly blog will have an inspiring quote PLUS a "conceptlet" or, in other words, an executive summary of an important innovation or corporate creativity concept.  As always, I'd love your feedback and comments.  Thanks again!!!

** Random Quote for Week of October 23rd, 2006:

"Amateurs practice until they get it right...Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong" - Unknown

** Rediscovering Corporate Imagination "Conceptlet":

Have you ever looked at an innovative, small company and wondered how they succeed?  Most likely, it is the result of a management group and employee base made up of entrepreneurial-minded people, passionate about the problem they are trying to solve or the opportunity they are trying to leverage.  Either way, corporate imagination thrives.  New opportunities are viewed as a challenge.  Individual imagination or "what if" and "why not" thinking prevails throughout the organization.

Now, contrast this with most mega-corporations today.  They view opportunity as a thing to be studied.  Something that requires leadership teams, senior leadership teams, focus groups, marketing anaylsts, business analysts, six sigma black belts and kaizen teams.  That sure takes all the fun out of opportunity doesn't it?  Sure, its responsible.  Its also a way to make certain that any good idea is reviewed and refined and filtered and altered until its declared "lean" and "risk mitigated."

So what happens along the road of success between small/imaginative and large/risk averse?  Why are the small firms unafraid to take risks and explore new opportunity while the large organizations seek to eliminate all risk and seem to only exist to protect what they already have? 

My thought is that large companies simply forget what it was that made them so successful.  When you are in a "duck and cover" environment, holding on to what you have, your strategy is like asking "What do we stand to lose?"  Please don't misunderstand, I believe that cutting costs and eliminating wasteful process are great levers for streamlining an organization, however if you forget to blend imagination, creativity, and innovation in with your continous improvement efforts, you are going to miss the next big thing.  Miss a few of those in a year and you are heading for extinction.

Rather, I would recommend that these large companies should consider continous improvement as one side of the Innovation Management Coin.  With the flip side being a good innovation and idea management system to keep the ideas and future prototypes of the company fresh and continuous.  It's what I call: "Continuous Innovation" and its what small companies with big imaginations do everyday.  This is the "What do we have to gain?" strategy.

Reawakening a corporate imagination is about listening to the ideas already circulating and doing something with them, or bringing in some fresh ideas via new employees with diverse backgrounds, or lowering the acceptable risk factor a little bit, or supporting some thought time for your employees. 
So today...think big, but act small.  Rediscover your "corporate" imagination and put it to good use.  Spend 50% of your next budget on lean initiatives and 50% on great, even risky, ideas.  Good luck!!!