"Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death" - Albert Einstein

I've been thinking more and more since my post a few weeks ago on Incubation (special thanks to Chuck Frey over at InnovationTools on the shout out!) about the human mind...how it works, how it solves problems, how it waits until you are ready to listen (but maybe not ready to comprehend or record) and how it pushes all of us forward.

Since I don't allow my incubation period on improving my own creative problem solving to ever really expire, I began to see another human behavior, curiosity, as being the real driver of creativity and innovation.  In essence, it provides the ultimate business advantage.  Really...now follow along with me here...

Curiosity leads people to seek new, better ways of doing things. 

Curiosity forces people to accept failure as a learning experience. 

Curiosity keeps pushing people to ask "why" beyond that first easy answer. 

Curiosity is never being satisfied with the "best practices" of someone else. 

Curiosity will never, ever be confined to a rigid process.

So...not only does curiosity push us into looking for the problems we seek to solve, it also helps us in our search for the ideas we use to solve them.

And then...to make matters worse (or better), curiosity isn't just satisfied that the problem was "solved."  It wants to see the solution made into reality.  It wants to know if it will help others.  It wants to see if perhaps a buck or two can be made off of this new idea. 

Curiosity.  The ultimate business advantage.  A behavior that defines problems, helps with the search for solutions and feeds the desire to see the idea become a reality.  Hopefully a reality that provides value to someone.

What are you curious about????