Get The Creative Juices Flowing

It's common knowledge these days that innovation is the lifeblood of any business. Yet our schools continue to teach students how to be good employees for jobs that aren't there anymore. They don't teach our young people the most important skill for success; how to think and create.

In the "Industrial Age" your could graduate from school, get a good job and as long as you worked hard you were set for life. But in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down and the Internet went up we entered the "Information Age." We entered into a world economy and things changed forever.

To be successful today it is not how hard you work but how smart you work. You have to be learning something new every day and constantly coming up with new and innovative ideas.
But where do your find new ideas? Here are few suggestions for getting the creative juices flowing:

1. Be committed to innovation. Only when you are consistently in the right frame of mind will you be able to see and cultivate new ideas.

2. Look at innovation from different views. Ask yourself if what you are thinking about is new for you or for your company. It doesn't matter if it's being done elsewhere. How can you do it better?

3. Don't worry about rejection. Some ideas are good, but they can't be used right now. They might be used in the future.

4. See the good in the ideas of others. When someone else comes up with a promising idea, don't look for what's wrong with it. Instead, make a conscious effort to look for what's right.

5. Ask your customers the right questions to get new information. Customers can describe unmet needs, and they can help to evaluate a new idea.

New innovations always require more work. Sometimes an innovative idea is almost complete in itself, but it will uncover other questions that must be answered before it's true worth is determined. This is why it's so important to never shoot down ideas before they are fully developed.

The future belongs to the competent. The people who are constantly learning new things, taking risks, making new investments, and starting businesses. The people who are innovative and creative are people who will lead in the 21st century.

Let me finish today's message with a quote from Albert Einstein, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."