|
Last week I was lucky enough to attend TEDxMelbourne. It was a day jammed-packed with thought provoking presentations with a central theme of creativity. Over the last week I've been mulling it over, trying to decide which of the ideas from the day will endure for me....and there are four that I keep coming back to:
1. The difference between commitment and "support" for innovation - Pete Williams, CEO of Deloitte Digital suggested that in many organizations there is expressed "support" for innovation - but not "commitment" to making it happen. That traditional business processes, such as the requirement for a rigorous business case prior to any investment, is in fact a major barrier to true innovation. He suggests that small investments in simply letting people start to execute, to give new ideas the oxygen they need in order to thrive, will give a much better sense of likely success than the traditional number crunching.
2. Biomimicry - to be honest, until last Friday, I'd never heard the word. The idea that we could look to nature for solutions to modern day (read: first world) problems, was not entirely unfamiliar - but the array of disciplines in which it is being applied is nothing short of astounding (e.g. A solar cell inspired by a leaf, ). Clearly it requires both a depth and breadth of knowledge within a team and a level of curiosity that goes beyond most teams I have encountered. Check out www.asknature.org for some amazing success stories.
3. Geometry of the beautiful organization - What is a "beautiful organization"? Evan Thornley, CEO of Better Place Australia suggests that we think about organizations as an equilateral triangle with the mission of a social enterprise, the scale of impact of public entities and the business discipline of private enterprise - and that we operate at the "radical centre".
4. Democratize creativity - have you ever heard someone say "I'm not creative..". Amantha Imber Founder of Inventium says that we should ditch the labels and that there are ways for us all to be more creative. The simple act of putting non conformist images on the wall or unfolding our arms or even raising our eyebrows can help us unlock our own creativity.
As you can see it was a day full of BIG ideas! Definitely worth the price of entry and I can't wait for next year! |
