Innovation it would seem is the newest new thing. Companies constantly striving for more and more innovation - motivating people to be innovative, creating contests and incentives to drive innovation.
Sometimes it's pretty simple. Have more conversations with people focused on different things. Get new, divergent opinions and points of view and innovation happens.
In the book "Medici Effect" Frans Joansson discusses how the Medici family, through its patronage of artists and scientists impacted the growth of arts and culture in Florence. We are living through a new "electronic" Florence in that we have multiple ways to connect to new ideas and divergent conversations. The quote below from Future of Work blog article "The Future of Work Will be Fueled by Coffee" says it best...
That, my friends, is how creativity and innovation really happen: unplanned interactions among the "raw materials" of new products and new businesses. Third Places are enablers of innovation, and that's just what the economy needs a whole lot more of.
Does your company encourage these connections or do you put up walls and rules about who and what you can talk about? Is one of your objectives each day to get a new point of view? Do you stay within your industry, group, department, etc?
You can't motivate innovation but you can provide the environment where innovation occurs and provide incentives to execute against those new ideas.
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Marketing and Incentive Design Consultancy