General Mills is open to your suggestions

I had an idea I wanted to pass along to General Mills, so I went to their website to email it in. At the top of the suggestions page it says, "We welcome your comments". Below the comments submission box though, is this text:

All comments, suggestions, ideas, notes, drawings, concepts, recipes or other information disclosed or offered to General Mills by this site or in response to solicitations in this site shall be deemed and shall remain the property of General Mills. You understand and acknowledge that General Mills has both internal resources and other external resources which may have developed or may in the future develop ideas identical to or similar to the suggestion or comments to suggestions and that General Mills is only willing to consider the suggestion on these terms. That, in any event, any suggestion is not submitted in confidence and General Mills assumes no obligation express or applied by considering it. Without limitation, General Mills shall exclusively own all now known or hereafter existing rights to the suggestions of every kind and nature throughout the Universe and shall be entitled to unrestricted use of the comments for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise without compensation to the provider of the suggestions.

My favorite part of the above is the bolded piece... that they have rights to the suggestion of every kind and nature throughout the Universe. As if taking my idea and profiting from it on Earth wasn't enough! The Universe? I know they're protecting themselves legally... but this sounds like something a 4 year-old would claim.

Perhaps I'm the one being immature, but after reading the above disclaimer I decided to keep my idea for myself. Are these kinds of controlling policies good for interacting with your customers? Does it show you are really open to a dialogue with your customers? Is it good for innovation?

Idea Wins

Thought I would send around a heads-up about a new contest... a search for the next great small business idea: http://www.ideawins.com

The top idea wins $100,000 seed money, a storefront in New York, and guidance / resources to get you up and running. The contest is being sponsored by Microsoft and is being judged by among others, Carolyn Kepcher, of the Apprentice (Trump's former VP).

If you've got a killer biz concept bubbling in the back of your head, this could be worth a shot. Gotta love free seed money and PR.

Creative Resumes

(Scott) I'm currently in resume review mode, and every single one that crosses my desk (or inbox) looks absolutely identical. Times New Roman, 11-point font, line after line of bulleted achievements, black and white. Is this uniformity in fact an opportunity to stand out from the crowd? Or, is breaking from the status quo too high risk?

For those of us in the world of creativity / innovation, should we ever consider a candidate who sends us a plain black and white resume? Are they walking their talk?

As food for thought, I recently read a survey that said the average black and white resume is viewed for a total of 8 seconds by the "gatekeeper" (usually somone in HR). That's not a lot of time to make a first impression. Conversely, resumes that were printed on colored paper received 17 seconds of attention. That's a significant difference... and that's only from colored paper.

The best "resume" I ever received was a few years back... on a Monday, a large box arrived at our office, sealed with a big, red bow tie. Inside was a set of red, bicycle handlebars. Etched into the handlebars were exciting adjectives and a note to stay tuned. On Tuesday, another box, this one with a front wheel. Painted on the wheel were company names and previous work experiences. Wednesday and Thursday brought similar pieces. Still, no candidate name... just bicycle bits. Then, on Friday, the candidate delivered the final piece herself. She also arrived with a wrench and volunteered to put the bike together (a Radio Flyer tricycle). By this time, our whole team was totally enamored with her... the bike told her work and life story, and as she put the bike together in our conference room we chatted her up - she proactively created an informal interview. She was applying for a creative position, and proved she understood how to deliver a memorable message and get results. We hired her without reservation.

What's the best resume you have ever seen? How have you seen applicants push the envelope? Or, alternatively (and for fun), what is the worst resume you have ever seen?

Rules of Brainstorming

Professor Robert I. Sutton's (Stanford Engineering School) "Eight Rules for Brilliant Brainstorming":

1. Use brainstorming to combine and extend ideas, not just harvest them
2. Don't bother brainstorming if people live in fear
3. Do individual brainstorming before and after group sessions
4. Brainstorming sessions are worthless unless ideas lead to action
5. Brainstorming requires skill and experience both to do and especially to facilitate
6. A good brainstorming session is competitive - in the right way
7. Brainstorming sessions can be used for more than just generating ideas
8. Follow the rules, or don't call it a brainstorm

Any of the above leap out at you as particularly important? Is there a rule that you think is missing? One that is most frequently violated?

Wiki Book

(Scott) Perhaps you've already seen this in the media... I just find it fascinating: http://www.wearesmarter.org/

In a nutshell, professors from MIT and Wharton are writing the first "networked book on business"... an exploration of the role of social networks in business. The book is being written by wiki; so, essentially the professors have written the chapter titles and they are relying on the public to write all the content via the wiki. A ghost writer will later edit all the content into a neat little (or likely big) book for sale to the public. None of the contributors (besides of course the professors who managed to write the chapter titles) will be compensated.

Would you contribute to something like this? Is it taking advantage of the public? Would you buy the book? Is it credible enough?

This answers some of the questions from Pam's previous post... it's sort of consolidating the "best of" content out there on a specific topic for easier digestion. What do you think?

the counter trend to blogging will be...

(Pam) Meeting this weekend with some older relatives of mine, the conversation went to how technology has changed the way we interact with each other. There was criticism of the new ways of communicating - through email intead of letters, through text not voice, etc. One particular point was that people are able to publish their own, unedited thoughts and feelings on the internet via blogs - and that this felt more like a "brain vomit" of thoughts rather than a well thought through piece of literature or prose. I agree that what people choose to publish is often not high quality, whether it be on YouTube or an angsty teen poetry blog - but I don't think it's a bad thing - I'm sure something far better will come of it given time.

What do you think the counter trend of blogging will be? What's the next reaction that society will take, enabled by technology? Surely it will have something to do with finding your way through the miriad of people's thoughts and feelings and making sense of it all. Perhaps a way of randomly combining all the different thought pieces about a different topic, like a Google of prose (that searches on opinions or full topics rather than just key words?), or a technology based qualitative analysis tool that distills the essence of the topics and gives you the most agreed answer in the end...or is that already possible?

Music and Ideas

(Scott) How do you use music to inspire ideas? Do you have a fail-safe genre that you turn to in order to get your mental gears turning? Are you a jazz person? Classical? Rock 'n' roll?

Or, even better, is there a particular song that you have come to rely on to get you thinking? If yes, please share!

And finally, do you think it is easier to create ideas when listening to music with or without lyrics? Are the lyrics distracting, or do the words in fact inspire new ideas?

Golf as the Inspiration for Ideation

(Scott) I was thinking about a golf drill this morning and thought it might be a great metaphor for an ideation exercise. For those of you who golf, this will sound familiar. For others, well, indulge me.

When I'm practicing putting, I like to put a ring of 4 golf balls around the hole - all of them one foot from the hole. It's like the hole is the center of a clock, and the balls are positioned 1 foot away at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock. After I make all 4 putts, I do the same thing, but this time move the balls so they are 2 feet from the hole. Then again, but 3 feet, then 4 feet and finally 5 feet.

I like this as an approach to ideation. First identify your focal point (topic), which is akin to the hole. Then, generate ideas that are close-in... 1 foot from the cup. For example, if you're creating the latest, greatest frozen pizza, start with new toppings ideas. Then, take each of the ideas you just created and push them further out... perhaps new ways of putting the toppings on the pizza (i.e. they come in individual bags so you can spread the pepperoni around as you choose). Then, take that idea and push it further out... and further out... until you're creating wilder ideas.

This could be a comfortable way for a conservative culture to really shake up their thinking... baby steps. Or, a decent way to improve your putting.

How else could you move a group from close-in ideas to far-out ideas?

What's the timesheet code for "thinking"?

(Pam) I believe there is a huge dilemma facing us in the business world and I don't know how we'll get to grips with it - but surely we will need to start acting soon. It's the expectation that every minute needs to be accounted for or we're not being productive (filling out timesheets for every hour of the day) without allowing us time for inspiration, learning, knowledge gathering, socialising, day dreaming at work. I've been reading tons of books about creativity in the last week (in a separate post I'll list them) - and of course, as we already know, they say we MUST have time off in our brains to be able to be creative.

In the last place I worked they thought being creative is something you do for a client, on paid time, and only if you're in the right department. Being creative wasn't valued for coming up with new solutions to internal issues, future thinking about products, how to make the team feel better, or even for client issues in the end.

What on earth is it going to take for companies to stop force feeding people with emails and procedures to take up every extra hour in the day - how can we find some time to just think? Or talk? Or day dream? I know that we will look back on today's business world and laugh at how we all just chased our tails without being truly useful or having quality thinking- but those of us who know it's true now must start to make a difference....but how?

My commitments in my new job:
keep to the hours in the day - go home on time to give my brain a rest
find time for thinking, daydreaming, discussing - I'm going to give one afternoon a week to inspiration
keep talking to other people - I'm going to keep in touch with a variety of people who don't work in my company - which will benefit my company because of the opportunity for perspective and shared learning
provide the opportunity for people in the business to be inpsired and creative (okay that's my job description - but I can't do that without living it myself, don't you think?)

watch this space for my progress....do you think I'll stick to it? what pitfalls do you forsee? have you ever tried this before? I haven't.

From the Audience's Perspective

This is just a little reminder to make sure you always take the time to look at things from the audience's perspective...

My wife and I are expecting our first child in January. So, yesterday we were baby shopping and I zeroed in on the mobiles. From my perspective they looked beautiful. Floating, multi-colored zebras, origami swans, dancing alphabet letters... but they're all two-dimensional (or near 2-D) and facing profile. So, from the baby's perspective, they look like a bunch of meaningless, thin shapes (as in, hold a 2-D teddy bear in front of your face. It looks great. Now, hold it directly above your head and look up at it. Not very stimulating).

This metaphor is a reminder to see things from the audience's perspective. What we're presenting may look awfully meaningful to us, but the audience may be seeing it from an entirely different angle.

P.S. After some intense web searching last night, I ended up finding a mobile I'm totally thrilled with... lots of contrast and geometric shapes!

The Most Creative Presentation You Ever Saw...

(Scott) I need to design a presentation for a group of 100 very important people... and I've been told to make it creative and interactive.

To help me get the ball rolling, I wanted to reach out and ask, "What is the most creative and engaging presentation you ever saw?" What made it so engaging? Was it the presenter, the props, the content, the flow... or all of the above in some unique conversation?

As a start, the first presentation that comes to mind is one I saw Seth Godin (author of Permission Marketing, IdeaVirus, Purple Cow, etc) make to a group of meeting planners. He had 10 slides, each of them a large, colorful photo. He the content of each photo as a metaphor for a business lesson, and as the foundation for a relevant story. The combination of photos and stories made the presentation really memorable and high impact.

Now it's your turn. What have you seen that really grabbed you?

Start a MODsquad

(Scott) In the movie, "Thank You for Not Smoking" (which I highly recommend), the main character is a tobacco lobbyist. Every month he gets together for dinner with the head lobbyists for firearms and alcohol... they call their little gathering the MODsquad, for Merchants Of Death.

When they rendez-vous, they share their "business" problems and bounce around ideas. Essentially, jamming with peers from different organizations allows them to see their problems from fresh perspectives.

After seeing the movie, I thought, "why can't I have a MODsquad? A group of creative peers from different firms who connect on a regular basis to share ideas." So, I have hunted down the most creative person at each of the five largest employers in town... and we have assembled our very own MODsquad.

The first meeting is on the horizon, so this is a pretty experimental concept at this point, but I encourage you to think about how you can create a channel to connect with people who can help you reframe and solve your challenges. I'll keep you posted on the success of MODsquad Seattle. In the meantime, I WELCOME (and need) suggestions on how to make the most of this kind of gathering. Have you done something like this before? How did you make sure time was used effectively? What are examples of other channels you could create?