How to solve critical business challenges by generating more and better ideas Every organization needs a steady supply of fresh, relevant ideas, but managers can?t just lock teams in a room with a mandate to brainstorm and hope for the best. Ideation is both a science and an art, and when group ideation processes are well-designed and well-facilitated, anyone can generate an abundance of creative, implementable options?not to mention true breakthroughs?for any business need. Drawing on his work leading high-stakes ideation sessions at over 300 organizations, Mattimore explains the how, what, and why of successful ideation and provides a framework for when and how to apply various techniques. Identifies Mattimore?s top ideation and innovation techniques (including ?brainwalking,? finding inspiration in worst ideas, the unexpected effectiveness of wishing, and more) and lays the groundwork for you to invent successful processes of your own Tells real stories of ideation at work in Mattimore?s consulting business, including how Ben & Jerry?s named a new strawberry fudge flavor, how Thomas? invented a new, healthier English muffin that now accounts for over 30% of its sales, how IBM transformed the culture of one of its divisions to make it more innovative, and many more Mattimore is a world-class expert on applied creativity and an innovation process consultant to over one-third of the Fortune 100 companies; he and his team have helped create and launch products and services worth over $3 billion in annual US retail sales With a diverse range of tested methods, Idea Stormers is the indispensable guide for developing original, practical solutions to even the most intractable-seeming creative challenges.

From Bryan Mattimore, innovation guru to Fortune 500 companies, comes a book for aspiring entrepreneurs, corporate “intrapreneurs,” and anyone else looking to break the mold. Bryan Mattimore is a big idea guy. For the past twenty-five years, he has helped Fortune 500 companies create over $3 billion in new innovations using his unique creative-thinking exercises. In 21 DAYS TO A BIG IDEA: CREATING BREAKTHROUGH BUSINESS CONCEPTS, Mattimore takes readers through a disciplined creative process to create original and practical new business concepts. By investing less than an hour a day for twenty-one days, you will: 1) learn a new toolkit of creative thinking strategies and problem-solving techniques that can be used for solving a wide variety of both personal and professional challenges, and 2) generate more than a dozen new concepts from which to choose the highest potential/winning idea for a new start-up. Entertaining and easy-to-follow, 21 DAYS TO A BIG IDEA is a must-read for all aspiring entrepreneurs, helping you to discover and implement your first—or your next—biggest idea. "Greatness starts with an idea, but the chasm between ideas and truly great ideas is vast. This terrific, approachable book provides a simple and straightforward method for bending and torturing almost any idea until it succumbs to greatness."—Bob Dorf, co-author of THE START-UP'S OWNER'S MANUAL

Providing a practical and concise introduction to agency life, this text gives an insight into the day-to-day operations of a professional PR firm and offers best practice for creating a successful PR career.

The acceleration of technological change demands that today's information professionals and educators not only be constantly acquiring new knowledge and skills, but also that they cultivate the ability to make sound judgments on which technologies to embrace. Today's librarians and information specialists know it's imperative that they keep up with new technologies. But not all technologies are equally important, either within the library setting or to library patrons. So how does one decide which ones to pursue and integrate into services? In the uphill battle to stay current with new and emerging technologies, deciding which ones to pursue and integrate into services is a major challenge. A secondary problem is simply finding the time to consider the question. Readers of Keeping Up with Emerging Technologies will learn all of the best practices and skills to keep up with new technologies and to analyze the ability of specific technologies to meet recognized user needs—all in this single source. You'll learn the best ways to gather information about new technologies and user needs, to evaluate and analyze information, to curate technology information for others, to set up experiments and evaluate the results, and to present your findings to persuade decision-makers. Written by the former head of user experience at MIT's library system, this guidebook serves information professionals, educators, education technology specialists, and anyone with "emerging technology" or "innovation" in their job titles. It will also be useful for library administrators and those who manage these positions as well as for students seeking a technology-oriented or curriculum-design career path in libraries.

Explaining how to use Lean principles to drive innovation and strategic portfolio planning, The Innovative Lean Enterprise: Using the Principles of Lean to Create and Deliver Innovation to Customers outlines simple, yet powerful, visual Lean tools that can enhance idea generation and product development. It starts with a discussion of Lean principles and then identifies the applicable portions of Lean that can drive customer value. The book discusses customer value in the form of the benefits your customers desire. It walks you through the processes of using Lean techniques to effectively evaluate the quality of any prospective marketing opportunity and includes examples from a variety of industries, including healthcare. The text discusses value creation, reduction of waste, entrepreneurial system designer, set-based concurrent engineering, and Lean project management. It also includes numerous examples of visual management tools as they apply to innovation to help you develop the understanding required to achieve a competitive advantage for your brand, division, or company through Lean.

A practical guide for inexperienced marketers who have to develop a marketing strategy With technology being built into products of all kinds, many businesses are hiring scientists, engineers, and designers to fulfill strategic marketing and product management roles. The Accidental Marketer is a practical guide for employees who are now responsible for developing strategy. These marketers will be able to immediately and successfully apply the ten tools featured in the book to create powerful strategies that increase sales and profits for any product in any industry. Explains how great marketers uncover insights about customers that competitors miss and use new insights to create a range of strategic options for their marketing plans Shows how the best marketers execute their strategies through developing innovative branding and communication plans and value propositions The Accidental Marketer allows any inexperienced marketer to step into a new role and develop an effective strategy.

VisuaLeadership [noun]: The art and science of applying visual thinking and visual communication tools, tips, and techniques, in order to turn your vision into reality. If a picture is worth a thousand words, and finding the right words takes time, and time is money, then wouldn’t it follow that business leaders could make more money—in less time—if they simply took a more “visual” approach to how they manage and lead? Okay, it’s not quite that simple…but VisuaLeadership will forever change the way you think and communicate by showing how you can quickly and easily leverage the power of visual imagery, mental models, metaphor, analogy, storytelling, and humor to help you take your game to a whole new level. The French novelist Marcel Proust famously wrote that, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” So, if your vision is to become a better communicator and presenter, a more innovative thinker, a more productive performer, a more efficient manager, a more effective coach, or a more visionary and inspirational leader, then this exciting new book will open your “mind’s eye” to a whole new world: The world of VisuaLeadership. “Have you added visual communication to your leadership toolbox? According to Todd Cherches, if you haven’t, you’re missing out on a powerful tool to capture attention, aid comprehension, and enable your team members to retain the information you need them to use. Packed with examples, VisuaLeadership will help you develop this skill so that you can become a better communicator, innovator, and leader.” —Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive “The most effective communicators and leaders use the power of story to influence and inspire action. In VisuaLeadership, Cherches demonstrates how every role can express their ideas through the use of visual imagery and visual language. This book will help anyone discover how to become a visual leader.” —Nancy Duarte, CEO and bestselling author “I always say that ‘what got you here…won’t get you there.’ To help you ‘get there,’ executive coach Todd Cherches, in his wonderful new book, VisuaLeadership, demonstrates how we can all leverage the power of visual thinking to envision—and to achieve—a more successful future.” —Marshall Goldsmith, the world’s #1 Leadership Thinker and Executive Coach

Unlock the true power of collaboration within Scrum Teams and beyond with this practical guide packed with tips, tools, and real-life scenarios to elevate your facilitation skills. Scrum requires healthy collaboration, not just between the members of the Scrum Team, but also between the Scrum Team and its stakeholders to gather feedback and input. Collaboration is the heart of thriving Scrum Teams, but most available resources on collaboration focus solely on meeting formats and neglect to show how Scrum Teams truly harmonize their efforts and make informed decisions effectively. This book bridges the gap by not only providing effective facilitation techniques but also delving into the how and why of facilitation--all geared toward improving effectiveness, achieving impactful outcomes, and helping Scrum Teams work through challenges. Obtain tools and insights for Scrum Teams to better facilitate team interactions to leverage group diversity. Learn from real-world scenarios that illustrate common Scrum Team challenges and how they can be overcome with effective and timely facilitation. Discover comprehensive facilitation approaches accompanied with effective guidance on when to use them, how they can be combined, and how they can help to achieve desired outcomes.

We are living through what is arguably the most challenging time for the health care industry. Glaring gaps and inequities in health persist both within and between countries, underscoring our collective failure to share the dramatic health advances of the last century equitably. At the same time, health care is also changing dramatically and our concepts of medicine and health will be fundamentally redefined by the disruptive influences of exponentially growing technologies and converging fields within health and healthcare, new models for care delivery, the rise of consumerism and a quest to maximize value for patients, providers, payers and the system as a whole. yet the reality is that healthcare’s leadership has not kept pace with these challenges, and the results thereof are pretty stark for all to see. The purpose of this book is to provide healthcare leaders with a set of new skills and competencies that are critical if they and their organizations are to survive, let alone succeed in the New Health Economy.We’ll explore the five mainstays of leadership for the new health economy. I refer to these as the 5Qs and these are the critical skills and expertise leaders must learn to successfully navigate a rapidly changing world—not just to create strategic advantage for their organizations, but also to help build the kind of abundant equitable, inclusive and positive future we all want to live in. The 5Qs include IQ (Cognitive Intelligence ), eQ (Digital Emotional Intelligence, MQ (Moral Intelligence, NQ (Innovation Intelligence and SQ (Spiritual Intelligence)

Trend-Driven Innovation Beat accelerating customer expectations. Every business leader, entrepreneur, innovator, and marketer wants to know where customers are headed. The problem? The received wisdom on how to find out is wrong. In this startling new book, the team at TrendWatching share a powerful, counter-intuitive truth: to discover what people want next, stop looking at customers and start looking at businesses. That means learning how to draw powerful insights from the way leading brands and disruptive startups—from Apple to Uber, Chipotle to Patagonia—redefine customer expectations. Sharing the secrets that have led thousands of the world's most successful brands and agencies to rely on TrendWatching for over a decade, Trend-Driven Innovation is the book that will reconfigure your view of the business world forever. You'll learn: How to spot emerging trends using three crucial building blocks, and how to recognize the expectation gaps that herald opportunity. Why most professionals focus on precisely the wrong trends and innovations, and how to avoid this. How to turn trends and insights into innovations that customers will love. Amid the endless change that defines today's business environment, opportunity is everywhere. Highly practical, and featuring real-world examples from around the world, Trend-Driven Innovation is the actionable, battle-tested manual that will enable you harness those opportunities time after time. Setting you up to build an organization that matters, products customers love, and campaigns people can't stop talking about.