While the CreativityLab discussed in the previous post is about a PLACE… I don’t suggest that that’s where creativity can begin and end.

It would help if you had the right NOUNS to innovate… the right people, place, and things…

• PEOPLE – Include the right participants. Make sure you have someone who understands the objective and problems you’re trying to solve…

Include subject matter experts who best understand the problem, issue, or need you’re addressing.

Should stakeholders be present? Will they feel more a part of the implementation stage if they’re part of problem-solving? Or will they hinder the process? You be the judge.

If you’re building a top-level strategy, ensure your participants aren’t too junior. On the other hand, a high-school Junior will cut through any chest-beating VIP with a simple, “I don’t get it?” (Remember the scene in “Big” where Tom Hank’s character Josh – who’s a little kid grown BIG – says “I don’t get it?” when he was presented with demographic and psychographic research ‘proving’ that toys in the shape of buildings would appeal to kids?)

• PLACE – BrainStorm in a conducive space. Plain… … at your office… in an exotic location… As long as the space is comfortable for the participants and allows them to focus on new ideas, it doesn’t matter where you’re creative. However, it IS easier to think out-of-the-box when…
  • …you’re not in a space that feels like you’re IN a box,
  • …you have things to keep your hands busy and to get your mind working… that’s why you find Play-Doh, Silly Putty, and other gadgets at BrainStorming sessions,
  • …you’re away from phones, e-mail, and office distractions that don’t allow focus on the problems at hand.

  Check out my PLACES link to find a space designed explicitly for out-of-the-box thinking…

• THINGS – Have the right tools and resources. Simply gathering in a room with a few flip charts and whiteboards isn’t going to get you very far. Knowing a few BrainStorming techniques and methods to get the group thinking differently are vital in creating wicked good ideas. My TOOLS page is a great place to start getting a list of THINGS you may need.

The article In-noun-vation appeared first on Idea Sandbox.

Who: Marty Neumeier

What: Zag! Be Different. No, REALLY Different.

What is it?

As the pace of business quickens and the number of brands multiplies, it’s customers, not companies, who decide which brands live and which ones die.

An over-abundance of look-alike products and me-too services is forcing customers to search for something, anything, to help them separate the winners from the clutter.

The solution? When everybody zigs, zag.

How is it done?

Qualities of Good and Different
To find your zag, look for ideas that combine the qualities of good and different.

Good are the attributes that customers value: quality, workmanship, good aesthetics, low price, high functionality, ease of use, speed, power, style…

Different are the attributes that make you different: surprising, weird, ugly, fresh, crazy, offbeat, novel…

Your Onliness Statement
With those qualities in mind, you must create an onliness (only-ness) statement.

This statement identifies what makes you the ONLY one doing what you’re doing. A zag isn’t merely differentiation but RADICAL differentiation.

Fill in the blanks for your organization…

“Our brand is the ONLY _____________ (name of business category)
that _____________ (your zag).”Do you have a zag? Something that no other business in your category is doing?

The onliness statement provides a framework for your zag. Once you’ve defined your point of differentiation, you have a decisional filter for all your company’s future decisions. By checking back against your statement, you can quickly see whether any new decision will help or hurt, focus or unfocus, purify or modify your brand.

Here are two examples of potential onliness statements from the book:

Harley Davidson

WHAT: (the category)
The ONLY motorcycle manufacturer…

HOW: (point of differentiation)
…that makes big, loud motorcycles…

WHO: (audience segment)
…for macho guys (and macho “wannabees”)…

WHERE: (marketing geography)
…mostly in the United States…

WHY: (need state)
…who want to join a gang of cowboys…

WHEN: (underlying tend)
…in an era of decreasing personal freedom.

Hooters Restaurant Chain

WHAT: (the category)
The ONLY chain of restaurants…

HOW: (point of differentiation)
…that hires overtly sexy waitresses…

WHO: (audience segment)
…for young male customers…

WHERE: (marketing geography)
…in the United States…

WHY: (need state)
…who want to indulge their libidos…

WHEN: (underlying tend)
…in an era of strict political correctness.

Hopefully, this piece has piqued your interest and has whet your appetite for cooking up your own zag. Marty explains how to find, design, build and renew your zag (and much more) in the book.

Check Out

Books

• Check out “Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands” on Amazon.
• Also on Amazon, “The Brand Gap.”

Online

• johnmoore from Brand Autopsy shares slides with ‘money quotes’.

Previous Posts in this Series:

• Guy Kawasaki and Create a Contagion
• Bill Schley and Dominant Selling Idea (DSI)
• Seth Godin and Being Remarkable
• Seth Godin and Creating a Purple Cow
• Doug Hall and Dramatic Difference
• Tom Peters and Wow!

The article How to Be Different: “Zag!” appeared first on Idea Sandbox.

Prevention is why we bring our cars in for maintenance, visit our doctor for an annual exam, and have a mid-year check-in with our boss.

We want to avoid surprises and discover potential issues while they’re forming to prevent bigger problems in the future. We examine something. We monitor it and compare now to the past, looking for changes.

How would you like to be ahead of your colleagues in knowing what’s happening in your industry with your products and among your competition? Oh… and for free without the investment of a research marketing firm?

Your Secret Tool: Google Alerts

A great free tool to let you monitor your business is Google Alerts.

Just enter your search terms, your email, and frequency of delivery, and Google searches the internet for this information. When it finds a match, it will send you an email with links to relevant content. It is free and only takes a moment to set up.

A great way to track your company, your competition, and your industry.

Sample searches include:

• your company name,
• your product(s) name,
• your industry, or
• your competition.

Combine those words with other keywords such as:

• your company name + “trends,”
• your product category + “developments,”
• your industry name + “legislation,” or
• your product category + “innovation.”

Before you read another email or visit another website, right now, create a few Google alerts for yourself. Here’s the link: Google Alerts.

These alerts are an effective and efficient way to stay informed and get the latest information and trends. I promise you very few of your co-workers have these set up. Get ready to impress your co-workers!

The article Avoid Problems By Preventing Them appeared first on Idea Sandbox.

Your competitor just announced a new feature.
A customer crisis is brewing on social media.
Your supply chain hit a snag.
Oh, and your boss wants that decision by end of day.

Welcome to 2026, where the speed of business feels less like a marathon and more like a dogfight at Mach 2.

Here’s the thing: if there’s a decision making framework that helped fighter pilots make life-or-death choices while flying near supersonic speeds and being shot at, wouldn’t you want that for your business?

The answer is the OODA Loop. And it’s more relevant in 2026 than ever.

Fighter Pilot Wisdom for Desk Pilots

John Boyd was a United States Air Force fighter pilot and military strategist who understood something critical: in combat, the person who can observe, process, decide, and act faster than their opponent wins. Not the person with the bigger weapon. Not the person with more resources. The faster thinker.

Boyd developed the OODA Loop in the 1950s and ’60s, and it became the foundation of modern military strategy. But here’s what makes it powerful for business: it’s not about being reckless. It’s about being deliberately faster.

OODA stands for:

• Observe – Collect data with your senses. What’s actually happening right now?
• Orient – Analyze and synthesize that information. What does it mean in context?
• Decide – Choose a course of action based on your perspective.
• Act – Take action on that decision.

Then you loop back to observing again. And again. And again.

The winner isn’t the person who makes one perfect decision. It’s the person who cycles through OODA faster than their competition, learning and adapting with each loop.

Why OODA Matters in 2026

Twenty years ago, you could spend weeks analyzing a market shift. Today? Your customers have already moved on by Thursday.

In 2026, the speed of business isn’t measured in quarters. It’s measured in hours. AI tools spit out competitive analysis in seconds. Social media turns small issues into brand crises before lunch. Customer expectations shift faster than your planning cycles.

You need to make good decisions quickly, not perfect decisions slowly.

Consider Spotify in 2023. When OpenAI announced voice mode for ChatGPT, Spotify observed the immediate threat to their podcast strategy. They oriented around what this meant for audio content. They decided to launch their own AI-powered features. And they acted within months, not years, rolling out AI DJ and other voice features.

They didn’t wait for the perfect strategy. They ran faster loops than their competitors, observing each result and adjusting. That’s OODA in action.

How to Build Your Own OODA Loop

The framework is simple. Using it effectively takes practice. Here’s how to put OODA to work this week.

Build Observation Rituals

Most managers don’t have an observation problem. They have a signal-to-noise problem. You’re drowning in data but starving for insight.

Create observation rituals. Every Monday morning, spend 15 minutes reviewing: What changed last week? What are customers saying? What did competitors do? What’s happening in adjacent markets?

The key is consistency. Boyd didn’t scan the sky once and call it good. He observed constantly. Make observation a habit, not an event.

Sharpen Your Orientation

Orientation is where most people stumble. You observe plenty, but you can’t figure out what it means.

This is where your frameworks matter. When you see a problem, use Bricks, Walls, Cathedral to understand if you’re looking at the real issue or just a symptom. Is this problem a brick that’s part of a bigger wall? Or is the wall actually part of a cathedral-sized challenge?

Ask: Why does this matter? What patterns am I seeing? How does this connect to what I know? Good orientation requires you to see context, not just facts.

Make Decisions With Tools, Not Gut Alone

Once you understand what you’re seeing, decide. Don’t agonize.

When you’re choosing between clear options, use simple tools. Three Simple Decision Making Tools like Pro/Con lists, scored Pro/Con, or PMI (Plus, Minus, Interesting) help you decide faster without being careless.

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s making a good enough decision while you still have time to act on it.

Act, Then Observe Again

Here’s the secret Boyd understood: action creates new information.

When you act, you change the situation. That’s when you start observing again. What happened? What did you miss? What surprised you?

This is why Champion Ideas: Built In Beats Bought In matters so much. When you include stakeholders early, you cycle through OODA loops together. Everyone observes, orients, decides, and acts as a team. You move faster because you’re not selling and reselling the same idea.

The loop is the point. You’re not trying to get OODA right once. You’re trying to cycle through it faster than everyone else.

When NOT to Use OODA

OODA isn’t for everything.

Don’t use OODA for long-term strategy. If you’re setting your three-year vision or defining your company’s core purpose, slow down. Think deeper. Get more perspectives. Use frameworks like 11 Ways to Restate Problems to Get Better Solutions to make sure you’re solving the right challenge.

Don’t use OODA when you need consensus across a large organization. The loop works for small, empowered teams who can act quickly. If you need 47 people to sign off, OODA will frustrate everyone.

And don’t use OODA as an excuse for being reckless. Fast decisions still require thought. They just don’t require analysis paralysis.

The Loop Is the Lesson

John Boyd’s insight wasn’t just about speed. It was about learning.

Every time you cycle through the loop, you get smarter. You observe better. You orient faster. Your decisions improve. Your actions get sharper.

The competitive advantage doesn’t come from running one OODA loop perfectly. It comes from running ten loops while your competitor is still on their first.

In 2026, the speed of business rewards the fast learner, not the perfect planner.

Build your observation rituals. Sharpen your orientation. Use simple tools to decide faster. Act, learn, and loop again.

Your competitor is already on their second loop. Time to catch up.

This post is a riff and update on the original Idea Sandbox “Decision Making Like A Fighter Pilot” article from 2011. Still as relevant as ever.

The article Decision Making in 2026: The OODA Loop Still Rules appeared first on Idea Sandbox.

I’m always looking for techniques to help be a better problem solver – specifically, ensuring I’m solving the right problem. (The last thing you want to do is spend time fixing the wrong thing).

One method is to examine your problem from both narrower and broader perspectives…

Is your problem a wall? Or is this problem really about smaller, contributing factors – the bricks? Or is it a symptom of a larger issue – a cathedral?

Bricks

To determine what may be contributing to this problem – the bricks – ask these questions…

• What is stopping us from solving this?
• What else is stopping us? (repeat)

If you have a list of answers, your actual problem will be found in these underlying issues. Spend energy solving these issues, and your original problem should be solved.

Walls

The wall is the perspective most of us start with when we begin to work on a problem.
Use the brick and cathedral questions to try to narrow or broaden the nature of your problem. If you can’t, then you have your problem identified. Nice work. Now, fix that wall.

Cathedral

To determine if your problem may be part of a larger issue – a cathedral – ask these questions…

• Why do we want to solve this problem?
• Why else? (repeat)

With this question, if you end up with a list of answers, your problem is more than likely a symptom of some larger issue. Focus on the larger, big-picture challenge.

Next time you’re faced with a challenge, use these questions and be sure to solve the right problem.

The article Bricks, Walls, Cathedral appeared first on Idea Sandbox.