InnovatorsDigest

Get Certified to Train Brains in New Workshop for Innovation Trainers, Facilitators & Coaches

2009-06-23T08:52:41-05:00

More than 150 innovation experts from 13 countries have already been certified by SolutionPeople to train, facilitate and coach individuals and teams to improve innovation and creativity performance.

Do you want to get certified?
Join other innovation leaders for the award-winning Accelerated Innovation Workshop on July 27-28 at the highly-acclaimed Thinkubator in Chicago.

Then, continue training while experiencing the certification workshops on July 29-31, 2009 that are personally led by Gerald "Solutionman" Haman.

Experience 5 Powerful Days of Training Certification February 16-20, 2009

Monday & Tuesday, July 27–28 Public Accelerated Innovation & Creativity Workshop (Days 1 & 2 of Certifications)
Wednesday, July 29 – Innovation TRAINER Certification (Day 3)
Thursday, July 30– Innovation FACILITATOR Certification (Day 4)
Friday, July 31 – Innovation COACH Certification (Day 5)

Details on 2-day Accelerated Innovation Workshop can be downloaded HERE to get a PDF. Details on 5-day Certification Curriculum can be downloaded HERE to get a PDF. Email info@solutionpeople.com or phone 1-312-829-2852, ext. 14 if you are interested in registering for the workshops.

New "Plan-a-Date-to-Innovate" Calendar with Over 100 Innovation Events

2009-05-14T19:06:12-05:00

Innovators seeking unique opportunities to learn at workshops, webinars, conferences and experiences should check out our new calendar by clicking HERE.

Find out the dates of leading-edge conferences such as the World Future Society's Conference, Pine & Gilmore's thinkAbout, a 2-day/4-webinar series called Accelerate-to-Innovate, plus convenient low-cost Questionate-to-Innovate & Decorate-to-Innovate webinars.

Additionally, you will find dates for webinars, networking events, training workshops and certifications for innovation trainers, facilitators and coaches. Click HERE to link to the calendar. Bookmark this page to review the calendar often as it is updated weekly. Download a PDF of the calendar by clicking HERE.

NEW Innovation Tool of the Month Club.com Provides Innovation Stimulus

2009-03-18T15:54:14-05:00

CLICK to Learn About a New Club for Innovators!

www.InnovationToolOfTheMonthClub.com

Twitter-ate-to-Innovate: 6,000 People Join New Linkedin Group for Twitter Innovators

2009-03-18T15:53:16-05:00

You can learn a lot about Twitter and Tweeting by joining one of the fastest growing Linkedin Groups.

Over 150 educational discussions have already been posted, including over 100 comments answering the question, "How might Twitter foster more creative and innovative thinking?" To join the new Linkedin Twitter Innovators Group Click HERE.

Follow The Tweeter. Gerald "Solutionman" Haman is just getting started with his 3 new Twitters. Click on each of the 3 links below, and select "follow" under the pictures to subscribe.
www.twitter.com/Solutionman
www.twitter.com/SolutionPeople
www.twitter.com/KnowBrainerTips

20 Questions to Increase Digital Engagement

2009-03-18T15:51:56-05:00

Internet marketing experts Leland Harden and Bob Heyman authored, Digital Engagement, to help people understand how internet marketing can capture customers and build brand loyalty. The book contains a superb 2-page "Digital Engagement Scorecard" that is ideal for identifying innovative growth opportunities by leveraging the internet.

Harden offered the following 20 questions to get started on the path towards better digital engagement.

20 Questions to Increase Digital Engagement
1. What is digital engagement?
2. Is your site instrumented for measurement, and which web analytics tools should you consider?
3. What metrics should you be watching? What should you be measuring?
4. How can you protect all relevant domain names?
5. How can you aggressively protect your brand on search engines?
6. Should you be using more than just Google in your search program?
7. What is entailed in doing effective search engine optimization?
8. What are the best ways to use blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts or webinars to reach customers?
9. What should you consider when you set up a corporate blogging initiative?
10. How do you identify and recruit important influencers of your customer base?
11. How can you empower your customers to be effective word of mouth/word of web marketers for you?
12. How can you incorporate best practices of web video on your site?
13. How can you make a video go viral?
14. How can you make sure your web videos help your search engine rankings?
15. How can you make your online advertising more effective?
16. How can you easily gain incredible competitive intelligence on the web?
17. How you can use social networks to reach customers?
18. How should I utilize virtual worlds in my marketing initiatives?
19. What questions should I consider for the mobile web?
20. What are some of the best practices being utilized by companies using Web 2.0 tools?

Naturally, the book begins to answer all of the above questions. You can purchase Digital Engagement from Amazon.com by clicking HERE.

Investigate-to-Innovate with Solutionman's 7 Favorite "Needs, Wants, & Wishes" Questions

2009-03-16T19:58:50-05:00

Gerald Haman devoted about 20 years to fine tune and perfect just SEVEN questions. Indeed that’s a long time, but innovators discovered the questions keep getting better.

Customers named the 7 questions, “Haman’s Investigator Questions” or HIQ. HIQ became famous as innovators have used the questions to generate thousands of ideas. Adidas used Haman’s Questions to develop award-winning sport shoes. Valvoline used Haman’s Investigator Questions to create breakthrough automotive products. AT&T used HIQ to better understand customers and tailor product offerings. Microsoft used HIQ to plan a successful conference for thousands of people.

While studying instructional design in graduate school at the University of Minnesota, Haman realized that one of the most important questions, instructional designers should ask was: “What should people know, and when do they need to know it?” That single question evolved into 7 questions as Haman helped customers apply the original instructional design question to designing innovative products, services and experiences.

Haman’s Instructional Design Question
(1990 Original): What should people KNOW, and WHEN do they need to know it?

Haman’s 7 Innovative Investigator Questions (2009 Version)

1. What should people BE?
2. What should people KNOW?
3. What should people FEEL?
4. What should people HAVE?
5. What should people DO?
6. What should people THINK?
7. What should people SENSE?

Over the years the questions and their order have changed and evolved as innovators realized the questions could be used by nearly anyone for almost any goal, challenge or problem. Most people start out by asking a few traditional questions such as “What’s your goal? or What are the problems?” However those questions may not provoke people to think deeply or broad enough. Go ahead and experiment by using Haman’s Innovative Investigator Questions for your next meeting, interview or survey.

For owners of Haman’s KnowBrainer Innovation Tool, the questions will look familiar as they are included in the Investigate Stage of the tool.

Decorate-to-Innovate: 8 Great Questions to Plan Creative Spaces (Download Free Poster)

2009-02-19T15:18:43-06:00

"If you want people to think outside of the box, don't put their brains in a box," states Gerald "Solutionman" Haman. However, most people meet in traditional box-like conference rooms and hotel ballrooms. Haman has helped many organizations design spaces or facilities that inspire innovation and creativity. Since 1992, his Thinkubator in Chicago has inspired thousands of people to think outside of the box.

While facilitating innovative design sessions for Hermann Miller, Capital One, the Singapore Quality Centre and several conference centers, Solutionman developed Question Banks of over 1,000 provocative space design questions. The "Space Design Question Banks" helped architects, interior designers, facilities managers, and customers "collaborate to decorate to innovate" while reducing costs. Do you want to start designing your own creative space? Here are some questions to begin creating your dream environment.

8 Questions to Help You Decorate-to-Innovate
1. Where do people do their best thinking?
2. How do/does environment and space impact creativity and innovation?
3. Where are people when they think of their most creative and innovative ideas?
4. Who works in environments or spaces that inspire creativity and innovation?
5. What characteristics, elements or resources from other people's environments might be applied in your spaces?
6. What might be changed or improved in the current environments and spaces to inspire more creativity and innovation?
7. How would you describe the ideal personal environment that might inspire you to be highly creative or innovative?
8. How would people describe the ideal environment that inspires collaboration and teamwork to produce more creativity and innovation?

Download a pdf of your FREE color posters of the "8 Great Decorate Questions" and "Quotes on Space Design" by clicking HERE. Take the 8x11 inch posters to your next meeting to stimulate some very provocative innovation conversations.

Get more information on the Decorate–to-Innovate™ Method by registering for webinars listed on our Innovation Calendar. Get more information or request to register by clicking HERE to send an email.

Amazon.com Offers KnowBrainer Innovation Tool on Sale for 15% Discount

2009-02-19T15:12:38-06:00

Over 100,000 people around the globe have the award-winning KnowBrainer and innovation tools created by Gerald "Solutionman" Haman. For the first time ever, Amazon.com is offering a significant discount on the latest version 4.0 of the KnowBrainer innovation tool.

Save 15% and order your KnowBrainer tools for only $83 (Save $15) by clicking HERE on Amazon.com. All purchasers can attend a free 60-minute Tool Training Webinar ($100 value) led by Solutionman or his certified KnowBrainer trainers. After placing your order, send an email to webinars@solutionpeople.com for your KnowBrainer Training Webinar invitation. Click HERE to read detailed background information on the KnowBrainer.

More Creativity from Obama’s Inauguration: See Earrings Pitch on YouTube!

2009-02-19T15:10:37-06:00

The humor continues as we share another video from Solutionman's adventure in Washington, DC for President Barack Obama's Inauguration. Gerald's 8 year-old daughter Olivia was persuaded by street vendors to purchase some genuine earrings with the image of the new president.View the video of the Obama earring street vendor by clicking HERE or on the image below.

If you missed the other video of
Olivia's Barack Obama hand puppet click HERE.

My Thinkubator Experience - a Review by "Experience Economy Expert" Bill Gibeault

2009-02-19T14:03:53-06:00

Gerald Haman loves questions. In fact, his favorite question is "What is your favorite question?"

So here was my question. How did he and his company, SolutionPeople, get me to travel half way across the country to attend his Accelerated Innovation & Creativity Workshop in Chicago?

Throughout my years in corporate America, I have experienced learning and training encounters in virtually every shape or form you can think of – leadership, selling, negotiating, public speaking and streaming media. Why was this going to be any different?

In their bestselling book, The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre and Every Business a Stage, Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore ask a series of great questions. In a world where most products and services have little differentiation, what would customers really value? Better yet, for what would they pay a premium?

The answer is experiences—how companies engage customers in an inherently personal and memorable way. The buzz on Haman's Accelerated Innovation Workshop was that it wasn't the traditional lecture and 3-ring binder snore, but a real EXPERIENCE.

This was a big lure for me. I had just became was certified by Pine & Gilmore in the theories and models of The Experience Economy. I wanted to discover if the Thinkubator "experience" lived up to its impressive word-of-mouth billing.

Located in a spacious loft in Chicago's West Loop, the Thinkubator is a truly innovative venue. Festooned with toys, games, large-screen TVs, Aeron chairs, light bulbs in various shapes and forms, bean bags, sofas and sculptures, it invites you into a world that definitely isn't business as usual.

Haman's opening act is literally transforming. It's called the "Know Your Brain Game Experience." It's a quick, but amazingly accurate "brain scan." I won't spoil the surprise, but attendees gain some insight into how their brain works and how they can use this knowledge to become more consistently innovative. The game is a highly interactive experience and sets the stage for the introduction of SolutionPeople's 4-quadrant brain model and 4-state Accelerated Innovation Process. (Investigate, Create, Evaluate and Activate). At this point, every participant gets a KnowBrainer® Innovation & Creativity tool. The brainchild of Haman, it's an innovative hand-held tool that uses a combination of questions, words, quotes and images to help people think through all the stages of his proven creative problem solving process.

Cool fact: Tests by students at Northwestern University and Wayne State University found that the KnowBrainer tool increased creativity levels by over 500% versus traditional brainstorming with flip charts. In just the first 3 hours of the Innovation Workshop, SolutionPeople delivered a memorable experience – engaging clients with entertainment, education and a dynamic venue.

A great experience? Most definitely. One of the most remarkable accomplishments of SolutionPeople is that the "experience" has fueled the growth of the organization. Haman hasn't relied on traditional advertising to get clients; growth was a result of word of mouth and the continuing story amazing Thinkubator experiences.

Author's Footnote: SolutionPeople's Gerald Haman recently invested an entire week with Joe Pine & Jim Gilmore to become a Certified Experience Economy Expert. He is already making plans to enhance the Thinkubator Experience by applying new ideas inspired by his interaction and discussions with Pine & Gilmore. Haman has organized a new LinkedIn Experience Economy Networking Group for fans and practitioners of The Experience Economy.

How to Create Innovation Evangelists: Authors Reveal Word-of-Mouth Marketing Secrets

2009-02-11T10:07:29-06:00

In Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force, authors Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba explain how to convert customers into influential and enthusiastic evangelists. The book outlines the framework for developing evangelism marketing strategies and programs. The ultimate goal is to create communities of influencers who drive sales or membership for your company or organization. Many companies have been effective at applying the book's "six basic tenets" to create evangelists for innovation and sales growth.

The book explains how IBM, Southwest Airlines, The Dallas Mavericks, and SolutionPeople have successfully built their customer base and created targeted marketing programs to involve their biggest fans. These programs have produced legions of unofficial salespeople and a cost-effective and powerful marketing force. McConnell & Huba interviewed SolutionPeople's Gerald Haman, clients, and spent several days at the Thinkubator, and wrote a book chapter entitled The High-Flying Solutionman that chronicles Haman's 20 years of growing his business through customer evangelism.

6 Tenets to Create Customer Evangelists
1. Customer plus-delta: Continuously gather customer feedback.
2. Napsterize knowledge: Share knowledge freely.
3. Build the buzz: Build word-of-mouth networks.
4. Create community: Encourage communities of customers to meet and share.
5. Make bite-size chunks: Devise specialized, smaller offerings to get customers to bite.
6. Create a cause: Focus on making the world, or your industry, better.

Download a PDF of the entire chapter from the book on SolutionPeople’s applications of the Six Tenets by clicking HERE.
Order the book from Amazon.com by clicking HERE.