We're in the middle of World Innovation and Creativity Week which started April 15 (the anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s birth) and runs through April 21 (my half-birthday).
As usual, we extend the week to April 22 around Brainzooming since it's the birthday of the original creative instigator, Jan Harness. And today, I'm really looking forward to getting together with Jan for her early birthday lunch! It's amazing to think that this will be the first time we've seen each other since January 2nd. Having gone from working together in-person multiple times weekly, it's been a creative shock to talk or email only every few weeks.
In fact, with Brainzooming as a full-time strategy and innovation catalyst for organizations needing help in these areas there have been different and typically less-frequent interactions with all my previous creative team members. It has created opportunities to meet other new creative people (which have been wonderful), and interact with some former ones in new venues, absent some of the restrictions working in a big corporation can pose. Interestingly, through much of this same time, I was cutting out many of my usual non-human creative instigators (including caffeine) for Lent. Since then, I've tried to continue staying away from them.
Talk about changing a lot of strategic elements all at once (remember an early 2010 post that referenced embracing dramatic change)! While I'd hoped radically changing my creative surroundings would awaken a whole different set of creative instigators I'd previously overlooked, it hasn't been the case so far, at least as far as I can see. It's simply been hard work to continually refresh my creative perspective. No innovation epiphany yet, but I'm still seeking it. When it comes, I'll let you know what strategic combination of new creative instigators is working the best!
P.S. This week is a great time to download "Taking the NO Out of InNOvation" as a way to refresh your personal creative perspective. I've certainly been using these eight perspectives to help refresh my creativity! I think you'll enjoy and benefit from them as well! - Mike Brown
