Posted by Louise Rainone on April 11th, 2011 in Uncategorized

1)     Out-of-the-box thinking is a way of life.

 You can’t just switch it on, you gotta live it! Be spontaneous, change the way you do things. New car, new paths, new girlfriend, boyfriend, shave your hair, get a mohawk, BE DIFFERENT, do something different every day! Get props for your office. Populate your life space with parts and pieces that you are interested in. Go ahead, junk it up! Innovation is a stimulus-response business.

2)     Break rules for a living!

Rules are made for breaking. The way we live is always imperfect. To be truly creative you must examine you life for rules, expectations, reasons for the way we work and live. Every time someone says “This is the way WE do things, around here.”, you must make it you goal to change it .

3)     Ask Ugly Questions.

Ask why, why, why? Like the above, you must keep digging past the initial answer to get to the real issues.  Every aspect of your life is open to question.

4)     Develop Genuine Interest.

You must develop a genuine interest in other peoples’ needs, the things that don’t work in there lives. Talk to housewives, talk to clerks about the products they sell. Talk to users, both professional and casual.  Watch what people do or have done to their life space, not just what they say.

5)     Cross Over.

You must look across industries to see what other people are doing with their products. If you must, quit and go to work for those other industries. Look for breakthrough products and technologies elsewhere.

6)     Go to Conventions, go walkabout.

Conventions in your own industry helps to keep you juiced about what is happening on the local front. Going to conventions outside of your industry increases the “serendipity factor” by huge amounts.

7)     Read, Read, Read!

We get about 50 magazines a month at PCD. Everything from fabrics to electronics, building material, to AutoID. We subscribe to every internet alert service we come across, etc., etc.. The first step in innovation is PREPARATION! Be prepared by priming you mind.

8)     Tune in for the Astonishing.

What you are looking for is the “wow factor” as you scan across all of that junk that you read. What really knocks you out? What strikes you as totally cool. Increase serendipity by looking for the cool.

9)     Love the process not the end product.

The process of creation has to be more important to you than what you create. If you can invent one thing you can invent 100.

10)             Get a new job if you need to.

Sometimes you have to leave. Creating new products, thinking out-of-the-box should be the most fun you can have in a group. If it is not, quit and go somewhere that it is.