Hi Walter, I find the best way of discovering new ideas is go oversees and
see and compare how different people in different places do the same
thing. Nothing makes you consider even the mundane things that we take for
granted more than seeing another way of doing it. However open-minded and
questioning you are about is this the best way?, its the shock and thrill
of the new that really gets the creative juices flowing and makes you
think. Much of the time, these things are not then trends because other
people are not looking for them. These are active observations of a
different way of doing things, rather than simply following research
journals.
For example, I recently worked with a client of mine (Brightpoint Inc. in
the US, the world's largest distributor of mobile phones) and looked at
cross-fertilizing (OK, coping) the Vitamina K digital mobile phone
packaged and aimed at children from its creator Telecel in Portugal into
other European markets- a great idea that finds a new market for an
existing product by configuring the feature set and service offering in a
different way- the mobile phone industry has evolved in this way-
expanding the percentage of the population that has and can afford a
mobile phone- hence you see prepayment systems from the likes of
Brightpoint and so on. Many new product introductions are non-innovative
evolutions- some capture imagination such as vitamin packs aimed at
different types of people e.g. busy. Again, it takes the existing product
into a new category.
Have a great 98!
regards simon buckingham
http://www.unorg.com unorganization: business not busyness!
In Japan in January, Norway in February
--Simon Buckingham <go57@dial.pipex.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>