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Category: creativity (Page 5 of 7)

True innovation does not need to be exposed

17/04/2014 /

Taking his cue from an article on The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review’s Bill Taylor stages a brilliant takedown of today’s tendency to abuse the word “innovation” and, in general, of the seemingly irresistible need for leaders to apply fashionable buzzwords to all sorts of less-than-fitting situations. Sometimes, as the French like to say, “là où il n’y a pas la chose, il faut le mot”. True innovation does not need to be exposed, just as true leadership needs not be flaunted. By renouncing buzzwords, we just may end up actually thinking more deeply and more persuasively about what we do, rather than resorting to labels that conceal more than they reveal.

Read the full article here: http://bit.ly/1iGyGml

innovazioneimage source: www.flickr.com/photos/35935741@N07/8904114591

Author: Umberto Boeri

Changing Mindsets

06/02/2014 /

Which ‘mindset’ do you possess? ‘Mindset’ is a simple idea discovered by Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck in decades of research on achievement and success, a simple idea that makes all the difference.mindset_2

According to Carol Dweck everyone has either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is one in which you view your talents and abilities as ‘fixed’. In other words, you are who you are, your intelligence and talents are fixed, and your fate is to go through life avoiding challenge and failure. A growth mindset, on the other hand, is one in which you view life as a series of challenges and opportunities for improving and you see yourself as fluid, as a work in progress.

The good news is that mindsets are not ‘set’ and we can cultivate a growth mindset to achieve success and happiness. At any time, we can learn to open our mind to develop our ability to learn new things across a broad range of skills. The more we learn, the more our brain grows and can learn more easily.

In this TEDx talk Eduardo Briceno, co-Founder and CEO of Mindset Works, explains the principles.

Richard Branson and creative management

04/02/2014 /

Richard Branson, one of the most original and successful businessmen in the world, is the founder of the Virgin Group and the author of various books on creative management. He  has became the first LinkedIn Influencer to amass 1 million followers. To celebrate this accomplishment, Sir Richard sat down with LinkedIn’s Executive Editor, Daniel Roth, to answer questions from members about the secrets to success.

To be

  • Creative
  • Status Quo Disruptor
  • Analytical
  • Logical
  • Innovative
  • Free Thinking
  • and Visionary

are some of the qualities that came out to be essential.

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In his latest book, Like a Virgin, Secrets They Won’t Teach you at Business School, he stresses the importance of leaving freedom of thought and of setting priorities to his employees and he underlines the significance of never allowing money and bonuses to be the main incentives to hard work in order to be a successful manager.

Image source: Flickr

The Personal Strength of Initiative

12/11/2013 /

Whether we speak of it as procrastination or writer’s block, the inability to move forward on a project affects many people.

According to Denny Coates, author of the blog Building Personal Strength, “the cure is simply to sit down and begin doing the work. Just start […] The ideas will simply begin to flow.”

For further reading, he readily suggests The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, written by Steven Pressfield. It’s a brilliant self- help book about procrastination and its cure.

images

image source: http://goo.gl/3ZM1A

How to Become a Social Media Expert

22/10/2013 /

Ted Coiné lists his ideas on how to become a social media expert

  1. Focus on Your Passion, Rather Than on Social Media
  2. Use Social As a Tool (that’s all it is, you know)
  3. DO NOT BROADCAST! Don’t use social as a shouting platform, Talk to people
  4. Take Time to Tend Your Social Garden Every Day
  5. If You Want To Become an Expert (at anything), You’d Better Be Obsessed

And remember that you won’t become a social media expert by focusing on the media part of this medium. Focus on the social. Different media will come and go. The platform might go out of fashion, but your network, your friends, will still be around – they’ll migrate to a different platform, that’s all!

Read more: http://switchandshift.com/how-to-become-a-social-media-expert

social-media-shares

image source: http://bit.ly/15SlkXy

Do you need PechaKucha?

15/10/2013 /

PechaKucha is a simple presentation format where you show 20 slides that display for 20 seconds each, so that the presenter has only 6 minutes and 40 seconds in all for his/her presentation.

The name comes from a Japanese term meaning “chatter”. The basic idea is to force the presenter to speak concisely, precisely and clearly by using mainly images.

For this reason, PechaKucha is a great format for presentations at schools or for meetings in offices, in those occasions where conciseness is particularly important.

If you want some tips to realize your personal PechaKucha, read more on http://bit.ly/1cBv9QD or just visit the PechaKucha official site.

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Image source: Pixabay (CC0)

Bureaucratic traps to avoid

10/09/2013 /

The theme of Diplocalendar 2013 was inspired by Mark Twain’s quotation that: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them”.

8_parkinsons law_final_sm

Diplomats, like many other professionals, must read, understand, synthesise and make sense of newspapers, magazines, emails, official reports and so many other things related to their daily work. But there is so much else to read both for pleasure and to deepen our knowledge.

One of the selected book suggested that supports professional development and is relevant to management in diplomacy is the classic C. Northcote Parkinson‘s Parkinson’s Law

Civil servants and politicians

24/08/2013 /

Diplomats, like many other professionals, must read, understand, synthesise and make sense of newspapers, magazines, emails, official reports and so many other things related to their daily work. But there is so much else to read both for pleasure and to deepen our knowledge.

The selected book suggested for the month of September that supports professional development and is relevant to management in diplomacy is the classic J. Lynne and A. Jay‘s Yes Minister related to the famous BBC sitcom series

9_yes minister final_sm

The theme of Diplocalendar 2013 was inspired by Mark Twain’s quotation that: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them”.

 

Five Presentation Mistakes Everyone Makes

20/08/2013 /

Nancy Duarte has published several books on presentations. The last one is the HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations. Here are some of her tips on creating and delivering presentations.

We all know what it’s like to sit through a bad presentation. We can easily spot the flaws — too long, too boring, indecipherable, what have you — when we watch others speak. The thing is, when we take the stage ourselves, many of us fall into the same traps.

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Illustration by Andrew Joyner on Businessweek.com

Here are five of the most common, along with some tips on how to avoid them.

  1. Failing to engage emotionally : Try opening with a story your audience can relate to, for example, or including analogies that make your data more meaningful.
  2. Asking too much of your slides: Create handouts from all that text you’ve pulled off your slides and moved into “notes.”
  3. Trotting out tired visuals:  Brainstorm lots of visual concepts — and throw away the first ones that came to mind.
  4. Speaking in jargon:  If they can’t follow your ideas, they won’t adopt them.
  5. Going over your allotted time:  There’s nothing worse than a presentation that seems like it will never end.

Read more at http://goo.gl/jE9dq

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