Autumn Marathon

Innovation - Part 1

Trying to innovate in my life and career has led me to think a lot about innovation.  In this series, will discuss others’ ideas about innovation and will then try to synthesize some thoughts of my own.

Listened to a talk by Tom Kelley, General Manager of IDEO, the innovation consultancy, which was part of the excellent Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series.   Title of Kelley’s talk was “Innovate for Life.  His five principles were:

1. Think like a traveler (to put yourself in the same hyper-observant mindset that we enter when visiting foreign lands).
2. Live life as an experiment.  Specifically, don’t be afraid to try things and fail; and don’t be afraid to look like a fool before your peers.
3. Nurture an attitude of wisdom - citing (Stanford prof) Bob Sutton’s admonition to be confident in your knowledge, but distrust it just enough to be testing it constantly.
4. Use your whole brain: right and left.  Use your tortoise brain i.e., allow time for contemplative thinking and for gestation of ideas.
5. Blur the line between work and play.

A lot of thought went into each of these - I do recommend listening to the audio podcast.  According to Kelley, living by these principles, a person has a chance at being an innovator throughout her life.