TAKING THE DOOR OFF THE OFFICE

I know this guy in the United States who writes books by getting into his
car and driving across the state of Colorado.
It’s true. He dictates it as he drives. He reckons that away from the clutter of university business, ideas flow freely as he’s driving along.
The creation process is different for everyone, but let’s face it, good ideas will always have currency in our world.
Saatchi & Saatchi has even dropped the word ‘advertising’ off its name, and now calls itself an ideas company.
But it should be no surprise that inside any organisation, there are people whose ideas could, if discovered, play significant part in the continual improvement process.
The problem lies in unlocking those ideas.
In our story on Chain Reactive Creative, Ed Bernacki reports on recent study that proves the value of using insiders ideas to grow profits.
“The very top companies apply new ideas anywhere and anytime; from conceptualising new products or improving internal processes,” says Bernacki who runs The Idea Factory, specialising in unlocking innovation in organisations.
He adds that in these top businesses, innovation was also priority at board level, and the board released risk capital whenever and wherever it was needed to support bold ideas.
And importantly, these companies had clear idea management processes to turn ideas into bottomline profitability.
Someone not afraid of bold ideas in this magazine is Ian F Grant, who is departing from the back page after six years as our ‘Backchat’ columnist.
Whether he was taking the mickey out of management seminars, or exposing economic double speak and lackadaisical leadership, each month Grant found the funnybone of management across range of activities in this country.
His outpourings can be found bound together in publication called False Prophets, which he describes as therapy you get paid for.
Grant will continue to write for the magazine on other topics in the future.