How small business can use creative thinking as their edge

1. Creative Thinking:
Your Edge
http://workincolour.com.au/

5. disintermediation social media
web 2.0
what’s free agent nation
next??? solopreneurs
virtual
assistants
SOHO
knowledge workers
+
HOHO portfolio careers
O
digital age project-based work

6. Does your business
have the bits in place
to thrive in 21C?

10. AGSM's The Leader magazine:
'Innovation - in 2009
it's not just a word
to be bandied about.
The economy is forcing
us to get creative. Innovation
could be just what we need and
it could be very good for
business.'

11. Recent Harvard Business blog:
'It's the single biggest
error firms make in times
of crisis: repeating the
past. When the world around
you is undergoing discontinuous
change, repeating yesterday's
mistakes is the quickest path to
decay and dissolution.'

12. 'Creativity is one of the last
remaining legal ways of gaining
an unfair advantage over the
competition.'
Ed McCabe

13. Produce practical + original ideas
Turn potential → performance
Differentiate your business
Seize opportunities
Encourage innovation
Solve problems
Plan better
Increase productivity
Focus on the essentials

14. Left brain, logical, linear
thinking is essential in business.
(It's 'in the box' thinking...)

15. The left brain is about:
words
numbers
logical thinking
sequences
rational thinking
analysing
being objective
looking at parts

17. But for 21st
century success
you also need
right brain,
creative, big
picture thinking.
(That's the 'out
of the box'
bit...)

18. The right brain is about:
rhythm colour
imagination daydreaming
spatial thinking intuition
holistic thinking
synthesising being subjective
looking at the whole

20. It’s about
using your
whole
brain, not
just one
side or the
other...

21. Most of us aren't
trained to think
creatively in schools
or workplaces.

22. Creative thinking is
natural + quite easy
to tap into...
with
a few
tips
+
tricks.

23. Challenge
yourself
Cultivate
ideas
Four
Cornerstones
make be
Connections Curious

24. Be Curious

26. What
is
that?

28. Make
Connections

30. Try Something
(Anything) New
make connections:

31. MIND MAPPING

32. ©Tony Buzan

33. Challenge Yourself

34. challenge yourself:
Take Risks

35. challenge yourself:
Question
Assumptions

37. ©Bob Eberle, cited by Mind Tools Limited
Scamper

38. Substitute: components, materials, people
Combine: other products, services, functions
alter, change function, use part
Adapt: of another product or service
increase or reduce scale, change
Modify: shape, materials etc
Put: (to another use)
Eliminate: remove elements, simplify
Reverse: turn inside out or upside down

39. Cultivate
Your Ideas

40. cultivate:
Give Ideas
Time to
Grow

42. Dreamer
Realist
Critic

43. http://workincolour.com.au/

44. Newsletter + 10 business tips
Slides on FSL website
Email for worksheets
joanna@workincolour.com.au
Solo + Small Business
Makeover: Special Offer
http://twitter.com/WorkInColour
http://www.linkedin.com/in/workincolour
http://workincolour.com.au/

45. Don't go back
to sleep...