The hardest part about beginning a startup company is coming up with an idea that not only fills an important void, but that no one else has already come upRead More
The post 3 Super Solid Ways to Create New Business Ideas appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>The hardest part about beginning a startup company is coming up with an idea that not only fills an important void, but that no one else has already come up with. It is exceedingly likely that the first idea you come up with will not be a success. As such, it is imperative to not let yourself become discouraged by initial disappointments and to keep on pushing.
These popular techniques will go a long way towards helping you create new business ideas:
The entrepreneur who successfully creates a new business and can withstand the test of time is the one who is able to peer into their crystal ball and predict the trends of the future. While this process does require just a smidgen of good luck, a great entrepreneur knows that luck is merely the residue of skill and hard work. Luck does not come to those who park themselves on the couch and wait for it to come along, it happens to those who get up, get out there and work for it.
A top notch idea for a business is one that is ahead of the curve and anticipates changes in the landscape. The person who is monitoring current trends instead of future trends is going to come up with ideas that are instantly outdated. A decent entrepreneur looks at what is going on now and thinks of a way to fit in with the current landscape.
On the other hand, a great entrepreneur thinks about the future and wonders how they can create the next big thing, rather than an inferior knockoff version of the current big thing. Monitoring the current trends in the business world can provide some help when it comes to developing new ideas, but you have to consider the amount of time it takes to start a new business.
An idea that seems fresh in the moment is often past its sell by date when you are finally able to get down to brass tacks and start the process of opening a business. Consider the future and what place your product will hold in that future.
I am willing to bet that there are many things in your everyday life that drive you crazy. One of my personal favorite ways to create new business ideas is by taking the time to consider the things about life that annoy you the most. If you hone in on the things that “piss you off,” you will be able to brainstorm real solutions to everyday problems. If you are are the type of person that feels like you have to “do things on your own,” this task brainstorming technique will come naturally to you. As I’ve come to learn from many authors on innovation, the best entrepreneurs are those who find out about what we lack most and discover a new way to provide the public with the needed item.
Invention is not a must in these scenarios, but it can help you to develop new ideas. Brainstorming about products that every human being would want, but have yet to be created is a great way to amplify the creative process and ensure that you remain ahead of the curve at all times.
Speak to people you know, as well. There are many instances where the things that annoy you and frustrate you will also annoy and frustrate them. Canvasing close friends and family can also provide you with important information about frustrations that they are having that you had failed to consider.
Consult with members of the opposite sex and ask them about their daily frustrations. A company that is able to consider a variety of concerns from various walks of life is one that will prosper in the long term. Having a narrow focus leads to a lack of creativity and should be avoided.
Most people prefer to avoid frustrating moments at all costs, but those who can train their mind to look deeper can find valuable business ideas that no one else has considered.
Just because you cannot create new business idea does not mean that you should give up on your entrepreneurial dreams. Some of the best and brightest entrepreneurs are those who analyzed the current marketplace, discovered inefficiencies that could easily be corrected and decided to do something about it.
This strategy is helpful for entrepreneurs who are struggling to come up with ideas of their own. Perhaps you are someone who enjoys a certain product, but finds it to be overpriced. This is your opportunity to research the product you enjoy and see if any changes can be made during any part of the process that can have a positive effect on the pricing structure.
Or, maybe you can take a closer look at what the major players in your desired niche are doing wrong. A company does not have to be the same size as the big boys to successfully compete with them. The playing field has never been more level and a person can learn a lot from what the major business in their field are doing wrong.
There are typically enough gaps in the industry that you seek to join that can be easily exploited. Perhaps there is a service that a major company should be offering that they have not thought of. By using this as your starting point, you can start a business that already has built in clientele.
Some larger businesses are no longer in the business of innovation, they are more focused on maintaining their current piece of the pie. If so, this also provides an opportunity to come up with an idea that takes a product that is already available to the next level.
The Dream Cafe by Geoff Crook
Seeing What Others Don’t by Gary Klein
The Myths of Creativity by David Burkus
One Simple Idea by Stephen Key
A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger
The post 3 Super Solid Ways to Create New Business Ideas appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Seeing What Others Don’t according to Gary Klein: Introduction In this episode Gary Klein reveals all his insights on his book, SeeingRead More
The post A Preview of Seeing What Others Don’t with Gary Klein appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Gary Klein reveals all his insights on his book, Seeing What Others Don’t, where he reveals when, why, and how insights are formed and what blocks them.
In his book Klein shares stories involving his years of cognitive learning research that uncover the origins of creativity and how many successful innovators were able to create their marvelous ideas. The goal of the book is to help you train your brain to be more creative, effectively solve more problems, avoid disruptive idea blockers, and think faster than the average person.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who work in a stressful, fast-paced environment and want to learn how to improve their cognitive thinking skill in order to make fast, intelligent decisions.
My book is based on 120 cases of actual insight research. This is a fresh look of how people actually come up with insights.
There can be some jumping in and out but I suggest you read it straight through.
If there is only one thing the one thing would be this notion of a down and an up arrow. Too often our thinking is over balanced about reducing mistakes and being defensive and there needs to be a balance. We need to balance how much energy we are putting into reducing mistakes and how much energy we are putting into gaining insights.
The first section asks the question of where do insights come from and it not only describes how insights are achieved but it also shows how I came up with each conclusion. The outcome of this first part is a new model of where insights come from. I show that there are several different paths, one is a traditional path, another is a path people have heard of, and the third is a path no one had mentioned before.
Now that we know where insights come from we ask the question why we don’t have more of them. To my surprise I find that there are a lot of forces that work against having insights and the scariest is that organizations are afraid of them. They claim that they want to promote it and believe it but insights don’t work well with organizations because insights are disruptive.
The third part of the book is about what we can do to try to increase insights. I have some suggestions about what we can do personally and I have more suggestions about what we can do to help others gain insights. I also have some suggestions about what organization can do and I am working with organizations that want to increase the number or insights.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 03:38
“I have tried to take some of the mystery out of insights but I don’t want to diminish the aww we feel when we encounter insights whether it’s our own or someone else’s. At these times something magical has happened.” – Gary Klein
I was trained in experimental psychology and over the years I got interested in seeing how people actually work outside of laboratories and specifically how people make life and death decisions under extreme time pressure. So we’ve studied firefighters, nurses, physicians and so forth to see what they actually do.
I would make presentations on my work on decision making to audiences and there was a slide that I would use that had an up arrow and a down arrow. The down arrow was ways to improve performance by reduction and the up arrow was about what to increase in order to improve performance. What you wanted to increase was insights and so I would tell groups that and they resonated to it. They kept asking me questions about the up arrow that I didn’t have answers to. Finally I decided I need to do some research and study the up arrow which is what led me to writing this book.
What Computers Still Can’t Do by Hubert Dreyfus
Buy Seeing What Others Don’t by Gary Klein on Amazon today
Visit PsychologyToday.com to learn more about Gary’s blog
Visit ShadowboxTraining.com to learn more about Gary’s training techniques
Follow Gary Klein on Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
The Innovative Entrepreneur by Daniel Spluber
Anticipate by Rob-Jan de Jong
The Myths of Creativity by David Burkus
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Seeing What Others Don’t with Gary Klein appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about The Myths of Creativity according to David Burkus: Introduction In this episode David Burkus shares his book, The Myths of Creativity whereRead More
The post A Preview of The Myths of Creativity with David Burkus appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode David Burkus shares his book, The Myths of Creativity where he reveals the truth about how companies and people generate great ideas.
In his book, Burkus highlights the mistaken ideas that hold you back and shows you how anyone can embrace a practical approach to finding the best new ideas, processes, and programs. The goal of the book is to teach you what causes you to be creative, what makes someone more creative than others, and how you can develop a consistent flash of creativity.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who struggle with being creative or makes excuses for not coming up with ideas and needs help overcoming the obstacles of brainstorming new ideas.
Most creativity books are about how to have more great ideas. In my book I take a step further back and explain that none of that stuff matters unless we address some of the fundamental beliefs that you or people on your team have about their way to tap into their creative side. If you just read a bunch of books about technique but you don’t change your world view about the role creativity and innovation plays and building a company or leading a great team, than all those books and technique are going to be useless.
You could jump in and out of it but only if you read the first chapter first.
The number one myth that I would want the reader to takeaway would be the mousetrap myth. The second myth I would want the reader to takeaway is what I call the Eureka Myth which is exactly that it just came to me idea.
The stories that we tell ourselves are true even if they are not true. The more you tell yourself that story, the more it becomes true and in psychology this is called conformation bias. Conformation theory says that we selectively filter in and filter out information depending on how it confirms our preexisting way of looking at the world. There are some stories that we are telling ourselves that need to be rewritten and I take aim at 10 of them in the book.
As far as for entrepreneurs there are a lot of stories or myths that I think are really damaging if you believe in them. One of probably the most prevalent is what I call the lone creator myth. The lone creator myth is this idea that prolifically creative people were totally lonely people too. Psychology shows that creativity is a team sport, the more minds we have functioning well the better we are. Somewhere along the line the people who make a dent in the world we love to rewrite their history and make it look like they did it all by themselves. This is really damaging because when we are trying to make our dent in the world we feel like we are failing if we end up needing help. But in reality everybody who ever made a significant enough impact in the world to have their collaborators forgotten, have collaborators. So it’s important that we tell the story in a way that lets you know that if you have to partner with people you are not failing but rather you are doing everything everyone important ever did.
Another more damaging myth as far as entrepreneurship is concerned is the one that I close out the book with which I call the mousetrap myth. The term mousetrap comes from this phrase that if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door. Great ideas get rejected all the time and we like to joke about this now but it’s a real issue. In times of uncertainty we are more likely to say we want creative ideas but when we are presented with them we reject them in favor of tried and true stuff that we know. This can create a problem because as an entrepreneur you can be launching your product or service and facing some initial resistance and instantly feel like that means your idea doesn’t have merit. In reality your idea may very well have merit but you are just facing this cognitive bias. If you have a groundbreaking idea and it really does have promise but you’re struggling to get the world to see it, take heart and keeping working.
These are just 2 or 10 stories in the book that all begin with this premise that the stories that we are telling ourselves are true even if they are not true. There are a lot of stories about how creativity works, how innovation happens in big companies, and startups that need to be rewritten if we are going to reach our innovation potential.
“Creativity is a team sport.” – David Burkus
“Creativity thrives under constraints.” – David Burkus
I am the husband to one wife and father to two kids but I’m also the father of a third kid, The Myths of Creativity. When I’m not in airport lounges on my way to talk about the book I am in the classroom where I teach at Oral Roberts University.
I did not set out to write a book about creativity and innovation. I have a Master’s degree in Organizational psychology and a Graduate degree in strategy and leadership, and my background is in leadership. I wanted to know what the leaders of those creative companies do differently than leaders of non-creative companies. The inspiration for the book was me wanting to explore where the differences and perception were around the role of creativity in organizations. I also wanted to know what the psychology research said and where those discrepancies really made a difference.
The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin
Buy The Myths of Creativity by David Burkus on Amazon today
Visit DavidBurkus.com to learn more about David, his book, and more exclusive content
Follow David Burkus on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Rhythm: How To Make Great Things Happen by Micah Yost | One Simple Idea by Stephen Key | The Seven Sins of Innovation by Dave Richards
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Steps to Promote Innovation in the Workplace
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of The Myths of Creativity with David Burkus appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>