As a Member of an Innovation Management Group I often find interesting articles and concepts which I share to encourage Innovation in the region.

I read this morning an article by Michael Michalko, an internationally acclaimed creative thinking expert where he considered Thomas Edison’s belief that Adaptation is a form of Innovation when he said:

“Make it a habit to keep on the lookout for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea needs to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you are working on - Adaptation is a common and inescapable practice in creativity.”

As a small business, to find innovations for your business you could think of existing innovations and ask:

  • What else is like this?
  • What other idea does this suggest?
  • Does the past offer a parallel?
  • What could I copy?
  • Whom could I emulate?
  • What other process could be adapted?
  • What else could be adapted?
  • What different contexts can I put my concept in?
  • What ideas outside my field can I incorporate?
  • What ideas inside my field can I incorporate?

Michalko gave an example of an adaptation of a children’s storybook which became an idea for creating lollipop sticks with inbuilt flower seeds so that children after finishing their lollipop can then plant their lollipop sticks in the ground which biodegrade and allow the seeds to be planted and grow www.amborellaorganics.com

Another example was the development of Gecko Gloves based on the Spider Man concept of climbing, comparing that to geckos which are good climbers and then coming up with Gecko gloves. A Stanford University design uses 24 adhesive tiles on each pad covered by tiny saw-tooth shaped nanofibers which allows a person’s weight to be spread evenly across the entire patch making it efficient enough for a person to cling to a glass wall these-gloves-let-you-climb-walls-like-spider-man

If you would like some local support to come up with new ideas come along to the BIC’s next workshop - Profit from Innovation where we can give you some great ideas on how to Brainstorm new Innovations for your company in 2018:

Profit from Innovation - 14 February 2018 - Stoke on Trent - 8 - 10am