Need to convince? 6 novel ways to pitch your ideas

Need to convince? 6 novel ways to pitch your ideas

Forget the elevator pitch! It’s so 20th century. Everybody has heard of the elevator pitch. Dale Carnegie advised us to be ever ready with our “elevator speech” in case we encountered the big boss. Thankfully, companies have become much more democratic and you often have more opportunities to present your ideas to the “suits”. In […]

Mind pumping: Thinkertoys' style!

Mind pumping: Thinkertoys’ style!

Mind Pumping: “Pumping” it’s not for muscle only… I started rereading Michael Michalko’s book: Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking techniques, as a source of inspiration for a post for this blog. This book is so amazingly rich on ideas and techniques on creative thinking, it’s absolutely dizzying. It seems that any 1/2 page would be enough material […]

Mind mapping: mapping ideas in and out of your brain

Mind mapping: mapping ideas in and out of your brain

A powerful technique to organize and generate ideas According to Wikipedia: A mind map is a diagram used to visually outline information. A mind map is often created around a single word or text, placed in the center, to which associated ideas, words and concepts are added. Major categories radiate from a central node, and […]

Metaphorical thinking

Metaphorical thinking

Tap into the power of metaphors to boost your creativity I once heard that Ridley Scott pitched his idea for his movie “Alien” as “Jaws in space” (confirmed here). How brilliant is that?! With that simple 3-word metaphor, the director was able to convey his novel idea for a movie so precisely that it baffles the mind! […]

Selling a new idea? You might be 2/3 short on your persuasion mojo...

Selling a new idea? You might be 2/3 short on your persuasion mojo…

A great ideas is only one component of the persuasion cocktail So, you have a great idea and you are convinced that everyone will readily recognize it as such. Think again! As this TED-Ed (What Aristotle and Joshua Bell can teach us about persuasion) brilliantly demonstrates it, persuasion takes more than just idea/argument greatness. The quick video […]

Find your muse between two sleeps

Find your muse between two sleeps

Use a forgotten sleep pattern to tap into your creativity It happened again! Last night, I went to sleep around 10:30 pm and woke up around 2:30 am with my brain completely fired up and intent on keeping me awake. And so I struggled with my mind to find peace and calm to go back […]

Distant space/time/probability to boost your creativity?

Distant space/time/probability to boost your creativity?

Psychological Distance: Brilliantly simple way to boost your creativity In this fascinating Scientific American article, the authors (Oren Shapira and Nira Liberman) tell us that creativity is not bound by the sole innate characteristics of an individual and can in fact be changed based on situation and context. Consider this experiment: 2 groups of participants from […]

Mutual fun and the right way to kill/promote ideas

Mutual fun and the right way to kill/promote ideas

A very creative way to promote ideas within a group: Mutual Fun In the following video, Professor Hayagreeva Rao from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, delivers the message that killing ideas is way more important that collecting ideas. Now, there’s the right way to do it and the wrong way to do it. In most companies, the decision […]

Go take a shower, will you!

Go take a shower, will you!

No, this issue is not about the (mostly) undeserved reputation some office dwellers have with poor hygiene. And BTW, the irony of a Frenchman talking about poor hygiene is not lost on me. This post is about creativity and a very simple way to make you more creative, In his recent book about creativity (Imagine, […]

Stay passionate!

Stay passionate!

I have been working for the same company for many, many years. When I talk to my friends from college, they ask me how could I be working for the same company for so long? I tell them I’m still having fun and still doing things that interest me. In asking them why they have […]