Creativity and Innovation in Business, Part two

A recent Wall Street Journal article, "Who Has Innovative Ideas? Employees," once again underscores the incredible resource companies have just waiting to be tapped -- their people. This article, by JC SPender and Bruce Strong, introduces the idea of "innovation communities," or cross functional groups in a time limited setting tasked with solving specific problems or generating new ideas.  Doing so can be a low cost way to both engage employees and to emerge even stronger from economic downturns.

Innovation is the key to surviving and thriving. As we noted in our previous post on creativity and innovation in business, U.S. firms are unlikely to be able to compete globally on low cost in the long term but instead must rely on doing things in new and creative ways.  If you missed the fantastic Institute for Emerging Issues forum on creativity last February, this video (featuring many of the speakers highlighted at the forum), will fill you in on the need for creativity and design thinking in business, education, and throughout our society. And the great thing about creativity is that it is very engaging.

-- Anne Claire Broughton