Creative Streak

Bits & Bytes, March 15

Here's some of my week-end catch-up on posts related to creativity, innovation and communications.

Framing Is Everything - One of my favourites, Luciano Passuello writes Litemind, always a thought-provoking blog on creativity and innovation. His post Framing Is Everything speaks to the process of "framing" and its importance to problem solving and decision making. He suggests that how you articulate the problem will profoundly influence how you solve it with creative thinking.

How Good Is Your Website? -  My colleague Neil Drewitt sent this website to me - Bowen & Cragg - a company which consultants on website effectiveness. It has a terrific database of best practices, plus 1,000 articles free on its website. You can also sign up for its newsletter. Handy, practical and a beautiful website to boot (no surprise there).

Two Articles on Innovation

WSJ Interview with George Buckley, 3M CEO

An interview with George Buckley, CEO at 3M, in today's Wall Street Journal entitled Wall Street Journal entitled "Innovation Comes in Tweaks and Snips" . I particularly like the quote "Creativity comes from freedom, not control.

Photo by Mike Ekern

NY Times Interview with Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Air LInes

I'm not a fan of posting links to recent news articles, but I couldn't resist in this case.  I very much liked this recent interview by Adam Bryant of Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Air Lines, for "Corner Office" in The New York Times on 25 April 2009.

On the second page of the link, Anderson has some specific points about communications which I think is not only timeless - but timely, given that customers, shareholders and employees need more - and more compelling - communications in challenging times.

Of course, I didn't mind either the barbs about PowerPoint and Blackberry. Here too he subtly underscores the key point that modern technology won't make you a better communicator if you don't know how to communicate effectively in the first place.