InnovationCreation

This weekend I discovered a couple of new resources that fall into the "scanning the environment" category.

The first resource are the TEDTalks. TED are the Technology, Entertainment, and Design conferences, started by Richard Saul Wurman in 1984. TED brings extremely interesting people together to have a conversation and dialog on technology, entertainment, and design and their impacts on society, people, culture, and the future. TEDTalks are the media outcomes of the event, either as audio or video. You can subscribe to the podcast or consume directly on the web at you desktop.

The second resource I discovered is the Harvard Business Review IdeaCast(tm). This is a free podcast featuring breakthrough ideas and commentary from leading thinkers in business and management.

I could leave those resources as is but I think part of the story is how I (re) discovered these resources. The TEDTalks I discovered by happenstance. Several years ago one of the people I worked with was invited to participate in TEDMED, a medical/health care version of TED. I found the interaction Richard Saul Wurman created very refreshing. He challenged anyone who participated and being pushed generated a true conversation on the topic at hand. Over the last year I lost track on TED happenings and was reminded of this by a magazine article. This prompted me to do a google search and in the process discovered the podcast (plus other TED material on the web!).

The second part of this resource discovery story comes from a message from Chris Penn of the Financial Aid Podcast sent out. Chris is all over the social networking web, trying out and playing with all the latest Web 2.x technology. In his LinkedIn experiment, he prompted people to share their top five listened to podcasts. I gave mine and then went looking through the list contributed by others. One person mentioned the HBR IdeaCast... I was interested and checked it out.

The core of this story is to continue to remind yourself of the need to find ideas from outside your immediate sources. Think about the shift of NIH (Not Invented Here) to PSE (Proudly Found Elsewhere). Or the shift from R&D (research and development) to C&D (connect and develop). How can you discover ideas and then weave them together to create value for you and your customer?

Update from readers:

• Techquila Shots by Steve Poland http://www.techquilashots.com/
• OkDork by Noah Kagan http://okdork.com/