Venn diagrams are greatly overlooked for their power to demonstrate inclusion, exclusion, and exclusivity. If you want to show the unique value you can bring to a project or client, a Venn diagram is golden. It can be a negotiator's secret tool.

Use my Money-Fun Matrix to gain clarity on what types of clients and projects to work on in your business.

Visual intellectual property (Visual IP) is a powerful tool to help you explain, influence, and persuade. Here are the 5 essential shapes to unlock the impact of your ideas.

The use of Visual IP – proprietary drawings, diagrams, or frameworks to support your ideas – can be a persuasion power booster for three key reasons: speed, memorability, and differentiation.

One of the differences between creative professionals and amateurs is the ability to generate creativity on demand. It means not waiting for the muse to arrive.

An entire industry has grown up around test preparation. There are scores of books, consultants, and online test prep courses. My colleague has used these as a foundation, but his aim is high and he knew it would take more.

Innovation thrives on constraints. Ideas that are bounded can flourish. Creativity blossoms when parameters are defined.

In the early 1990s Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, recognized the potential of the emerging tech development called the Internet. He had an idea for starting a company that would sell books online. He was looking for a framework that would help him decide which path to pursue. Should he stay or go?

In working with hundreds of CEOs, entrepreneurs, corporate innovators, and creative professionals over the years, I’ve discovered a single process that works best for generating new ideas for products, services, or companies.

The Creative Canvas is an idea exploration and planning tool for creative projects. I first developed the Creative Canvas in 2017 to help artists, designers, and other creative professionals gain clarity on their work, and to guide them in transforming their ideas into reality.

Gallup’s most recent State of the American Workplace report reveals that of the 100 million full-time employees in the United States, only a third are what Gallup calls engaged at work.

Even though circles are the basis of many innovation frameworks, spirals are a better image to express what really happens in the innovation process.

This knowledge is tacit knowledge, distinct from explicit (and more traditional) knowledge. Tacit knowledge is experiential, intuitive, fluid. It’s rarely written down, yet can have profound implications on an organization’s operations and culture.

Innovation professionals are often curious about the world of the artist or designer. Where do creative ideas come from? How do they assess their work in progress?

If you're running an active innovation program, chances are high that you have some zombie projects haunting you. These projects rarely contribute any positive outcomes and have long seemed lifeless, yet they remain "undead.” It’s time to take action.

Have too many things been piled onto your original innovation project? Like a distracted Labrador puppy, have you gathered too many sticks? It may be time to reclaim your focus.

As an advisor on innovation initiatives at leading corporations over the past decade, I’ve seen projects soar, others crash and burn, and many launch with a flash only to quickly sputter into obscurity. Based on these experiences, I recognize that there is one question that, when answered, can make all the difference between success and failure for an Innovation Lab.