I’ve met some amazing people in my time in London - clever, creative and caring peeps who satellite my working world here and around the world. Most of us service similar clients and attend similar events and evenings - like moths drawn to the same flames we’re all doing day jobs that pay the bills whilst we try and get a handle on what’s next and how we might creatively support the acceleration towards ‘better’ for all.

The thing is in 2-3 months I’m saying goodbye for good.

It’s been coming - at least for the past 3-5 years - the balance of desire to be intellectually stimulated by ‘London client’ challenges slowly shifting towards ‘where do we want to be living’, ‘how do we want to be living’ and importantly ‘what do I REALLY want to be doing’. And so New Zealand.

I left my kiwi home in 1997, single, on a 1 way ticket. I had no plan beyond surfing through Indonesia for a few months then to London. I had family in the UK, so thought I would drop in, say g’day, then make my way to the south of france where I’d always dreamed of surfing and living. I made it to France - or should I say ‘make it to France’ - every year for a few weeks of waves. Other than that, the past 14 years have all been in London!

Given we’re soon leaving, I’ve been thinking lots about what first made me stay - and then what kept me here.

What keeps a kiwi guy who was training to be a forest ranger, studied zoology, played in the NZ outdoors everyday and then decides to put down in a place like London for the best part of 15 years?

I think I can answer it with 2 words - curiosity & opportunity.

I was 27 when I left and I hardly knew what creativity was - if you’d have asked me ‘am I a creative person’ I’m pretty sure I would have said no. I arrived here fairly broke and so I had to earn some pounds to afford to carry on to southern europe. I blagged my way into the creative industries (that is a story for another time) freelancing in marketing and design for the likes of Rimmel, Safeways (Morrisons now I think), Deloittes etc. I ended up on a long term stint at Ray Ban, eventually becoming the European Marketing Manager. This then opened the door to join an innovation agency (again that’s another story) that was doing great work at the time - WhatIf. None of these things could have ever happened for me in NZ. It was through these things that I discovered a little expressed talent for intellectual curiosity and the opportunities to apply this talent in the form of enterprise innovation for multinational clients.

In other words, the mix of eco sentiment and quasi environmentalism I was involved in pre leaving NZ was 100% replaced by commercial creativity in the form of NPD Innovation; new product development. WhatIf opened me to a whole new industry of creative endeavour across a multitude of paying clients; government, education, FMCG, oil, retail, charity, entertainment, insurance, booze etc etc - you name it, we worked for them. I rapidly progressed through the disciplines of innovation including pure NPD ideas, creativity training and into the new realms of cultural transformation towards increased innovation capabilities. Turned out my newly found abilities were a perfect fit for this kind of work - curious about everything, an innate ability to spot commercial opportunities and then collaborate with clients how to best take advantage of them to drive competitiveness, profit etc (jeesh that all feels so 90’s doesn’t it!!)

And then me and WhatIf parted company - yes, another story there (BBC Board Top Dog USA Tour 2001 - what doesn’t kill does make for stronger). I left WhatIf on another kind of 1 way ticket - I just left, I didn’t know what I was going to do or who I would do it with. I simply knew I couldn’t work that way anymore - and that there must be something better out there to do. What I didn’t know was that I was desperate to find a real thing I could do that would also provide me a real reason to believe it was worth doing.

I had been leading a lot of ‘core purpose’ work with large organisations - maybe it was this that put the mirror up to my own lack of one! Either way, I set up under ‘IndustryApproved’ (my 1st enterprise idea from back in 94′), opened a cheque account, brought a £60 desk from the market (which I still have), got a new Mac and waited for something to happen.

The rest is history really; 10+ years busting out of a rigid, formulaic approach to innovation and trying new things. I worked mostly with ‘new to innovation’ clients, translating ‘innovation’ into new areas (Radio, Film, TV, Music etc), some for gratis and a few (large) enterprise projects under my own steam. IndustryApproved started to coalesce into an approach people could experience as DIY accelerated innovation; rediscovering their own capacity for creativity, building confidence in it and increasing their capabilities to apply it. Seems I became super curious about people’s lack of belief in their own creativity, their inability to spot the obvious opportunities around them for better performance both commercially and culturally. IndustryApproved became a nomenclature for a way to achieve this - that anybody in any industry could get hold of, use and benefit from.

That was then.

This is now. The world has shifted beneath our feet. The great recession is still with us. And radical, critical climate change is just over the horizon. We’re being called to change our carbon consuming ways in ways that we’re still not quite ready for - but will soon have to.

And I think about what part I can play in all of this that can do some good. To again find something to do out of all that I have done - and a reason to do it. And you know - I have. I think this is the 1st time I’m putting it out there. I’m about to make a new creative leap.

IndustryApproved has evolved to become a holistic ‘approach’ for accelerated innovation; for the getting of better ideas, by better creative people in a better, innovative culture…faster. I’ve spent the past 4 years in trial and error, testing and developing a portfolio of creative resources and materials that can facilitate people and organisations building DIY innovation. I’ve spent a large part of my daughters inheritance - with as yet not a whole lot to show for it. It’s been commercially and emotionally painful to create a suite of tools, only to realise most don’t know how to use them. As my talented mate Mr Connell would say, we gave them a hammer and nails but no plans for what to actually build or how!! I’ve rightly focused on how to support people ‘doing’ innovation - the natural development is to now add ‘learning’ to better support ‘learning thru doing’ innovation.

Which brings me to today.

I tweeted this morning that I’ve just purchased the metaphorical matches to start a scrub fire on IndustryApproved. I want to start anew. I need fresh, green shoots - as do others. It’s posited by many learned people that the way out of our these collective crises we face and will face - doing business in a recession and growing in sustainable ways -  is ‘innovation’. True enough. But we’re not yet seeing any kind of democratised approach to the expertise of innovation manifesting across industries and organisations.

Well that’s where I can play - and turns out it’s exactly where my heart is, my purpose is and my talents lay. And not just because it’s what I ‘want’ - the best of ideas connect with audiences because there is real ‘need’ as well as ‘want’ right!!

I’m taking IndustryApproved home to New Zealand. I’m going to reconnect with the natural world I grew up in and use that connection to nurture my efforts of articulating the expertise of IndustryApproved innovation - the creative discipline of art & science - in ways that truly help all people who have the ‘need’ and ‘want’ to rediscover their creative talents & build their capabilities for applying them - no matter what industry they are in.

The timing is perfect; NZ is on a push to build it’s innovative equity and my wife and I are keen that our family grow up ‘kiwi’. And if it’s true that real innovation happens at the edges (I know what they mean but it’s not always the case - lots of times it’s staring us in the face) then what better place to go live my purpose and serve others than from the edge of the world that is my beautiful home ‘Aotearoa’.

I’ve bought us 1 way tickets.

I’ve been in the innovation game for the past lets say 15 years. I’ve created Ideas for almost every industry going. I have a brain that loves the thinking challenge of solving problems. Or thinking problems into opportunities.

I should say loved.

If your job is all about the future - helping all kinds of people create new value in the near or far future - then you would have to be in real denial to not be aware of the major challenges we as a human family are facing. It is a moot point whether you believe climate change is happening or not. What is undeniable is that we humans are taking over our finite planet. The products and services we enjoy that support, sustain and entertain our daily lives all come from this beautiful blue home. It stands to reason that the more of us there are - and we’re heading towards 9 billion - the greater the strain on this planet to deliver the materials to supply us with these products and services, let alone the natural resources for all i.e. water, fuel, energy, food

So my ‘job’ of innovating ‘growth’ that looks like more Ideas for more people becomes harder and harder to…do. And not because I cant but because I don’t believe the model that we’re working to - more is Better - is sustainable. It’s plainly not. There just isn’t enough to go round for everyone if we use this old way of doing things.

Good thing is I’m not alone. More and more of us like minds - who lets be honest have plied our trade and become expert and creating and selling stuff - are starting to wake up to these realities and explore how we might re-apply our innovating smarts to create new & Better ways forward. Because it’s not all doom and gloom. Some clever people like Ray Kuzweik point out that the technology will soon be here to solve a lot of this. And there are pockets of passion and energy around that are way ahead on this stuff and doing good and Better things (note Mr Cameron). What might we add? What could we do? That is needed. Really needed versus old school ways of selling need.

Well we have a few Ideas. Mostly about what questions to start asking. And connecting in with those who already are doing and seeing how we might help accelerate what is happening, work alongside and use our networks across UK Plc and beyond to innovate less of Better stuff.

And so to Project Twenty4. My co-conspirator Tom has written up a lovely post about the event which you can find here so no point me repeating that. What is of interest is how we can continue to Do more of Good. That’s not to say we’ll become a bunch of Do Gooders - you know those sorts who are always bemoaning the way we live and imploring others to live as they think they should - this isn’t about that.

What this is about is starting down the path of creative reinvention. We are living in times where everthing we do including the ways we live, from the power that energises our lives and greases our wheels to the methods of education for our children to the ways we shop and what we shop for - everything is up for reimagining. We have to. And we know how to do that. We don’t have the answers but we know really smart ways to create new possible Ideas with others.

So I’m looking to Do Good. I’m in a new kind of creative collaboration with Andy Middleton;  a force of nature, a fellow surfer and an expert in boimimicry who is attracting me to the delights of Wales coastlines (who knew the surf is that good!!) and Tom Farrand; co-founder of the Pipleline Project and Good for Nothing, snowboarder and generally v clever bloke - to think, design, plan and lead a bold new translation of our collective innovative talents around some of these pressing needs. Project Twenty4 is just the start. We’re going to do more of these 24 hr events to connect communities with local enterprise in sustainable innovation. We’re going to find ways to offer smart talents buiding creative propositions into the concepts that bigger enterprise can understand and support through to activation. Things like micro power generation, hyper local food production, waste mitigation, transformative education and organic fuels for transport. And they’re just some of the Ideas the school students created.

We’re going to be Doing Local. Sometimes through Good for Nothing and lots of times through Good for Something with Wayne facilitating for 1 and all. We’re not against the profit motive per se, rather we’re for more people profiting through these kinds of efforts.

It’s exciting. It feels real. It feels needed. It is a Better use of my talents and experience applied in ways that will create positive impact.

I’ll also be getting back in the surf which will do me a world of good.

In turn we will do more good in the world.

Can’t say Better than that.

The IndustryApproved Method is at heart ‘learning thru doing’ innovation. We’ve trained Wayne to be the ‘do’er -  facilitating accelerated innovation by helping ‘me and my team’ connect online thru creative process. So where do we add the ‘learning’?

It’s true to say that innovative experiences - working on live briefs/tasks/challenges/opportunities - is the place to start learning. You have to ‘do’ 1st to build the context for applied thinking through creative process. Once this context is experienced, then all kinds of skills, techniques, disciplines etc can be further applied to help craft Better.

So where Better to do 1st than in collaboration with team Do. We’re exploring how we can accelerate impactful change by taking the ‘Do Innovation’ approach into schools and young people, giving them a facilitated experience of ‘learning by doing’ innovation on local challenges towards positive sustainable change - using local Briefs and opportunities as the entrpereneurial touchstone to create and make bold new Ideas.

We’ve got the first pilot coming up mid Feb - we’ll be using Wayne as the platform to faciliate upwards of 150 young people innovating - then we’ll explore refining the approach and cascading it out to the widest youth audience.

The goal - 100,000 young people learning thru doing innovation, on real world needed challenges, in ways that can sustain both Ideas and personal impact i.e. be creative with us, keep doing creative things going forward.

I’ve been crafting the ‘how-to’ Innovation 101 for the past 2 years - best I get it finished quick smart. If we’re really going to support these young minds and help develop them into their creativity, into applying their innovative talents on much needed challenges - we must support these experiences with all the resources we can; mentoring, how to manuals, online communities, Wayne, new opportunities (formal learning or applied work) and of course celebrating results as we go.

At last this could be the start of my long dreamed of Ideas School which I had planned to start back home. Wales - you are soon to be my home away from home.

Do Lectues blog. (Matt Hart Andy, not Matt Hard!!).

Hooked up with @scroggles and @blyth last Friday to explore doing some innovative work in a much needed ‘young people’ area. Explored some truly frightening stats which makes us think we are truly failing some of our youth. And in these austere times this will probably increase.

Tragic.

We’re going to try and do something about it.

In our collaborative chat we stumbled upon something that has stayed with me. We were talking about the projected impact of jobless young people, of the rise in education fees etc - and the seemingly complete lack of positive role models in our collective society. Or at least those who live with real integrity vs throw away consumption on touched up artwork.

And we were exploring our own role models or (I hesitate to use this word) heroes - people we truly look to for inspiration. And I was talking about David Attenborough, the guy who inspired me to study zoology. Not to get a job in zoology, but because I was so attracted to the idea of discovery and learning - the scientific method. I had no Idea this would lead me eventually into Ideas work where this learned method would find productive application (now you have to learn to get a job vs learning to think). What I admire most about Sir David is that he knows shed loads about what he knows and is happy to share - but ask him anything outside of that which he knows and he. won’t. say. He won’t give his thoughts even tho I would love to hear them. He even goes so far as to say he doesn’t know - and if he did it would only be an opinion so it’s not of any interest. I’ve seen interviewers push for more and he can get quite terse in his response - he’s not interested in proffering his views on things he knows little about.

Inspirational. And rare.

And Scroggsy goes ’so you’re linking austerity with a value’ or austerity as a value.

I wasn’t being that clever but that’s where we collectively came out (the IndustryApproved method in action - where 2 or 3 are gathered for the purposes of creating, brilliant thoughts and Ideas will follow).

Austerity as a value - as something to be reached for, held up as a positive force. Austerity as integrity, austerity as an aspiration for self in mind, thoughts and action.

Those of us who earn our crust working with brand and Ideas spend much of our efforts helping distill that core essence, the single proposition, that core purpose to commercialise for the widest possible audience.

Well why can’t this very same skillset - the talent for austere thinking - be a force for focused effort, manifested in others ways in these austere times. Why can’t austerity be a creative touchstone to help re-balance this ‘we can have anything’ and be ‘anyone’ and do ‘everything’ into more limited but deeper connections with ourselves, with others and our wider world.

We haven’t really worked it out - but there is definitely something in this and I’ll keep logging it as we progress.

The modern road cannot be long and wide - there is too many forces from the future demanding that we change, let alone the sad, needy young people around us - the road must be narrower yet deeper.

Maybe austerity is the bellwether we should follow.

It’s 2007. We’re on an ‘Insight’ world tour to deeply understand how music soundtracks people’s lives. We’re doing ‘meet and greet’ gigs in 16 cities, hanging out with young people to observe, learn and be inspired.

We return with more ‘learnings’ than we knew what to do with - and neither did others as it sadly transpired!!

Music of course still soundtracks people’s life, especially young people growing into their adult selves. So music matters for sure - it’s just the discovery, sharing, purchasing and enjoying of music is changing (has changed) in profound ways. But it’s not a blanket thing. There is a complex micro-segmentation around the way different groups of people connect and ‘consume’ music and if you’re in this Industry it pays to know.

And we knew. By finding out 1st hand.

And by gathering this kind of ‘knowing’ we had also created a load of insightful, compelling Ideas. One of them we were so enthused by we took straight to Sony Europe. The opportunity existed back then to be the first laptop to go out with a core ‘music’ proposition which could include all kinds of interactive software ‘apps’ and hardware kit for audio enjoyment and quality on your laptop (to say nothing of audio enhancing gaming and web based connectivity). We were Sony Music so it made sense to collaborate around this with Sony Vaio, offer some kind of exclusive access to recorded content, management and playlisting (don’t forget Sony owns Gracenote which is metadata company that ‘knows’ music and helps collate like playlists etc - Genius anyone?).

Huge numbers of people around the world are listening to music through tinny laptop speakers - even just offering better quality audio would have been a step in the right direction.

Anyways we presented to all and sundry. Told them the our story, the insights and the creative opportunities.

Now it is true that it’s not much chop creating stunning Ideas if you cannot get others to ‘buy-in’ to them or ‘get’ them to build towards the collaboration required for making the Best Ideas happen.

So it’s either we did a rotten job selling it in or the audience we were engaging with couldn’t ’see’ the same opportunities we were seeing. (Ask yourself - at the very least is better speakers on your laptop through which we play a lot of music a no brainer or a no brainer?).

To cut a long and woeful story short nothing happened. We even presented to Mr Head Sony Honcho from New York - he loved it - still nothing happened.

And now this just out from HP and Dr Dre with Dr Dre’s Beats embedded into HP’s PC with beatsaudio.

‘Music Like Never Before’? Yes indeed because we couldn’t get Sony to be Like No Other and Make Believe our good selves.

Bigger learning; innovation isn’t just about Ideas, it’s often more about cultural capabilities to absorb and make Ideas happen.

Good on you HP. Should have given you a shout 4 years ago.

How many times have I’ve said to peeps ‘its not the 1st idea, it’s the 200th iteration of it’ that we’ll be going with. Test and Develop, test and keep developing to build Better Ideas. That, and the Best Ideas always have a core, simple proposition that can translate easily for the target audience in surprising, compelling beneficial ways. Blah. Blah.

Wayne. The core proposition is simple - the expert virtual facilitator. However, that insight comes from my work - helping people create and make Better Ideas happen (so called innovation). My soon to be articulated IndustryApproved Method for this innovative creating and making is accelerated through using Wayne as the virtual creative facilitator. Ergo, Wayne accelerates innovative performance.

Thing is - having Wayne for life (i.e. Wayne for ‘me’) live and facilitating individuals catching all kinds of what I did describe as thoughts and Ideas on their iPhones, turns out peeps are using Wayne to catch, organise and share all kinds of stuff…the stuff of life. So yes Wayne is definitely for 1 - but in much broader use than I was thinking (the power of unintended consequences).

Then there is Wayne online - facilitating the individual sharing and team collaboration of thoughts and Ideas through creative process. Again, by design Wayne was trained to help teams connect virtually, share thoughts and Ideas in multimedia Notes to augment and accelerate innovative action (and thereby start to radically, postiviely transform stale old brainstorms). Learning? Again the unintended use of Wayne can be much much broader.

I’ve been introducing Wayne to agencies, large organisations, SME’s, charities, academies, schools, students, talented expert individuals, mums, siblings, families, mates, colleagues, Professors, teachers and Officers of the British Empire. Wayne can actively and benefically support every people. There is a need for facilitating in just about every walk of life.

Catch, save and organise stuff. Yes

Catch, save, organise and share stuff. Yes

Catch, save, organise, share and collaborate stuff. Yes

For 1. Yes.

For few. Yes.

For many. Yes.

For all. Yes (albeit lots more ‘training’ needed)

Wayne could indeed be for 1 and all.

Which is so counter to all I’ve ever experienced and lead…the Best Ideas are for someone, a group of someones, a segment, a number of segements at a stretch - never everyones. Unless you’re Google. Or the Postit Note. Or Facebook soon enough.

But Wayne? The creative possibilities are seeminly endless. But like these kind of laddering up opportunities, where do you start? And being a team of 1 just isn’t going to cut it to realise all that Wayne can be.

I am deep in the pages of those books that talk about that entrepreneurial curve whereby you long step outside both comfort zone and experience to keep all plates spinning - to say nothing of the pennies and pounds. I didn’t set out to get here. I observed an Insight, a need, I couldn’t find the tool to service that need so I thought I would have a go. And 2 years later - scooting about looking out a foggy visor - I’ve alighted at the ‘Idea for all’ platform.

Wayne for 1. And all.

Sounds epic on paper. Help?

It’s been an amazingly tough year - trying to go from helping others with their Ideas, to creating an ‘own’ Idea that will further help others have Ideas - if you get what I mean.

Well let me be clearer. I started out 13 years ago as a wandering ‘creative’ working on diverse projects that all involved some kind of creation effort to get a new Idea to market. Then I joined an innovation agency to solely work on creation projects. Who knew!! As a relatively fresh kiwi landing in London, I had no Idea such work existed- not many people do, as rarely is the curtain lifted on the collective talents required to identify insightful opportunities, inspire and build new Ideas, robustly test and develop and then do all the work to market and launch. Let alone all the collateral efforts to build creative capacity in people and innovative capabilities in organisations.

After a fantastic introduction to this kind of work with WhatIf I soon wanted more freedom to do things more innovatively. That is, explore translating my disciplined take on innovation into other businesses and categories where at that time it wasn’t a naturally fit - TV, Radio, Music, Film, Advertising etc. All the activities that focused more towards the art of Ideas vs the science of Ideas.

So over the past 8 years my own learnings have been to observe people’s resistance to my IndustryApproved creative discipline of innovation. Too long have people got used to believing there are ‘creatives’ (the anointed few) and then there’s the rest, that brainstorms are the meeting where creative Ideas are generated and that working in environments that actively inhibit creative thinking and innovative action doesn’t matter - it’s just the way it is!!

What to do about all this. How could a small (that is to say ‘me’) outfit called IndustryApproved - which actually is a method for innovation for people in any industry, no matter how untrained and unconfident (sic) - do something to democratise the expertise of innovation?

All businesses need to be innovating, all organisations want Better Ideas from their people - but so few actually know how to do it, or have the cultural will to really make it happen (to say nothing of deeper purpose and org values to truly inform better, connected ways of working and serving audiences). When you think about it we all need businesses and organisations to be innovating Better Ideas - because the challenges we all face, be it recessionary, environmental or all things sustainability are bearing down on us from the future with ever greater force.

And so to Wayne. Or my IndustryApproved idea on how to support individuals creativity and the team sharing and collaborating around collective thought and Ideas that are the inputs of real innovative action. I originally envisaged Wayne to be an enterprise solution for organisations; to facilitate a culture collaborative creativity. From a year of beta testing turns out that is a step change too far - it’s hard enough consulting on those kinds of efforts (yes I’m looking at you Sony Music) but asking the organisation to embrace a virtual platform is less a nudge and more a shove too far.

The best place for Wayne to start is with the individual. After all real change happens 1+1+1+1 etc until some kind of tipster point happens. So Wayne is now working for 1. The ‘for all’ will come soon. We’ve launched Wayne for life into itunes - thinking that an elegant, intuitive app that catches people’s creative thoughts and Ideas when they have them i.e. everywhere but at work (and certainly not in stale old brainstorms) is the right place to help people become aware of their creativity - and do things with it. I’ve still got a load of work to do to let peeps know its there - it will connect with people who are creative now and need a smart tool to help catch it - but the real goal is to get with people who don’t think they are creative and help them use Wayne to reintroduce them to their creative selves and build real confidence  (long lost from their curious young self).

And here is small example of Wayne connecting. From my good tech friend in Sheffield Andrew Heawood pointing me towards Jesse’s slideshare - pg 36 of Why We Suck at Powerpoint - he mentions capturing Ideas outside of work that could go into making a great presentation. I dropped Jesse a note pointing him towards Wayne for life app, he downloads it, loves and tweets it out to his network. Genuinely brilliant. Because Jesse is in Toronto. I’ve had the same thing happen here in London and the UK - and some great mates back home in NZ - but being a relatively new connector in our social, transparent world (and dropping the odd blog here to an audience of 3 if I’m lucky) this virtual connection with Jesse and so with Wayne to his connected audience blew me away. Of course I’ve read about this sort of thing - and have worked countless hours on innovative projects trying to strategise this sort of thing happening for my clients Ideas. I just hadn’t ever experienced this sort of thing for myself - on 1 of my Ideas. And I have to say it makes all the fear, anxiety, stress and commitment of seeing 1 of my own Ideas into the world, connecting with an audience in the way I could only dream of - it is utterly thrilling.

Of course it’s v early days. Wayne for life could get lost in app land forever - and Wayne for work and the online collaborative platform could also sink without a beta trace - the digital world is so commercially precarious. But for now none of that matters. I did what I set out to Do (see Do Lectures for why that is a captial D). Wayne for life is live. Wayne for work is beta live and will be the focus of efforts in Q1 2011.

It turns out everything I’ve ever said to paying clients is true - take the tiny wins as positive stepping stones, believe in the glimmer of insight that convinces you it’s a good Idea, that gives you courage to rock on and back yourself through the fog (thanks @scroggles). Keep using the learnings as the iterative fire to make Ideas better.

So thanks to Henry Ford - he who said experience is the thing of supreme value in life. My 8 years of IndustryApproved experience at the coal face of innovation tells me Wayne is a great Idea. Wayne is both ‘needed’ and ‘wanted’. That I can keep going in this general democratic direction, using Wayne as the vehicle to translate the expertise of innovation for the widest possible audience.

Thank you Wayne - you just could be the Idea I’ve spent the last 20 years looking for!

Change isn’t easy for anyone - cue lots of talk this past week on behaviour change and the new ‘Nudge Unit’ looking to nudge people into healthier lifestyles.

Of course I count myself in the ‘anyone’ - lots of my project work is to help people ‘change’ or at least transform their creative, innovative ways, but its a whole other story changing ‘me’. To wit, I’ve finally made the move out of my cosy creative ’solo’ studio to prep for a collaborative effort with like minds - pipeline ideas - and my friends at Fallon to explore what we might create if we’re all under the 1 roof - or around the 1 big kitchen table.

So the paradoxes of IndustryApproved working i.e. collaboration with clients in collective spaces and solo working in 1000 sq ft studio to think and create will find a new expression thru full time collaboration. That doesn’t mean I’ve lost the need for solo time to let the creative juices cook up some special thoughts…just means I’ll be wandering the streets and cafes of Fitzrovia rather than sitting in West London. Same thing only different.

My wise old mentor once told me to ‘find and then walk to the beat of my own drum’. Well I still am - just giving myself a nudge to see if others like this rhythm too…

So my head is still slightly foggy with thoughts and Ideas inspired from the dolectures. The easiest way to describe it is like ‘TED in a tent in Wales’ - where tent is both a teepee that holds a couple of hundred people and then smaller tents in fields to camp in. I’d say more but with my reduced articulate powers I’ve done the next best thing and copied someones blog (stealing with glee yes):

I just spent four days at the ‘Do Lectures’. Started by David & Clare Hieatt three years ago, this not for profit series of talks is gaining quite a reputation. This years line up included inventor of the world wide web Tim Berners Lee, CEO of Local Motors (a crowd sourced car company) Jay Rogers, author of best seller ‘Getting Things Done’ David Allen, founder of BlinkNow Foundation (an amazing project in Nepal) Maggie Doyne, and artist and author Bill Drummond.  The diversity of the talks is just one of the things that makes this event so special. Another is that they take place in a field on the West coast of Wales. Instead of your usual hotel, guests are placed in shared tee pees and geometric domes. Add to this amazing locally sourced food that is cooked on site, a host of activities in between talks and you can see why this isn’t just another TED. In a couple of weeks i strongly recommend going online and checking out all the talks at dolectures.co.uk. But there will be something missing: the conversations that went on in between the lectures, over breakfast, lunch and dinner, not to mention in your very own private converted croft pub. There is something magical about the location of fforest farm (www.coldatnight.co.uk) that brings the very best out of people. It costs £1000 to attend (inc food and accomodation) which may seem quite a lot, but its these bits in between the lectures that make this very special event worth every penny.  Book early for next year if you don’t want to be disappointed. Numbers are limited.

And then for the visual people,here’s the 1st video from the event.

Much to be getting on with - so best I get Doing. Cheers to team Do who did.

I’ve been mulling over the transition from ‘brain for hire’ to ‘products for purchase’. In my innovative world, the goal for me is always to help people re-discover their creative talents and passions and apply them at work. And, given I’m an Ideas guy, I end up using Ideas as the touchstone to help them rediscover their talents to innovate…ideas. Its a circular conumdrum that makes sense in the verbal telling but doesn’t translate so well to type.

That said, for the past lets say 5 years I’ve been working up different Ideas about ways to truly help people have Better Ideas. The curiosity is that I’m on the verge of collecting all of these ‘ways’ into a ‘product’ that others can use to help have Better Ideas, because these products will help them become aware of their own creativity, do more with it and collaborate around theirs and others to innovate Better Ideas. I believe in this product, I’ve walked my own talk and created it based on real audience need (and unknown wants), it’s been tested, piloted and developed. I’ve had some of the UK’s finest help me think, craft and execute. And we’re on the verge of signing a real client who see’s the smarts, has the conscious need and strategic foresight to make bold steps into this space - and is passionate about making it work.

Thats taken a long paragraph to describe and you still may not know what the hell I’m talking about - which brings me to my point. I’ve funded this venture to date and will keep funding it because it’s such a big opportunity, it’s an innovate solution and it could blow up big whilst truly delivering value - a project worth doing on all accounts. However, I need to connect and collaborate ongoing with smart people and organistions around the project to realise it’s potential.

And so to Innovate UK - otherwise known as Technology Strategy Board. Here’s the rub. They have currently got a competition to ‘give-away’ £18milion to start ups that are working in the digital innovation space to help drive innovation capabilities across Britain.

My project fits the bill - no question. I’ve run it by a few authoritative persons and they 100% agree.

Like lotto tho - you gotta be in to win. What that requires is for me to down tools, spend a quantity of quality time to fill in pages of documentation - not my best of skills lets be honest - and post it in blind i.e. no other supporting materials, no presentation, no mockups, pilots, links, images, testimonials etc etc ec bloody cetera.

I don’t have the time to stop. doing. so that I can apply for ‘free’ govt cash to help with this project that will help others get innovating. Maybe I should look at my priorities - but innovation in business is my business, I gotta keep innovating to stay in the innovating business - so who has the time to stop doing that to fill in a load of forms when a ‘dragons style’ 5 mins would explain all.

This competition opportunity will go begging because I’m furiously working to stay smart and keep doing. Needs must.

Maybe it’s meant to be this way. I don’t mind - I really don’t. I’m excited as all hell and am going the extra miles because I’m so pumped.

Maybe in a bit I’ll pitch the TSB to see if I can’t help tart up how they facilitate their competition offers - and use Wayne to show them how…