When I speak to corporate audiences, one of the most common questions I get is “What can we do to support collaboration among people in different locations?” The most common tool that distant teams use to collaborate is email, but it has well-known weaknesses. An increasingly popular team coordination tool is the Wiki; it’s better… Read More Collaborating through the Computer
A study reported in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, authored by Rob Cross, Andrew Hargadon, Salvatore Parise, and Robert J. Thomas, confirms the key arguments made in my book Group Genius. Their lead paragraph is straight from the book jacket of Group Genius: the idea that creativity comes from a lone genius is a myth;… Read More New Study Confirms the Importance of Group Genius
Last week, I attended an exciting research meeting in Canada: a new $4 million research center to study the lessons of jazz improvisation and apply them to everyday life. The center, at the University of Guelph, was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) through an incredibly competitive review process.… Read More Improvisation and everyday life
This week’s issue of Business Week magazine (September 10) has an important story about IBM in the quarterly insert that they call “Inside Innovation.” The provocative title is “Radical innovation: Lessons from IBM’s innovation factory.” In my book Group Genius, I describe how IBM has opened itself up to benefit from the power of innovation… Read More Reinventing Big Blue
The Creativity Guru 