Insight Gathering Skill: Show
(Continuing series on the innovative thinking competencies needed for innovation.)
One way to make information visual is to mindmap it. Dr. Milton Smith, president of Amaox Ltd., used MindManager, the mindmapping software, to create a virtual consortium of six universities, two biotech companies and a government research institute. Its goal: To develop new medical technologies that will improve the response to bio/chem weapons of mass destruction and other threats to public health. "We were faced with few resources to perform a Herculean task. The relationships between and among the members had to be clearly mapped out so that everyone in the consortium - and potential funding agencies - could clearly understand what we were trying to create and how we would organize the work. I had tried to do this all with just words. But it was too complex. They say a picture is worth 1000 words. If that's true, then visual maps are worth 5000 words."
Another way to help people see relationships and patterns is by using artifacts, sometimes called "tangible metaphors." Here are two examples:
When electronic retailer The Good Guys wanted to help customers visualize a thin-screen TV in their homes, they created a clever fold-out advertising piece small enough to fit into a newspaper or magazine that unfolded into an actual-size image of a forty-two inch flat-panel TV. Customers taped it to their walls to see how it would fit.
At GSD&M, an ad agency in Austin, client teams decorate their work space with customer artifacts or equipment. When we visited GSD&M several years ago, we saw a Wal-Mart forklift and passenger seats from Southwest Airlines. These client-related artifacts help communicate the real world of their customers to employees on a daily basis.
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Show: Reveal connections and patterns by making information and ideas visual. Question is the third of the "secondaries" forming the key insight gathering skills of the new Innovation Igniter Thinking Wheel series of 13 innovative thinking competencies.
The 15-minute learning module for this competency is presented by Bettina Jetter, co-founder of MindJet, Inc., developer of MindManager software. These thinking skills are critical for innovation and for the creative work required for today’s world. A 15-minute video module on "Engage Energy" is available at http://innovationigniter.com.
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