Gregg Fraley, Creativity & Innovation Consultant, Professional Speaker. Idea generation training and new product development

KILN Continues to Innovate Innovation Services

May 4, 2013

A peek at the contents of an IdeaKeg Single.

I’m off to the FEI show (Front End of Innovation) in Boston this week. In my view it’s the most serious innovation conference in the world, and the USA edition features speakers and participants from a who’s who of international organizations.

I’m particularly interested in hearing Denise Morrison CEO of Campbell Soup about their use of culture in the innovation process, and also Nelson Farris of Nike about corporate storytelling. It will be great to catch up with Idea Management System vendors like CogniStreamer, and innovation service firms like Ideas To Go and Maddock Douglas. They’re always doing something new.

I’m glad the show is in Boston. After the recent troubles it feels appropriate that a conference dedicated to positive change is taking place there.

I’m at FEI to represent KILN USA — the new branch of what has been until now a UK-based firm. KILN is announcing a new version of it’s IdeaKeg subscription service at the show. I’ll post the official release below with details about IdeaKeg Single.

KILN continues to innovate in the innovation services arena. Yes, I’m a principal of the company, so, this is hardly objective journalism. Still, show me another innovation consulting company that is offering what KILN offers. Does anyone else have a service like IdeaKeg? Can any other organization offer a kinesthetic and whole-brained process for turning global trends into new strategies and breakthrough ideas for your organization? We’re also rapidly becoming known as the go-to firm for training in innovation process and corporate storytelling (Kate Hammer’s StormForms is getting rave reviews, book her now or you’ll be talking 2014).

IdeaKeg Single, the new offering, is for organizations looking for a “power tool” to accelerate breakthrough thinking — on a one-time basis. Until now, KILN’s IdeaKeg was only available as a yearly subscription. This new, more affordable option, is ideal for organizations who already have a well articulated front-end-of-innovation process. IdeaKeg Single is a bit like adding hot pepper flakes to a pizza — it’s the same pizza but it has a lot more excitement!

If you are attending FEI, please come see me and give me a business card. I’ll get your name included in a contest to give away an IdeaKeg Single. Or, if you want to enter the contest through the web, click here.

***************** News Release *************************************

KILN launches IdeaKeg(tm) Single

Teams of all sizes can now conduct idea generation sessions with real objects of cultural relevance

Chicago, IL (May 4, 2013) – The first-ever 3-dimensional cultural insights stimulus box is now available to in-company teams and external facilitators for single-session use. Innovation catalyst company KILN will announce IdeaKeg Single at Front-End-of-Innovation Conference in Boston, MA 6-8 May 2013.

IdeaKeg Single offers teams a tangible, affordable, fun way to use KILN in Away Days and Brainstorms. You can run a whole workshop using IdeaKeg Single or include it as an exciting element in a broader agenda. In IdeaKeg Interactions, you’ll quickly find you ask bolder questions and generate your best ideas.

In an IdeaKeg Single, subscribers receive a box via Fedex that contains 7 cultural artifacts from all aspects of life. Each item represents an emerging trend, or is highly provocative as stimulus for ideation. Online materials (including a short movie) demonstrate how to use IdeaKeg effectively.

The new IdeaKeg Single provides a number of benefits to team leaders and group session facilitators.

IdeaKeg Single is multi-sensorial. Teams using IdeaKeg get to grips with cultural shifts and behaviour changes in a tangible form. This drives “breakthrough” thinking. Physical objects are plainly better at provoking new ideas than trend decks.

“The contents are inspiring” – senior research manager, major food manufacturer using IdeaKeg since 2011.

IdeaKeg saves time. KILN curates the collection, ensuring relevance. Our highly qualified team spots trends, makes sense of them and shares them in the form of physical objects. Users never have to read more than 300 words to make sense of an object.

Huggies “Little Swimmer” Inventor Paula Rosch observes: “Many companies have that ‘eccentric’ person whose office always looks like a museum store, shelves and desks filled with every imaginable item, from bath salts to kaleidoscopes to nanos. This individual has a knack for monitoring and collecting popular culture, from design to technology, giving it shelf space and allowing time for it to percolate into a valuable connection or idea. Not surprisingly, this is the office where a lot of the ideas come from.”

IdeaKeg Single fills the gap if your business doesn’t have that in-house eccentric.

KILN models creative thinking. Each IdeaKeg Single includes poster-sized mindmaps containing trigger questions and leaving space for teams to add their own. By posing questions before generating ideas, teams can be bolder and more creative without needing extra time.

“The KILN System has been used by large companies with established early-stage innovation processes since KILN launched at the Front-End-of-Innovation EMEA conference in Berlin in early 2011,” said Gregg Fraley, co-founder and Chief Solver of Kiln Ideas Ltd. “Now that our operations have scaled, we can offer IdeaKeg editions on a one-off basis. This means Away Day organisers and innovation process facilitators can bring the power and the fun of IdeaKeg interactions to the groups they run.”

For USA purchasers, IdeaKeg Single is priced at US $2,999 including shipping. To get IdeaKeg Single, please register your interest with KILN at http://kilnco.com/contact/ or email ignite@kilnco.com

A Prize Draw is underway, with one lucky winner receiving IdeaKeg Single at no cost. To enter, please meet Gregg Fraley at FEI 2013 or email your name, role, company name, email address and work telephone to ignite@kilnco.com

Entries must be received by 9 May 2013 Midnight Eastern Daylight Savings Time.

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For further information, please contact:

Gregg Fraley KILN Chief Solver

Expert in Creative Problem Solving and Early Stage Ideation

+1 888 553 1002

+44 20 3318 5728 (in the UK)

ignite@kilnco.com

About the Company:

KILN was founded in 2010 in London, United Kingdom to provide unique products and experiences to improve company innovation efforts. We believe that every successful innovator scans the world, articulates a solution in order to solve a problem or meet a need. We also believe that work should be fun, the sense of touch is under-used in most people’s working lives, and when we’re adults it takes serious commitment to play.

Early uptake for the KILN System has been in North America. At the request of a Fortune 100 entertainment company, we opened our services division in summer 2011.

We are pleased to announce that from 2013 Gregg Fraley is operating KILN USA on a full-time basis from his base in Three Oaks, Michigan.

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Creative Resilience: Working with the Clay of Opportunity

October 10, 2012

Guerilla Innovation Chapter 10 In the previous post/chapter of Guerilla Innovation we talked about “amping ideas.” I reviewed two tools for doing so. They’re good tools. And…there’s more to it than those techniques. Idea amping is a way of life for an entrepreneur — and especially so for a small business one. Nobody will do the hard work of making something special for you. Something in our culture encourages you to quit when things become unreasonable. Yet, entrepreneurship is in many ways being unreasonable with yourself — and accepting the lemons people give you and making lemonade. Being an entrepreneur is a contrarian state. Unreasonable, in the sense that you go beyond what reason or logic would dictate to you is

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Notebooking is Innovation Viagra

July 24, 2012

Guerilla Innovation Chapter Five Notebooking is Innovation Viagra What do Leonardo DaVinci, Thomas Edison, Jack Kerouac, Beatrix Potter, Madame Curie, and Twyla Tharp all have in common? They all do Idea Notebooks. Call the behavior Notebooking. It’s not just ideas, it’s also questions, facts, observations — products of your curiosity. The big company version of Notebooking is an Idea Management System (IMS). Notebooks are the IMS for small business innovators. You have a Jungle Business Plan in your purse or man bag. It’s a short document that forms the outline of what you are doing in your quest for innovation. It’s a guide and you’re actively working it, evolving as the landscape in front of you changes. You use creative

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Guerilla Innovation Strategies for Small Biz, An Introduction

July 14, 2012

I participate when I can in a Twitter-based chat session, called Innochat. It happens every Thursday around noon USA eastern time. Most of the participants are innovation geeks like myself, consultants, writers, company innovation directors, professors, etc. — tune in, it’s interesting. Last Thursday we were chatting about innovation books. There are a ton of innovation books out there, some of which I’ve reviewed here. The insight that seemed to dawn on several of us at the same time is that there really isn’t a great innovation book geared for small business. Scott D. Anthony’s recent Little Black Book of Innovation comes close, but, forgive me for saying so, there is a certain “MBA-speak” (and just MBA ‘think’) even in

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Scaffolding to Better Ideas #2 (Getting More From Virtual Idea Generation)

July 5, 2012

Virtual idea generation is a growing trend in innovation. A trend I wholeheartedly endorse because it widens the cohort that normally contribute to “brainstorming” efforts. It gives people time to think and then post ideas as time allows in the nooks and crannies of their day-to-day jobs. It’s a great way to make idea generation and innovation part of the culture of an organization. It’s usually done with an Idea Management System (IMS) but in a pinch, it can be done with something like GoogleDocs or even email. Basically, you put out a focused innovation question and you ask for ideas. The virtual session could be as short as a few days, or as long as a few months. In

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Why Stepping Up as Innovation Team Leader is Insane

June 24, 2012

It’s easy to understand why many managers are not interested at all in heading up an innovation team. Saying no is the sane choice. The truth is Innovation Team Leadership is usually a thankless job. It’s often a job on top of another job. In other words, a lot of extra work spent on innovation initiatives means it’s a killer to keep up with the business-as-usual-operational job. So, that’s usually enough to kill innovation leadership motivation. But wait, there’s more! Not only is it a ton of work, it’s high risk. Many, even most, innovation efforts fail. Failure doesn’t look good come job and salary review time. People spout a lot of happy talk about learning from failure but the

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Half-Year Innovation Check Point

June 21, 2012

Oh my, it’s summer. Officially. Two seasons of 2012 are now history. This is the perfect time to take a half-year checkpoint on your innovation efforts. On July 1, you’ll have six months left to get something done, or, complete something already underway. Here’s the checkpoint survey, suitable to print and take to your next meeting: What have you accomplished so far this year? How many “cycles” have you accomplished? How many ideas generated? How many promoted? How many prototypes done, how many concepts put in front of management? Don’t know? I’d call that a red flag. Kudo’s to those who have efforts underway and are pushing the envelope. For those who have nothing to show for the first half of

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Maybe = A Culture of Caution & No Innovation

March 23, 2012

I had an interesting conversation recently about innovation culture. Comparing notes of various organizations with a friend, one of us remarked about organization X — “they never say yes, they never say no, it’s always…maybe.” We both concluded that maybe is a bad place to be as a culture looking to innovate. I wrote in a blog post last year about the one question survey to assess innovation culture – Are you having fun?” If I had to ask a second question, it would now be, “Is your organization a Yes, a No, or a Maybe?” The answer is telling. A Yes organization likes to try new things, is open to ideas and possibilities, and holds back from saying No. Ideas

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Imagination is a Practice, 5 Ways to Get Started

November 16, 2011

When I was a young boy I drifted in and out of my imagination. I day dreamed about sports fantasies, the future, space, the nature of God, angels, the lives of movie stars and famous people like JFK, games of my own making, and inventions. And no surprise, I was routinely punished for day dreaming. In order to escape the browbeating I made efforts to stay focused and pay attention. I also started thinking of that “state” as a bad thing and to be avoided. It got me into trouble with those women wearing the Catholic version of a burka. I reminisce here because I want to make the point that imagination is a practice. Like yoga, meditation, guitar, or

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Idea Generation is Not Efficient (and you don't want it to be)

October 5, 2011

I really have to say something about this notion that brainstorming / idea generation / ideation can be made into an efficient process. I’ve read a couple of interesting pieces on this lately, this idea it can be made more efficient, so you only get “good” ideas. If only it were so… I’ll grant you that sometimes the questions posed for an “idea campaign” are too generalized and therefore rake in a lot of useless ideas. I’ll also grant you that converging on a few good ideas when you have thousands to wade through is a challenge. I totally understand why an organization would be seeking a more efficient way to arrive at a nice small batch of really good

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