Gregg Fraley, Creativity & Innovation Consultant, Speaker

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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TEDxStormont – creativity and community collide in Belfast

April 1, 2013

So, I’m talking to five beaming young people after TEDxStormont last Thursday. They’re all 20 something, glowing with energy, smiling like mad, and we’re blue streak style sharing ideas, theories, making connections –it’s a fast-paced, highly generative conversation. It occurs to me, all at once, that moments like this — are how communities are formed. And how prosperous futures are created. For Northern Ireland, I think the lasting value of the event is not the content delivered, the fun experienced, or even the many videos that will eventually be posted. The lasting value is the community it created. I won’t attempt a comprehensive report on the event and all the speakers (I was one) but here’s a bit of background.

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Zombies, Dreamers, Managers and Leaders

March 18, 2013

I’ve been preparing a new keynote speech on Imagination and it’s been a real challenge to get my thoughts together on such a big and creatively important concept. My focus is usually on Creativity. To be honest I’m enthralled with the concept of imagination, and yet have avoided talking about it directly because it’s so individual and amorphous. That’s why I’m so excited about one aspect of my new talk I wanted to share it with my readers right away, so here it is, my “Johari Window” of Imagination (note to self: need better label). It’s helpful in getting a handle on who imagines and how, and might be helpful to individuals and groups who seek to improve imaginative capacity.

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Imagination, So What?

February 28, 2013

I don’t mean to be cynical with that headline. Still, what’s imagination got to do with it? Imagination is a revered idea isn’t it? Everybody seems to want it. And yet… Who actually sets aside time to imagine? Is it focused or completely not, or both? Who tolerates the imagination of others when it’s expressed? Who and how often do people actually take action on some dream? John Lennon practically has trademarked the word, but I find his song quite challenging. “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky…imagine all the people living for today…yohooo” I find this very difficult to imagine, not at all easy. And my vision of children

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Creative Transformation

February 26, 2013

Much is written about various creativity tools and techniques. If you do a Google or Bing search you’ll find countless articles and videos related to brainstorming, brain-writing, Mind-Mapping and other creative thinking tools. As someone who talks about creativity all the time, I get it, people want something they can use to become more creative. And it’s true, these tools have immediate and positive impact. I’ve covered many of them in this blog, including frameworks like CPS. But ultimately creative tools and techniques won’t make you “more creative.” They’ll make you more creatively effective, and there’s a difference. Becoming more creative means you change who you are and how you are being, core creative improvement, really, requires personal transformation. The

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The Innovation State of the Union

February 13, 2013

President Obama made mention in his state of the union address that he wishes to expand the National Netowrk for Manufacturing Innovation concept. I wholly applaud the idea, AND, there might be a more fundamental challenge that needs addressed first. I’ve made the acquaintance of a thought leader with her finger on the pulse of where the nation sits in terms of technological readiness to innovate. Her name is Pamela Menges, and she’s President of a high-tech start up in Cincinnati. She’s also a professor at the University of Cincinnati in their Engineering department. Steve Jobs once challenged Obama to find him 30,000 engineers so he could build a plant in California. That challenge remains a big one, and again,

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Innovation in Michiana, How Whirlpool Creates Magic

January 29, 2013

Benton Harbor, Michigan, have you heard of it? It’s a big enough town that it shows up on the weather maps of Chicago TV stations. It’s directly across Lake Michigan from Chicago. It’s in tourist area, but it’s hardly a garden spot — not nearly as quaint as nearby victorian-gingerbreadish St. Joseph. Locals call the area Michiana, a term to describe the cachement of small and medium sized towns along the Indiana-Michigan border (Gary, Michigan City, Niles, Elkhart, South Bend, Three Oaks, New Buffalo…). Michiana is a lovely area — if you like the beach, vineyards, and the woods. It’s not exactly Silicon Valley. It wasn’t always so. Once upon a time Benton Harbor was home to one of my

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Gregg Fraley on CANTV Tonight (Jan. 24, 2013)

January 24, 2013

An “out of the blue” telephone call has me appearing on cable tv in Chicago tonight at 7 PM CST. It’s the National Speakers Association program on cable channel 21, or “CAN TV”. The title of the show is “Speakers on Speaking” with host Johnny Campbell. Campbell is the Chicago chapter NSA President (technically it’s NSA Illinois). Yes, it does feel a bit like “Wayne’s World” — Party on Johnny, Party on Gregg. We’ll have some fun but we’ll talk substantially about creativity, innovation, and public speaking. Please tune in if you have time. Watch it live: http://www.cantv.org/live/ Post Mortem: It was great to meet Johnny Campbell and do the program. It was the fastest 23 minutes I’ve spent in a

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GM, Raising the Innovation Sting Ray

January 21, 2013

Why does it take a near death experience to wake some companies up? I guess there is an innovation equivalent to a drunk hitting bottom. If only the drunk could see where they are headed — maybe they could avoid the hard fall into the gutter. Case in point: General Motors. GM hit bottom, and, the good news, they’re in recovery. As an owner of General Motors, I’m feeling pretty good about their progress. GM is now innovating. The fighter that was at 9 in the ten count is up and battling again. I say I’m an owner, and in two ways: 1.) as an American tax payer who helped bail them out, and 2.) stock in my retirement IRA.

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Destructive Intelligence Limits Innovation

January 17, 2013

My illustrious partner at KILN, the subtly dynamic Mr. Indy Neogy, MBA, has penned a very insightful piece on how research and analytical intelligence actually hoses innovation. Hoses, a term I’ve borrowed from Bob & Doug McKenzie, means “screws up” or “ruined”. To read the full piece click here. I did an illustration to go along with the words, which I’m posting below because it’s a bit of fun.* By the way, KILN is an innovation services company — I’m proud to be a founding partner. Indy’s article and my illustration are to be found in KILN’s newsletter Kindling — brain food for your innovation efforts (sign up here to get it via email). That’s all for today folks, but read

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