Creativity and Innovation: Selling Your Value Proposition

Ideation in industries is challenging but the bigger challenge is converting ideas into actions, executing those ideas and also convincing peers and investors to buy into your ideas. Our ideas remain worth a sneeze if they can't be converted into value propositions and tangible, measurable products, processes or projects.

Yesterday, at a workshop I was asked..."How'd you get peers and investors to buy in?"

Here are three, really, quick tips.

Step 1:
Sneak the idea, subtly, into their mind-environment like fragrance, like mist, like a dainty little butterfly. CEOs, CIOs, Investors, like all of us, probably a bit more, are busy and pre-occupied. Sneaking in an idea into their environment makes them feel they thought about it, they came up with it, thus, they will want to own and invest into it.

Do this through a press leak, a tweet, a hand-written note. Or, speak to your companion, in an elevator, in hushed tones within their earshot. Essentially, let the idea seep into their system without having to work through natural human resistances.

Step 2:
Assuming this gets you into their boardroom for a "little" chat about a new idea, go prepared to go for the jugular and make major impact.

Carry, a less than 3 minute presentation/chat/proposal which...
Describes the proposition in crystal clear terms. Edit it a thousand times for impact and clarity.

Keeps your proposition irrefutable and backed up by proof or testimonials from valid or respectable sources.
Has an underlying agenda and a visible agenda that is ethical and delivers a greater good...in alignment with corporate vision and values.

Step 3:
Offer to participate and drive the execution of the idea and stay with it till its launch and, inevitable, success. Rarely do people want to buy into and invest in an idea until it seems to them that the person proposing is committed to it and will stand behind its execution.

Think of innovation as new action and a put in conscious effort to sell and execute your ideas.

HeART SmART™ Creativity & Innovation
Raju Mandhyan

How to Mind Map

Mind Mapping® is a fun and simple technique that can help you analyze more efficiently and boost your creativity in expressing ideas. Originated by creativity expert Tony Buzan, Mind Mapping® has done wonders for my learning, thinking, and speaking skills.

I came upon this technique several years ago while I was conducting a presentation skills workshop for the British Council in Manila. A young Englishwoman with bright eyes and an easy smile sat through my workshop and seemed to do very little except keep her eyes on me. She seemed to be listening to every word I spoke with an uncanny ease.

At first, I thought she was bored. Then I thought that perhaps she didn’t like what she was hearing or probably knew much more than I did. It was intimidating and scary. Curious, I walked up to her and expressed my concerns. She smiled, held up the Mind
Map® book and her notes in a Mind Map® form. Later in the session, she shared with us the rationale and the benefits of the technique. I went home that night and did some research, called up some friends, and was intrigued enough to spend days and weeks learning more about it. In a matter of weeks I started applying the technique and soon became addicted. It worked fabulously!

Today, I apply it for reading, researching, writing, during meetings, and for public speaking. This is how I define Mind Mapping®: a colorful, two dimensional, quick representations of your ideas, knowledge, and feelings.

The rationale behind Mind Mapping® is that our senses take in a lot of information, and all this input generates responses, ideas, and opinions that cannot be expressed vocally or written down as quickly as they occur. For example, if 10 ideas flash through our minds then we may only be able to express only half of them verbally and less than a quarter in writing. Mind Mapping® provides the answer to this malady: It is like a thought-grabber with eight or ten sets of limbs. Capturing your thoughts quickly gives you time to analyze and qualify them later. This makes your thinking process more effective. Putting down thoughts in images and colors also enhances retention and invites the creative, right side of your brain to come and play!

How to create a Mind Map®

• Draw an image of your topic using three colors at the center of the paper positioned horizontally.
• Make the central image a representation of the topic. Use images rather than words.
• Draw the main, appealing ideas as thick branches coming from the central image.
• Whenever possible, use different color themes for different branches. This will help you segregate and qualify ideas later.
• Maintain one word per branch and keep that word on top of the branch.
• Add images wherever you can instead of words.
• Add arrows between images and branches and ideas expressing relationships or commonalities among the ideas.
• Flow with abandon. Do not judge your thoughts. Grab your ideas first and quantify them later.
• Use capital letters, print, and be creative with your Mind Maps®.

Reading a Mind Map®

A Mind Map® is drawn from the center going outwards and read from the outside going inwards. The primary branches form the main points and the secondary and tertiary branches form the sub-headings or points. The branch and its sub-branches are read flexibly. Read clockwise and then convert single words into simple sentences as you go. Structure, sequence, and polishing off the language in the complete text can be done later.

Benefits of Mind Mapping®

• Noting and reading only relevant words save time.
• Reviewing is graphical and can be done at a glance.
• Concentration on real issues is enhanced.
• Key words are easily discernible since they are placed according to importance for easier recall.
• Clear and appropriate associations are made between key words.
• The brain finds it easier to accept and remember the visually stimulating, multi-colored, multi-dimensional Mind Maps® rather than monotonous, boring linear notes.
• While Mind Mapping®, one is constantly on the verge of new realizations; this encourages a continuous and potentially endless flow of thought.
• The Mind Map® works in harmony with the brain’s natural desire for completion or wholeness.
• By constantly utilizing both the logical left and the creative right side of the brain, the mind becomes increasingly alert and receptive.

Over the years, as an ardent “Mind-Mapper,” I have come to realize that Mind-Mapping my ideas and emotions helps me look at them through a deeper, more colorful perspective.

Mind-Mapping my ideas and letting them percolate for a while allows my subconscious to kick-in and gently delete what is unnecessary, enhance and internalize what is useful and good. The process also increases my faith in the value of the material and confidence in my own self.

Insights On Insights

The world does move at a maddening pace and I'd like to adhere to the adage that life is not just about adding speed to it. So when the rest of the word is up and tweetering, I decided to get on the blogging bandwagon. Here's my first song, hope you like it.

It is kinda' strange that nowadays everyone is out putting out something onto the cyberworld. Everyone is out there, busy, making a guru-of-sorts of himself. And, yes, of course, that list does include me. So, to set the pace and to get you all, hopefully, on my page I wanna' tell you what Insights is going to all about.

I am of the belief that everything changes all the time, consistently and constantly. We create the change, we are created by the change and we are affected by the change. It is a, forgive me, but a crazy, riotious, almost incomprehensible cycle of madness and mayhem. A cycle of time, space, elements, energy and emotions that is unstopping, unforgiving and has been around for for eons and eons. What each eon, each age and every individual does is to take an ever-so-tiny snapshot of this humongous change and present it all those around like a proud Dad showing off pictures of his newborn to his friends. What the Dad does forget it that world has seen ziliions of babies like his own before. And, that is quite alright given our limited worldview which is clamped between our perspectives of time and space.

So, that is what Insights is going to be all about_a tiny little snapshot through my personal camera. The lenses of my camera are named Clear Communication Skills, Creative Thinking and Conscientious Leadership. Compound all these together and measure the size of my worldview and you have the words "Change" and "Insights."