At ThinkShop everything we do is inspired by these key principles. Experiment with them for yourself to find new sources of inspiration and innovation.


Diversity

The most innovative ideas are created by teams of people with different skill sets and perspectives. For your next creative initiative, assemble a dream team of resources, including people from outside your company who work in interesting and unrelated industries. Click here for ideas from the ThinkShop Network.


Freshness

Creative ideas come when you find new sources of inspiration and open up new avenues of information.

Hold a team meeting in a provocative new environment, like an art gallery, mountain lodge or children's museum, a space designed to take you away from the everyday distractions of your office. Create a Freshness Day and invite experts from outside of your industry to speak at your company. Encourage your employees to borrow ideas from the expert to create new ideas for your business.


Creative Process

Creativity flourishes in organizations that have a systematic and shared approach for idea generation. Innovative organizations support a code of conduct and behaviors like building on ideas, listening generously, suspending judgment and accepting ambiguity. Try these guidelines during your next brainstorming session:
  • Use the language "I wish" and "How to" when talking about your ideas to promote speculative thinking
  • Conduct separate meetings to generate and evaluate ideas
  • Focus on the ideas you have energy and passion for, no matter how absurd
  • Evaluate ideas with the intent to build even the most absurd notions into actionable solutions



Realness

To bring ideas to life and make abstract concepts more tangible, build a model out of play-doh or paint a picture of your key strategies. Research suggests that people have a 75% greater understanding of ideas when a visual aid accompanies words.


Momentum

We've all experienced exciting meetings that produce hundreds of ideas that go nowhere. We believe that idea champions and project momentum are as important to innovation as the ideas themselves. To make sure your great ideas go forward, identify Momentum Breakers in your organization and create a Fast Track committee to circumvent the red tape and bureaucracy that stop innovation in its tracks.