Today, as more organizations attempt to draw knowledge assets and people together in communities of practices (CoPs), managers and executives want to use them to run their global businesses in new and innovative ways. This article explores the rapidly evolving methodology of CoPs, from planning and creating to maintaining and measuring effectiveness. It reveals that CoPs are becoming a key success factor for impacting time to market, reuse of knowledge, response time, employee development, knowledge sharing, organizational learning, and change implementation.

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Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.

An organization’s ability to learn, grow and refresh itself is critical to high performance. Fostering and managing continuous renewal are most effective at the project and initiative levels. Here are five contrarian principles for making it happen.

1. Reach Beyond Your Grasp Leaders of highly successful initiatives do not base their goals only on what they know they can achieve. Instead, they fuel their achievements with aspirations that others often call impossible.

2. Blaze Your Own Trail When reaching for aims that appear impossible, pathbreaking leaders put aside their proven methodologies and disciplined plans and strike off with a brash kind of confidence, knowing there is no turning back. Frequently, these kinds of leaders will inspire a great number of followers.
3. Create a Strong Emotional Field Leaders of highly successful initiatives realize that it is vital to recognize the power of emotion, especially on a team that is breaking new ground, and that with the right attention, this emotion can magnify the strength of the team and be transformed into the energy necessary to succeed.
4. Spiral Up Highly successful initiatives sometimes progress along unexpected arcs, and part of the genius of it all is knowing how to influence an initiative along the arc most likely to reach the goal.
5. Use Luck as an Accelerator Organizations capable of continuous renewal know they are riding a beast only partly tamed. They do not control all the factors that produce success, but they know how to turn events to their advantage. They know how to spot opportunities and how to propel themselves forward when luck turns to their advantage.

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From Accenture

Hanging out the washing only to witness a downpour five minutes later has long been accepted as one of life’s little bugbears. But a final year student at Brunel University has come up with a weather-predicting clothes peg he hopes could solve the issue. The peg holder can sense changes in air pressure and send electrical signals to metal strips on household pegs. If rain is forecast within the next half hour, the peg will lock itself. The lock-down prevents the washing being hung on the line.

Full article.

The definitive collection of Idea Generation Methods by Martin Leith.

This is what Martin has to say about his website: “This website lists and explains every idea generation method I’ve encountered during the past 15 years. It is the result of extensive research; my many sources include books, management journals, websites, academics, consultants and colleagues.

The methods are listed below. Each is linked to a description, and in some cases you will find full instructions for using the method to generate ideas.“

From MediaWeek

“Unconventional methods are being used to get the creative juices flowing among media managers. Steve Hemsley accompanied a group of aspiring lateral thinkers on a “mind-altering” trip to Norfolk, hosted by OMD Ignition.“