The Business of Light Bulb Moments

This is the first in a series on light bulb moments in business.

More in this series:

Seven Ways to Encourage Light Bulb Moments

Twelve Ways to Generate Spin Offs

Seven Ways to Block Light Bulb Moments

It’s often traditional practice in business that innovation is restricted to either the product development team or the marketing department.

While this is natural and to be encouraged, businesses who want to survive and thrive in these times should take a more holistic approach to ideas generation.

Back in 1984, I was the proud owner of an early Macintosh computer. In the nineties, I ended up being begrudgingly dragged into the world of PC’s. Two years ago, I returned from the wilderness and have become a proud owner of an iMac and am writing this blog on an iPad. If you call me, I will answer you on an iPhone. I use MobileMe, shortly to be iCloud, and all in all I am a happy bunny.

Why? What Apple do is bring innovation into all customer touch points – starting with new product announcements and rich product functionality through to simplicity of purchase, ease of set up and use. This is all capped with superb ongoing support. A good example of the benefits of such a philosophy is that most iPad owners pay the same price again as the device in apps over a product’s life span.

But if you haven’t got Apple’s billions, how do you even begin to emulate their success? Where do you start?

The answer lies in looking at all the areas where you connect with clients and tackling the ones that are giving you the most headaches. By looking at these first, everything else will be a breeze. The way you look at them is important though.

If you wallow in negative thinking, this engages the parts of your neurology that block light bulb moments from occurring. The key lies in positive thinking. Even if the area you are looking at is not so great, it will inevitably have some good points at least.

What you do is simply identify the good points only and see how you can improve them as opposed to focussing on any negatives. The results are surprising – especially when you engage an independent and objective facilitator 😉

This is the basis and start of a process known as Appreciative Enquiry (or Inquiry). It is an example of parallel and sequential thinking which I will expand upon later in this new blog series on Light Bulb Moments in Business. Using this type of thinking is the key to making sure ideas don’t get away.

If you’d like to bring unlimited creativity to your business, have a look at my Light Bulb Moment on Demand service