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You're invited - October 6th - Kids Club of Inventors & Business Owners.

Hey Kids, Do you want to invent things or start your own business? Beginning in October 2018, we're hosting a monthly Kids Club of Inventors and Business Owners. This club is for kids of all ages. Kids get together to do fun, facilitated activities, get business advice from mentors and learn the basics of starting a business. We begin by understanding problems that regular people and customers are having so that you can choose a problem that you're interested in solving. Then, you'll play brainstorming games and work on creating/inventing your own service or solution to the problem. That's how real inventions and businesses get started and attract customers. Experienced business owners will visit to share ideas and wisdom about how to make your invention or business successful. This is a great way to meet other kids who are interested in starting businesses and inventing things.  It's FREE!  Call 703.593.6444 for info Who: All kids who are interested...
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Topics & Free Online Resources for Entrepreneurs and Innovators

Topics & Free Online Resources Here's a high level outline of topics for people seeking to be better innovators and entrepreneurs Design Thinking  Debonos thinking hats ( skills ) Empathy  interviews and  Customer Journey Mapping  ( Empathy Map )  Lean Startup " build - measure - learn " cycle & " blue ocean " strategy for kids Jobs to Be Done Business Model Canvas Debono's Thinking Hats  Design Thinking  How to do design thinking (below) Cute video explaining "Jobs to be done" framework Business Model Canvas  Link to info from Steve Blank about Lean Launchpads What a sample persona looks like (below)
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The difference between creativity, mastery and innovation

In recent years I've often heard the words " innovation " and "creativity" used interchangeably. Sometimes mastery and creativity are lumped together as well. But as a technologist, artist and agile coach I believe there is value in differentiating these terms in order to foster each of them. Why? Because a creation can be beautiful, "one of a kind" and highly customized without being innovative (and vice versa) and as such still has great value. To illustrate the difference I will use realist oil painting, another genre I'm familiar with. As a practiced artist, I have the tools and skills to paint oil portraits that are completely customized.  What makes them creative is that they are designed and crafted as a one of a kind object. By capturing a person's likeness in paint by hand, a conservator can not only distinguish between my work and that of other artists but they can also distinguish between two paintings by me of the same subjec...
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What is Design Thinking?

Whether you are new or "used to" Design Thinking, there is value in understanding the model taught at Stanford and designed by David Kelly and Tim Brown. If you only have 5 minutes, watch the video above, read below and click on the blog article link. If you have more time and are ready to go deeper - skip to the end of this article for a link to the free Stanford design thinking virtual crash course through the dschool.  Here is a useful blog post by neo mobile  and introductory material describing design thinking. Are you ready to learn more?  Here is a f ree design thinking virtual crash course on design thinking through Stanford University's dschool . Thnaks for sharing this!  And now ... my 2cents. Why is this important?  For career creatives and innovative teams, the flow of "Design Thinking" will seem familiar. Parts of the mindfulness and the experimentation loop (empathize, define ideate, prototype, test) may be built...
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Innovation and Entrepreneurship

In this video Alexander Osterwalder makes some great points and provides us with simple tools for use by entrepreneurs including his  Business Model Canvas  referred to in his book Business Model Generation . "No Business Plan survives the first contact with customers" - Steve Blank "The Plan is useless but the planning is everything" Dwight Eisenhower He Referred to Dan Roam and his books In this video talk Dan speaks about combining the verbal and visual for "ViVid". It's a set of tools that help us create visuals to work with our words. "Whoever best visualizes the problem is most likely to solve the problem"."the Person who comes up  They tend to get funding, feedback and help from others. That's because visualizing the problem helps map it out, shows that they understand the problem and can get help. Dan Roam: Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don't Work from BrightSightGroup on Vimeo . Dan Roam's Vi...
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Interesting book I haven't read ... yet =) If you've read this, drop me a line and tell me what you think. The Imagineering Pyramid by by Louis J Prosperi
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Innovation Labs, Hubs, Maker Spaces

There are thousands of innovation labs, hubs and maker spaces around the world. I obviously can't capture them all but to help you begin discovering your own  "innovation & learning loop" here's a short list of innovation labs, incubators, entrepreneur groups and labs that I've heard about. As an "old school" blogger I'm "logging" them here for my own use and to share with you. i2i lab Purdue Harvard Innovation Lab The MIT Media Lab Innovation Hubs, Incubators and Labs in our region ( DC / Northern Virginia / Maryland ) Aspen Institute Mason Innovation Lab  , ITE  (Lab for IT Entrepreneurship) , List of " Mason Makers " CapitolOneLabs in Mclean Nova-Labs in Reston CIT Center for innovative technologies List of local "incubators" (local startup office spaces on this list) Teqcorner in Mclean Tech Breakfast  (One Wednesday per month at 8am - find it on meetup) The incandescent light bulb image...
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