Hello World - Why I started this blog

As a serial entrepreneur, agile coach and parent watching my kids grow up - I'm seeing the need to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in the world. I've always learned through a continuous loop of experimentation and believe this is a creative and learning skill. In the interest of sharing and hopefully getting feedback, I'm creating a web journal here to share what I learn as I go. to keep things simple and easy to navigate, I'll add what you (readers) need and hide (or revert to draft) old articles that nobody is reading.

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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...

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...

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...

Innovation & Learning Loop

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