How often do you pause for thought, testing yourself, questioning even simply for ‘just those few minutes,’ to allow yourself to openly challenge where you are and what you are attempting to do?
We keep relentlessly moving on, like a wandering herd of buffalo, always looking for fresh pasture, those new feeding grounds. It’s not good; we often hear and see things differently when we find the time to stand still.
Do you let those moments go? Do you ignore them, quickly pass over them, attempt to capture the issue as something worth investigating later, or just get them behind you in the here and now? We often do need to slow down and figure it out there and then.
Of course, I often get caught up in this restless pursuit of gathering more when I spend a growing amount of my time researching innovation. I keep coming across so many things that ‘trigger’ the thinking, pushing me to feel I am more often the “hunter-gatherer.”
By long-term habit, I keep reverting more into a hunter-gatherer, in my case, upon innovation insights, collecting the raw material that I am looking to translate and distribute as this growing knowledge stock eventually.
The outcome of appreciating both “reflective” moments and collecting more understanding I trust is moving me slowly towards becoming an innovation curator who, hopefully, is valued by others. Well, it’s a goal of mine.
I also regularly need what I call my ‘walkabout’ moments to chill out and regroup.
Walkabout is best known when an Australian Aborigine undergoes a journey, wandering in the wilderness for periods as long as six or so months.
This wandering mostly becomes a rite of passage; in my case, my walkabouts are aimed to move my innovation understanding from one state to another, hopefully improving what I have learnt and gathered.
I have so often to force myself to stop being a collector of ‘all things new’ that is written about innovation. I keep attempting to put as many of the existing pieces together, searching for the patterns and insights, trying to make a different sense of them, to add further to the innovation stock and innovation capital.
Craving for the innovative open road
I do like the idea of an open road on where we can go and what we might explore. Still, we actually do need to take some time to choose the routes, even when much of it can be serendipitous, as it has to contribute ‘just’ beyond knowledge into something valuable.
In our investigations, we need to watch out for all the signs (not necessarily signposts) along the way, those signals, patterns and emerging trends as we both search the horizon but equally in fully appreciating what is all around us, as we travel building our understanding on that journey.
I often feel I am a journeyman and am undoubtedly comfortable with that.
I have to admit I am a happy man playing in my innovation sandpit, linking these thoughts into emerging solutions to tackle some client problems, move innovation along or answer some questions posed.
I work on these for others on given value propositions around the following: “you need someone who can put clear coordinates into the innovation world“.
I keep moving towards this concept of being a curator of innovation, collecting and distributing it, interpreting it, and re-ordering it to meet specific needs. To do this, I must keep up a given rhythm, filtering and funnelling, dampening or magnifying this growing knowledge around innovation.
“Time starved, knowledge poor,” so when do we gain the luxury to think
When do we find the time to really delve into the necessary understanding of innovation in more profound and valuable ways? We are often just ‘reacting to daily issues’ and constant crises as we focus on delivering short-term results.
We lack a space to explore thoughtful analysis, deepen our knowledge and make all the right connections we would ideally like. We lack time and insights that can give more significant direction or answers.
We need those personal ‘curated’ spaces where our particular interest builds up in the required knowledge (collect, manage and apply) to be then able to build from this and move on to the following knowledge stream of value to you. We never find the ongoing opportunity to alter our innovation understanding and influence our future delivery.
What would help here? Is it innovation coaching, mentoring, providing an innovative knowledge platform, a place to go and find content-rich insights that yield impact and give a renewed intensity? What would be attractive? What would give to your understanding of innovation and its management?
How does one offer such a personal space where you can draw in the knowledge and interpret it appropriately to meet your innovation goals? Ideas that give you new creative thoughts, a fresh new way to tackle a problem or that brilliant moment, often called the “light bulb moment”, where you hit upon something completely different, and it changes what we presently know.
Walkabouts to give you personal time and space. They are so valuable to seek out and enjoy.
*Updating a previous post on Walkabouts