How to bring Right Livelihood into your next meeting – The Noble 8-Fold Path
By Joe Giordano This is the fifth article in this series (see links below), where we examine how the Noble 8-Fold Path of the historical Buddha can help you, your team, and your organization build growth by fostering collaboration and agility. I hope you are beginning to see the connection in my blog posts…what I feel is the biggest connection is that each of the...
Take the Right Action to Build Collaboration: Fourth Path in the 8-Fold Path
By Joe Giordano In this article, the fourth in this series (see links below), we examine how Right Action can help you, your team, and your organization foster collaboration and agility. Right Action is part of the Fourth Path – Ethical Conduct – in the Noble 8-Fold Path of the teachings of the historical Buddha. Ethical Conduct speaks to taking wholesome actions, because wholesome actions lead...
Keynote Speaker: Joe Giordano on the human dynamics of Creativity
Joe Giordano, a principal at Synecticsworld, shares Synectics tools and techniques with a diverse group at the Maine Center for Creativity, part of a ‘velvet revolution’ that’s energizing the Maine’s economy. Maine’s ‘creative economy’ is all about innovation and talent – and leveraging them as a vital economic resource for driving industry. Joe is working with organizations who are seeking breakthroughs by helping individuals and...
How to Stop Trying to Do Everyone Else’s Work (and Enjoy Doing Your Own)
By Chipp Norcross Over the last few years of working at Synecticsworld, I’ve noticed different themes that have appeared in my work. Over the last couple of months, the theme of “clientship” has come out in a lot of conversations. For those of you that may be hearing this term for the first time in a Synectics context, clientship means putting the ownership for an...
Getting to the Heart of the Consumer: Synectics in Marketing
The below article is a taken from a chapter of Imagine That! Imagine That! is a collection of thought pieces, stories, and articles by current and former staff members, clients and other associates that guides readers through 50 years of Synectics, its Body of Knowledge and its impact on clients, organizations, communities and individuals. It was edited by Connie Williams, General Managing Partner and Chief...
Involve Your Clients in the Creation Process
By Leo Boudreau Research has shown that people are 5 times more committed to ideas if they had some role in developing them (as opposed to ideas that are forced upon them). In our experience, a big part of the challenge of new ideas is dealing with this “not invented here” syndrome. To have any chance of successful implementation, you need people to be committed...
Tap into Your Unconscious Mind: Inside the Synectics Teepee
By Joe Gammal By most accounts, the unconscious mind carries 90-99% of our thinking activity or ability, with our conscious mind delivering the balance. Oh, if we could just tap into that hidden reservoir! At the Brisbane Festival, an extravaganza of the arts that takes hold of the city each year, I had the opportunity to tap into part of my own reservoir. I’ll never...
What can you learn from “The Voice”?
By Bryan Laychak If you don’t watch it, you’ve probably at least heard about NBC’s hit reality television show called The Voice. What separates The Voice from an otherwise overly-crowded lineup of singing competitions is that in the early stages of The Voice contestants are evaluated by a panel of celebrity judges in what are called “blind auditions”. During this phase, the judges’ backs are to...
What Healthcare Reform Is going to Mean
By Joe Giordano In the next few months, insurance companies across the country will have to start thinking differently. As we approach 2014, each of the 50 states will be preparing their health insurance exchanges, and regional companies that once had a lock on specific territories are going to have to face competition from companies who have opted into their state’s exchange. This will open...
How to build a better global brand
By Kyle Hermans Kyle Hermans is the Senior Director of Innovation Capacity of Gap Inc. Global, and was head of Synecticsworld’s West Coast office at the time of this article. The “global” brand spans many different cultures, languages, backgrounds, religions, systems, governments, types of logistics and rules and regulations in terms of trade and infrastructure of countries and international commerce. Staying aligned to the core...
Apple and Polaroid
By Leo Boudreau Apple and Polaroid I have recently read the book, “Instant: the Story of Polaroid” by Christopher Bonanos. I was struck by some of the parallels between Polaroid and Apple. Both companies were driven by the vision and creativity of a charismatic leader – Edwin Land and Steve Jobs. Both companies were able to re-define the markets in which they competed. They brought...
Synectics as a creative problem-solving technique
Imagine That! is a collection of thought pieces, stories, and articles by current and former staff members, clients and other associates that guides readers through 50 years of Synectics, its Body of Knowledge and its impact on clients, organizations, communities and individuals. It was edited by Connie Williams, General Managing Partner and Chief Knowledge Officer of Synecticsworld and Vincent Nolan, retired Chairman of Synectics Europe...
How to Build success into your goals
By Kyle Hermans Kyle Hermans is the Senior Director of Innovation Capacity at Gap Inc. Global, he headed the West Coast division of Synecticsworld at the time of this article. Business is a goal’s based world, and goals are creating real tangible changes that drive growth. So, before you drive time and energy into achieving this change, analyze what it is you are trying to...
A little story with a big lesson
By Synecticsworld I was at the park the other day with my kids and I noticed some children playing on the zip line; a handlebar they hold onto and zip across the park. It was not 50 feet high, nor suspended over a ravine, but it was high enough to give some children trouble in reaching the bar. All different sized children were playing on...
Spark Your creative Thinking with Catalytic Converters
By Connie Williams There is a longstanding story that seems simplistic but is very wise: The story of the woman in the pit. One day a woman comes along and has a problem. She has fallen into a deep pit. Why can’t she get out? She can’t see her pathway out and she can’t see the horizon. She is deep in the pit and has...
How to Be a Better Meeting Chairperson
In January of 1969, George M. Prince, one of the founders of Synectics, Inc. wrote an article which proved to be one of the most popular articles in the history of the Harvard Business Review. “How to be a better meeting chairman” is one of my personal favorites of all of George’s articles because it describes a powerful approach for getting better, more creative solutions from...
