Tag Archives: brains

Innovation Quotes of the Day – May 28, 2012


“The more successful an organization becomes the bigger it gets. The bigger it gets the more it focuses on optimizing its resources. The more it optimizes it resources the more it eliminates variation. Innovation requires variation. We have seen the enemy and he is us.”

– Jeff DeGraff


“It is in identifying which of The Nine Innovation Roles are vacant (or sub-optimally filled) that you will be able to see some of the areas where your efforts are likely to come up short, and then can take actions to improve your chances of innovation success.”

– Braden Kelley


“It is not enough to simply go through the motions. In order to build our abilities, cognitive or otherwise, we must think about what we’re doing, concentrate while we’re doing it and then review what we have done. Further, we need to seek out mentors and peers who will critique our efforts.”

– Greg Satell


What are some of your favorite innovation quotes?

Add one or more to the comments, listing the quote and who said it, and I’ll share the best of the submissions as future innovation quotes of the day!

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Innovation Requires Diagonal Thinking

Innovation Requires Diagonal ThinkingThe outcome of a back and forth of a dialog on Twitter with Scramray E. Pinkus generated a lovely quote worth sharing:

“Innovating is like thinking diagonally. A perfect combination of both linear and lateral.”

– Scramray E. Pinkus (@Easelton)

The conversation sprung out of a tweet I posted that postulated that when people use technology (iPads, smartphones, laptops, etc.) and television as child minders, that they are actually promoting linear thinking in their children at the expense of the lateral thinking that our society so desperately needs. We need strong lateral thinking to compliment the dominant linear thinking out there, so that together they can drive the social innovation the world needs to fix this mess we’ve made.

What do you think?

Technology as child minder, positive or negative effects on the innovative capacity of our children?

One of my proof points is this article from The Washington Post.

Any other proof points out there?

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