Innovation Blog
A growing collection of tips and insights for the savy innovator.
"Share an idea, and watch it grow." This statement showcases the expectation that we are all connected in some way. These connections allow ideas to flow in unexpected ways. When ideas move they gain momentium, and they also have the oppertuntiy to change. A simple word of insight has incredible power if it is properly unleashed. The content provided here is offered as a helpful source of inspiration for anyone working on innovation efforts. We welcome requests for specific topics, useful commentary, and content disribution. Links to these articles are available on our social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn), feel free to subscribe, like, comment, and share.
Ten Important Reasons to Begin Innovating Today
The rate of change is continuously increasing, examples of this fact surround our daily routines. Organizations that can’t or won’t look to the future will be left behind. Industry-level transitions will become even more sudden and far-reaching. Those who choose to innovate will be better prepared for these transitions, and have a better chance of improving the reach of the mission of their organizations.
Leveraging Pain Points: Driving Innovation in Organizations
Innovation is essential for any successful organization, propelling it forward in evolving markets, customer demands, and technological advancements. However, identifying the right avenues for innovation can be challenging. One powerful approach is to focus on pain points – those areas where customers, employees, or stakeholders experience frustration, inefficiency, or unmet needs. By leveraging these pain points, organizations can not only address immediate concerns but also drive meaningful innovation that fosters growth and competitive advantage.
How to Create an Internal Innovation Hub to Drive Growth
Many industries are looking for an edge. While new technologies, new leadership, and new initiatives can provide advantages, many of these advantages are temporary. I’m often still shocked at how many organizations only look outward for innovation and inspiration. One of the most effective ways to hard-wire your organization for sustainable innovation is actually really simple. This article offers an introduction for how and why building an internal innovation hub is essential for organizations navigating an increasingly complex and changing modern landscape.
Introduction to Inventing: Empowering Professionals to Innovate
Invention is the cornerstone of progress, driving breakthroughs in technology, industry, and society. For professionals seeking to make their mark through innovation, embarking on an invention journey can be both exhilarating and challenging. This introduction aims to demystify the process of inventing, providing professionals with the knowledge, tools, and inspiration to bring their ideas to life.
Expectation to Innovate
Innovation can be a powerful asset, but often it starts with a fragile beginning. Creating a safe space to innovate can be the catalyst for providing exceptional patient-centered care and employee satisfaction. Employees who feel empowered are more resistant to burnout and more likely to go the extra mile. Innovation Hubs and Makers Spaces are environments that many organizations have begun to implement as a means to foster discovery and promote learning. In addition to providing patrons with physical tools, they often also provide training for working with digital resources, promoting an entrepreneurial mindset, and building a community of individuals who value creative problem-solving.
Patient Transport
Simple moments can be profound. Sometimes a simple observation can lead to a signifcant improvement. Meet Rollie Pollie TM. This Pearson Innovation is an invention more than a decade in the making. It began as a doodle to solve a problem in pediatric hospital and evolved into a passion project. Now Rollie pollie is a fully patented device to help make a visit to the children's hospital a little more manageable and kid friendly.
“Y’all. Take time to read this. All my child life friends take note. Anyone who has ever had a child in the hospital knows how much easier this would make getting around in a wagon. Kids love wagons, they’re great normalization tools for a hospitalized child, now their IV pole can tag along without the fuss.” -Sarah Tigner Bethards, Child Life Professional
Collaborative Leadership
The field of leadership has many oppertunities for improvement and innovation. Anncedotal accounts from famous or successful people are packaged as creditable advances toward improving the act of leading. Whenever possbile it is immportant that validated instruments be created and applied to separate best practice from bad advice.
“Interprofessional education and collaboration (IPEC) are complex and vital functions of effective healthcare, yet current instruments continue to rely on measures of self-reported competency, targeting a few select or siloed functions within health care teams.
This validated tool measures the Capacity for Healthcare Interprofessional Collaboration scale (CHIC) to measure interdependent behaviors that make collaboration possible and healthcare teams effective. The CHIC scale demonstrates internal consistency, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity with good model fit.
In addition to measuring collaborative capacity, mediation analysis demonstrates the predictive validity of the CHIC scale to identify education and training needs in collaborative capacity” (Pearson & North, 2022).
Story Telling
Some of the very best innovations have been new ways to share and tell our stories. Pearson Innovation has developed a comprehensive method to invigorate the true story of the historical figure of Frances DeBra Brown.
Over 150,000 women served in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in World War II. Although the majority of WACs were assigned to duties in the United States, several thousand received overseas assignments. Only 8 percent worked in jobs considered unusual for women such as mechanics, draftsmen, interpreters, and weather observers. Frances Debra Brown was a draftsman at American headquarters in London and Paris, where she worked on classified material.
An Army in Skirts: The World War II Letters of Frances Debra contains the letters that Frances wrote to her family and letters from family and friends to Frances. The letters vividly detail her World War II service.
Hardcover. 274 pages. 2008, Indiana Historical Society Press.