Katherine William-Powlett shares her thoughts on innovation and on leadership in the voluntary sector. Katherine no longer works for NCVO but her posts have been archived on this site for reference.
It’s not often that a good idea just pops into your head. Steven Johnson has recently published a book, Where Good Ideas Come From, explaining that if you want that to happen you have to expose yourself to a lot of different connections. His mantra is “Chance favours the connected mind”. You can see a four-minute animation summarising the book here:
Whilst I do not claim to be Steven Johnson, I wrote about the value of looking outside your organisation with case study illustrations relevant to our sector in Innovation Matters (PDF, 1.04MB).
Often, you have a sense of what your challenge is and you want to focus on getting some really good ideas. Before you start brainstorming, it is important to be clear that you are grappling with the right challenge.
To learn about two methods of gaining clarity on this, read my blog post, Generating Ideas 1: What’s your Problem?.
Katherine William-Powlett’s blog
Posts written by guests who have contributed to NCVO projects and events. 
