Lisa Kay Solomon and Emily Shepard shared some thoughts about innovation with a Stanford Business School class. They focused on five skills that one must master to innovate successfully. Here's their list:
- Observe: Watch what others are doing, demonstrate empathy, and and record your observations of the world around you. Keep a journal of your observations.
- Question: Be curious. Ask good questions to get out the root of the problem you are trying to solve.
- Associate: Expose yourselves to environments where ideas from different domains come together. Innovations often come from combining seemingly unrelated ideas.
- Experiment: Sketching, drawing, and storyboarding can be simple ways to play with your ideas and to test out concepts.
- Network: Don't just learn from other experts in your field. Try to learn from people in other fields, far and wide.