Brainstorming & Crowdsourcing Innovation, Plain & Simple

This course has recently been updated (Dec 2022)

WHY IS THIS COURSE IMPORTANT?

Brainstorming of creative ideas is oftentimes the starting point of innovation in our organizations.  The collective energy of everyone, internal and external to our organization, can be a very productive source of brand new ideas.  Sifting and prioritizing these new ideas can sometimes be very confusing.  The real key to success is understanding the balance of an organized approach to brainstorming, while still maintaining the spirit of new, sometimes unconventional, ideas. 

The topics covered in this “Brainstorming & Crowdsourcing Innovation” course are:

Stretching Our Brains

• Stretching our brains
• Learning from the best
• Mental blocks to creative thinking
• Classic brainstorming rules

Crowdsourcing Ideas

• Longitude Prize
• Goldcorp Story
• XPrize Foundation
• Linux, Netflix and Lego
• Takeways

Organizing & Prioritizing Our Ideas

• Affinity Diagrams

WHO IS THE IDEAL STUDENT FOR THIS COURSE?

You will learn a lot from this course if you are

• New to the world of the “front end of innovation”
• Struggling with how to effectively generate new ideas to solve an existing problem
• Would like some sort of structure and framework to run brainstorming sessions
• Want to open up your organization to the power of your customer base
• Curious to learn of new techniques for prioritizing ideas

WHAT IS YOUR TEACHING STYLE?

My teaching style is a very pragmatic one. I assume you know nothing about this topic and start with the foundation and build from there. Some of these concepts could be challenging, so I sprinkle in as many examples as I can, both non healthcare and healthcare, to assure full understanding of the topic. This is why I have appended “Plain and Simple” to all my courses.

WHY ARE YOU QUALIFIED TO TEACH THIS COURSE?

I spent 35 years in the designing and launching of medical imaging products and services. My career evolved from leading engineering teams, to becoming VP Marketing and then to president of a Healthcare IT firm. It is also based on 15 years of university teaching.