The blades on my outdoor fan broke recently. As you can imagine, the fan became unstable, which made for a very bad experience. When this happened, it was July in South Georgia, so having a working fan is imperative. Once I secured the replacement fan blades, I set about working on installing the new blades […]
Category Archives: Decision Making
Defining the Problem
I had a recent online exchange with a colleague. He had responded to a post I’d made regarding how to use creative brainstorming to harvest new and unusual solutions to a problem. But he had a problem about his problem. Here was his original text to me: Hey David, Thanks for the tip yesterday about […]
The Consequences of Not Planning Ahead
My wife Samantha and I love the sea. We try to boat, sail, or generally get into the salt water as much as we can. We recently had an opportunity to spend a week on the island of Antigua (we were scouting for a 2020 sailing trip) and we did a lot of snorkeling. We […]
Change in Perspective Reveals New Insight
Something fun I get to do with my wife Samantha is go to the west coast of Florida and just chill out. We like the area of Bald Point and Alligator Point near the town of Panacea. We keep a small fishing boat at the marina in Panacea so we can have a down-and-back trip […]
Being Creative in Any Situation
I recently needed to have an online meeting while I was at the Oklahoma City airport. While I wouldn’t normally schedule this type of presentation with the knowledge that I would be in a public space, circumstances aligned that this could not be avoided. I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare […]
Strategically Planning for the Outcome You Want
I was recently traveling from Houston to San Diego. While boarding my Southwest flight, there was an open aisle seat in row 6, which I decided was for me. There was a woman sitting in the window seat, but as the flight wasn’t completely full, we did not receive an occupant in the center seat […]
Now that’s using your head …
After driving a U-Haul 920 miles from Valdosta, Georgia, to Sugar Land, Texas, I arrived to a mostly-empty apartment. It was a Sunday, and the men I had arranged to unload the truck were not available until Tuesday. I had luckily remembered to put a queen-size air mattress at the end of the truck, so […]
How Many Bad Ideas Are You Generating?
“There are no bad ideas.” As a strategic planning facilitator, I say something similar to this at every brainstorming session. Every facilitator does—even though we all know that there are in fact bad ideas. But that label “bad idea” is a misnomer. For example, an idea may not be “bad” per se, just not right […]
Distracted Driving? How about Distracted Stopping?
I was speaking at a conference in Orlando, Florida, and while there, I set up a meeting with a young millennial with whom I am consulting on a new startup idea. He flew down to Orlando so we could use the time around when I would be speaking to collaborate on his startup. After I […]
Capture the Idea or Kiss it Goodbye
Your right brain is an amazing factory of creativity and insight. All it needs is a chance and it can produce truly breakthrough innovation seeds. However, the left brain is a bully, full of facts and logic, which hardly lets the right brain in on the game. That’s why you frequently get great ideas when […]