Our Diffferent Offerings
Our offerings are mental adventures and journeys oriented towards break-through problem solving, accelerating and advancing initiatives and creating shared experiences that transforms organizations and people. 


ThinkShops, Thinking Adventures, Thinking Expeditions, and School for Innovators Offerings
THINK 101: THINKING ABOUT THINKING
A three-day experience focused on creative thinking skills for personal growth. To get diffferent results, we must do things diffferent; to do things diffferently, we must think diffferent; to think diffferent, we must first think about the way we think. Creative thinking style and how to have diffferent ideas. Basic tools, techniques, processes for mindshifting. Developing and using a creative thinking journal. Highly interactive, multi-media driven, intensive format.
RESULTS 101: TURNING IDEAS INTO ACTION
A 1 ½ day ThinkShop designed for managers, supervisors, and quality leaders. Also suitable for workgroups. THINK 101 or equivalent course is a strong prerequisite. Built around the Innovator's Toolkit™, a set of J.I.T creative thinking tools, techniques, and creative problem solving processes. Students apply learnings continuously to real problems

THE INNOVATION BRIEFING: JUMP-STARTING IDEAs

A 1 ½ day ThinkShop in interactive briefing format. Why innovation? Entrepreneuring. Leveraging trends to develop opportunities. Introduction to getting ideas, developing and growing them into concepts and action plans. Includes some material related to thinking diffferently extracted from THINK 101. Frequently used to kick-start organizations into launching systemic approaches to innovation. High energy session!


INNOVATION 101

A three day experience designed to support roll-out of an Innovation Initiative across an organization. Provides an overview of basic innovation concepts, just-in-time (J.I.T) tools and techniques for generating ideas and developing ideas. Integrates into other on-going initiatives and programs already in place (e.q., Quality, Diversity, Leadership training). Transmits high degree of energy and forward motion to virtually any group. Originally designed as part of the U.S Air Force's corporate strategy for innovation, later modified for a number of Fortune 100 companies.


THE SEVEN LEVELS OF CHANGE

A one day experience to introduce change management concepts in terms of Quality movement, reengineering, new business development and product/service innovation. The Seven Levels of Change© model forms the baseline for understanding and infusing creativity and innovation into Total Quality Management and Quality programs.


CREATIVITY & CREATIVE STYLE


A one day course suitable for everyone. Examines creativity by focusing on the creative styles of the individual participants' approaches to problem solving, new ideas, and decision making. Explains how individual styles interact with the styles of others in group and team dynamics. Explores common perceptions and misconceptions about creativity and suggests techniques for overcoming blocks to thinking diffferently.


ME, Inc.


A 2 ½ day workshop for small groups focused on mentally incorporating at the personal level as a virtual entrepreneurial business. Develops and builds on personal values, principles, strengths, and interests to develop personal missions and visions. Class members become ad hoc Boards of Directors and provide strategic counsel.


TEAM Inc.


A three day workshop for transforming small groups into teams. Develops a group mission and vision, draws out and synthesizes corporate values, principles, strategies and individual's own directions, values and belief structures. Heavy use of inventories and feedback to increase understanding of various differences in personality type, thinking style, and preferences. Run in Expedition Mode - as a journey of discovery, exploring the unknown over unclear routes and paths.


STRATEGIC INNOVATION


A three day workshop for transforming small groups into teams. Develops a group mission and vision, draws out and synthesizes corporate values, principles, strategies and individual's own directions, values and belief structures. Heavy use of inventories and feedback to increase understanding of various differences in personality type, thinking style, and preferences. Run in Expedition Mode - as a journey of discovery, exploring the unknown over unclear routes and paths.


SCHOOL FOR INNOVATORS
Why? Leadership through Innovation

The driving concept behind the School for Innovators is a vision of a network of highly motivated and unusually skilled in-house innovators - energized and dedicated to creating an environment for innovation, creativity, continuous improvement and positive change across their organizations.

The goal of the School is to transform people into thinking guides, able to guide groups into diffferent thinking, jumpstart new ideas, and mindshift teams into innovative change. Graduates return to become catalysts for faster, more effective translation of creative ideas into innovative solutions and bottom-line results to accelerate the pace of change.

What?

The School for Innovators' format follows a particularly intense eight-day curriculum built on the model of an operational Thinking Expedition. The planned route integrates traditional small and large group facilitation tools with leadership skills, building on outdoors experiential learning. The School itself was conceived and has been developed through the process of customer-driven continuous innovation: Students, graduates, managers and sponsoring organizations provide a continuous flow of ideas for virtually real-time incorporation in the curriculum.

The School focuses on applying creativity to real problems within the environment of the students' own organizations. Ample time is spent in "hands-on " mode learning and practicing new skills.

Who?

Enrollment is normally limited to 20 participants. Nominations typically come from a wide range of organizations and corporations faced with large-scale change or a pressing need for "diffferent". Students set the focus for the curriculum of the School with real-world problems they bring with them. Using this work as a jumping off point, they develop strategies for innovation to take back and put into practice immediately.

General Description

The School is intended to provide its graduates with a basic understanding and perspective of the concepts, terminology, processes and techniques associated with implementing innovation in large organizations. Supports for and barriers to innovation and creativity are explored, with emphasis on the issues and challenges around change, particularly large scale and technological change.

The linkages between thinking, ideas, creativity, invention and innovation are examined and Creative Problem Solving (CPS) models and techniques are covered in depth. Coupled with activity-based learning, the School is run on the model of a challenging operational Thinking Expedition.

Where?

The School for Innovators is normally held in Estes Park, Colorado, where we set up basecamp in the historic Elkhorn Lodge, one of the oldest continually operating hotels in the Colorado Rockies. The entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park is right up the road from the Elkhorn Lodge -- plan a few extra days at the end of the School for Innovators to explore.

However... the School for Innovators is a "school without walls" and can be transported almost anywhere. To accommodate corporate groups and teams the School has been held in Houston, Midland and Fredericksburg, Texas; in Charlotte and Eden, North Carolina; in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; and in Auckland, New Zealand. To learn more about custom-designed Corporate Schools for Innovators, please complete a preliminary Corporate Planning Inquiry.

When?

The School for Innovators is scheduled on a demand basis, driven by client organizations who see the need for in-house innovators and change agents who can energize project groups and teams into thinking and doing diffferently.

How?