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Creativity & Innovation

Edge of Discovery, True Entrepreneurial Spirit, The Flying Car

Here's the video which shows the creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship spirit and Edge of discovery. This video has been quoted by me in my assignment under the references. This video is basically a way to promote creativity, innovation & entrepreneurship in the minds of the students through different mediums like through seminars, internet or television which will show the students that if the students graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA can do it then why we can't?

This video is basically of a flying car. A company Terrafugia which formed its startup with graduates from MIT. They are developing a car that morphs to its plane form in 20 seconds. After your flight (of no more than 500 miles), you can be back on the road and parking in your single car garage. The company is looking to hit the market in 2011.

Spinneys entry to Pakistan Likely

Spinneys is also looking to coming soon in Pakistan. It is been under the news that spinneys the premier supermarket retailer in the middle east is looking to expand in Pakistan under the partnership agreement with real estate developor of Bahria Town.

It has been in the news by the Spinneys officials that they will open up 6-8 supermarkets in the major cities of pakistan currently and their target market would be growing middle class.

Spinneys is currently owned by the Abraaj Capital. Its supermarkets sell a range of fresh foods, such as scones and fresh buns, as well as various international branded products; and operate book and magazine section, mobile telephone shop, gift store, video and DVD store, pharmacy, florist, hairdressers, barbers, picture framing and souvenier store, school uniform shop, and ice cream corner, as well as a cafe. The company also offers catering and support services to customers in various industries, such as city based sites, mid-sea oil rigs, desert camps, power plants, institutions, and hospitals.

Carrefour is Open Now in Pakistan

Carrefour is Open Now in Pakistan under name HYPERSTAR.

Carrefour the second largest retailor in the world after the Wal-Mart has opened its doors to Pakistan and its official opening of the 1st store was held at 13 May, 2009 at Fortress Stadium, Lahore. Expo Centre at the Fortress stadium has been converted into HYPERSTAR. Carrefour has changed its name in Pakistan. Its a long debating question which their officials can answer.

In Pakistan and Middle East, Carrefour is operating under the Majid Al-Futtaim Group which is a leading group in the middle east currently running its companies in the Retail, Property, Shopping Malls, Asset Management etc.

Carrefour has plans to open ten stores in the coming five years in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Faisalabad. The Carrefour would be the first hypermarket operator in Pakistan.

SIX THINKING HATS - Decision Maker Tools

Six Thinking Hats
Looking at a Decision from 360 degree view

Six Thinking Hats" is a powerful technique that helps you look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives. It helps you make better decisions by pushing you to move outside your habitual ways of thinking. As such, it helps you understand the full complexity of a decision, and spot issues and opportunities which you might otherwise not notice.Many successful people think from a very rational, positive viewpoint, and this is part of the reason that they are successful. Often, though, they may fail to look at problems from emotional, intuitive, creative or negative viewpoints. This can mean that they underestimate resistance to change, don't make creative leaps, and fail to make essential contingency plans.

Similarly, pessimists may be excessively defensive, and people used to a very logical approach to problem solving may fail to engage their creativity or listen to their intuition.If you look at a problem using the Six Thinking Hats technique, then you'll use all of these approaches to develop your best solution. Your decisions and plans will mix ambition, skill in execution, sensitivity, creativity and good contingency planning.

This tool was created by Edward de Bono in his book "6 Thinking Hats".

How to Use the Tool:

To use Six Thinking Hats to improve the quality of your decision-making, look at the decision "wearing" each of the thinking hats in turn.

Each "Thinking Hat" is a different style of thinking. These are explained below:

White Hat: With this thinking hat, you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them.This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data.

Red Hat: Wearing the red hat, you look at the decision using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how other people will react emotionally, and try to understand the intuitive responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning.

Black Hat: When using black hat thinking, look at things pessimistically, cautiously and defensively. Try to see why ideas and approaches might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in a plan or course of action. It allows you to eliminate them, alter your approach, or prepare contingency plans to counter problems that arise.

Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans tougher and more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique, as many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance, leaving them under-prepared for difficulties.

Yellow Hat: The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it, and spot the opportunities that arise from it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.

Green Hat: The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas.

Blue Hat: The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, and so on.

You can use Six Thinking Hats in meetings or on your own. In meetings it has the benefit of defusing the disagreements that can happen when people with different thinking styles discuss the same problem.A similar approach is to look at problems from the point of view of different professionals (e.g. doctors, architects, sales directors) or different customers.

Example:

The directors of a property company are looking at whether they should construct a new office building. The economy is doing well, and the amount of vacant office space is reducing sharply. As part of their decision they decide to use the 6 Thinking Hats technique during a planning meeting.

Looking at the problem with the White Hat, they analyze the data they have. They examine the trend in vacant office space, which shows a sharp reduction. They anticipate that by the time the office block would be completed, that there will be a severe shortage of office space. Current government projections show steady economic growth for at least the construction period.

With Red Hat thinking, some of the directors think the proposed building looks quite ugly. While it would be highly cost-effective, they worry that people would not like to work in it.

When they think with the Black Hat, they worry that government projections may be wrong. The economy may be about to enter a 'cyclical downturn', in which case the office building may be empty for a long time.

If the building is not attractive, then companies will choose to work in another better-looking building at the same rent.

With the Yellow Hat, however, if the economy holds up and their projections are correct, the company stands to make a great deal of money.

If they are lucky, maybe they could sell the building before the next downturn, or rent to tenants on long-term leases that will last through any recession.

With Green Hat thinking they consider whether they should change the design to make the building more pleasant. Perhaps they could build prestige offices that people would want to rent in any economic climate. Alternatively, maybe they should invest the money in the short term to buy up property at a low cost when a recession comes.

The Blue Hat has been used by the meeting's Chair to move between the different thinking styles. He or she may have needed to keep other members of the team from switching styles, or from criticizing other peoples' points.

Key points:

Six Thinking Hats is a good technique for looking at the effects of a decision from a number of different points of view.

• It allows necessary emotion and skepticism to be brought into what would otherwise be purely rational decisions. It opens up the opportunity for creativity within Decision Making. It also helps, for example, persistently pessimistic people to be positive and creative.
• Plans developed using the '6 Thinking Hats' technique are sounder and more resilient than would otherwise be the case. This technique may also help you to avoid public relations mistakes, and spot good reasons not to follow a course of action, before you have committed to it.

Web Video Marketing Mistakes

YouTube Video Marketing

Two of the biggest mistakes people make with Web Video Marketing on the Internet are:

1. Not communicating what the video is about during the first 7 – 10 seconds
It’s so typical to start watching a video on YouTube without having any idea what the video is about.

Most people today are very busy so you need to communicate extremely well both WHAT your video is about and WHY they should watch it. There’s so much distraction and people get lots of spam.

How to avoid this: start your video by communicating what your video is all about and why the viewer should watch it until the end. This is a great way to set you apart from your competition.

2. Putting the focus on yourself rather than on the viewer (your target market)

Most companies who make videos for YouTube tend to talk about themselves. They use sentences like this,for example:

“Our last year was amazing…. ““We have just moved to new office facilities….”

Some entrepreneurs and small business owners use these kinds of sentences
“I just joined a great business opportunity.. you need to hear about it…”

“My business is going great, life is perfect now..”
These are all very boring from the point of the viewer since the focus is on the speaker and not on the listeners…

How to avoid this: To become a great video marketer you need to develop the skill of learning everything you can about your target market and more specifically, try to find out that kind of problems or challenges your target market has.

MBAs vs. Entrepreneurs

Harvard's Bill Taylor writes about which group has the right stuff for seizing opportunities during the recession


The one growth business in this shrinking economy is speculation about where MBAs and other elite students will flock now that Wall Street is a vast wasteland. "What will new map of talent flow look like?" wondered a piece last month in the New York Times. The tentative answer: towards government, the sciences, and teaching, "while fewer shiny young minds are embarking on careers in finance and business consulting."
Just five days after that article, the Times was at it again, chronicling the difficult career choices for business students, including one former Goldman Sachs intern who started her own shoe-importing company, and a Wharton grad contemplating rabbinical studies. (He wound up in real estate.)
Now, I understand the use of students from elite business schools as a proxy for "talent" in the business world. But as the economy experiences the most deep-seated changes in decades, maybe it's time to change our minds about what kinds of people are best-equipped to become business leaders. Is our fascination with the comings and goings of MBAs as obsolete as our lionization of investment bankers and hedge-fund managers? Is it time to look elsewhere for the "best and the brightest" of what business has to offer?
One place to look for answers is the fascinating research of Professor Saras Sarasvathy, who teaches entrepreneurship at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. It's been a long time since I've encountered academic research as original, relevant, and fascinating as what Professor Sarasvathy has done, in a series of essays, white papers, and a book. Her work revolves around one big question: What makes entrepreneurs "entrepreneurial?" Specifically, is there such as thing as "entrepreneurial thinking"—and does it differ in important ways from, say, how MBAs think about problems and seize opportunities?
The answer, Sarasvathy concludes, is an emphatic yes—and the differences boil down to the "causal" reasoning used by MBAs versus the "effectual" reasoning used by entrepreneurs. Causal reasoning, she explains, "begins with a pre-determined goal and a given set of means, and seeks to identify the optimal—fastest, cheapest, most efficient, etc.—alternative to achieve that goal." This is the world of exhaustive business plans, microscopic ROI calculations, and portfolio diversification.
Effectual reasoning, on the other hand, "does not begin with a specific goal. Instead, it begins with a given set of means and allows goals to emerge contingently over time from the varied imagination and diverse aspirations of the founders and the people they interact with." This is the world of bootstrapping, rapid prototyping, and guerilla marketing.
The more Sarasvathy explains the differences in the two styles of thinking, the more obvious it becomes which style matches the times. Causal reasoning is about how much you expect to gain; effectual reasoning is about how much you can afford to lose. Causal reasoning revolves around competitive analysis and zero-sum logic; effectual reasoning embraces networks and partnerships. Causal reasoning "urges the exploitation of pre-existing knowledge"; effectual reasoning stresses the inevitability of surprises and the leveraging of options.
The difference in mindset, Sarasvathy concludes, boils down to a different take on the future. "Causal reasoning is based on the logic, To the extent that we can predict the future, we can control it," she writes. That's why MBAs and big companies spend so much time on focus groups, market research, and statistical models. "Effectual reasoning, however, is based on the logic, To the extent that we can control the future, we do not need to predict it." How do you control the future? By inventing it yourself—marshalling scarce resources, understanding that surprises are to be expected rather than avoided, reacting to them fast.
Ultimately, she says, entrepreneurs begin with three simple sets of resources: "Who they are"—their values, skills, and tastes; "What they know"—their education, expertise, and experience; and "Whom they know"—their friends, allies, and networks. "Using these means, the entrepreneurs begin to imagine and implement possible effects that can be created with them...Plans are made and unmade and revised and recast through action and interactions with others on a daily basis."
Sounds like a plan to me! So the next time you read an article about what MBAs are doing, don't forget to think about what entrepreneurs are doing as well. They're the ones with the right stuff for tough times.