In a workshop that council hosted last week with Andrew Papageorge, the founder and president of GoInnovate!, shared that "all innovation is a constant process of discovery and creating value by generating fresh ideas about business, people and their environment. These ideas, when followed by action, provide greater capabilities, which impact business results and produce a positive return on investment."

Without innovation most companies will eventually fail and disappear from the business landscape, as noted when comparing companies listed on the top 500 list 10 years ago as compared today.

"If you wait to start the innovation process 'til the current product or service is beginning to reach the end of its lifecycle, it will be too late! You need to start the next innovation about the same time you launch your last new product or service" he said.

"One of the challenges in being innovative is getting the idea out of your head and on to the market. If you're already generating lots of ideas but they aren't being implemented and creating value, it doesn't make much sense to teach people how to be more creative." Andrew noted. "It's vital that companies commercialize their innovative technologies and learn how to repeat the process over and over."

Toward the end of the workshop Andrew had the attendees experience the GoInnovate! System. Using his Scan, Focus, Go process, we were asked to individually generate creative ideas about how we could use a belt. Some of the ideas the group came up with were: to hold up your pants (duh!), to cinch up books, to use as a fan belt, tie someone up, and hang a picture. In the next exercise the group was asked to select the use for the belt they felt was most creative, which turned out to be hanging a picture. The next step was to take that use (hanging a picture) and modify the item to best accomplish the goal. We were then ready to take our new product and put it into production and take it to the market.