What Is Ideation
We define “Ideation” as basically a customized brainstorming or innovation session designed to generate new ideas. These might involve new opportunities for growth and/or new ways to improve a company’s performance. Common applications include new product/service development, creating cost-saving processes, improving efficiencies, re-defining strategic initiatives, re-positioning a brand, refining sales approaches, or creating new marketing ideas.
Why Ideation Is So Important
Our world is changing dramatically, and the recent recession has significantly altered traditional business practices, intensifying the demand for new creative thinking and business models. Whether it is B2C or B2B, our customers expect more and competition is frequently offering more. Successful companies place a high premium on new, quality ideas, but often don’t have an innovative culture or are simply too involved with short term problems and demands. An outside, professional facilitator can be critical for stimulating people’s creativity in a realistic, constructive channel. In short, new ideas are essential for success in the 21st Century.
Our Experience With Ideation
Every client and situation is different. Establishing the optimal framework requires extensive preparation and genuine management commitment. All of our ideation sessions have involved strategic challenges, from creating ideas for new products, to new brand names, to new marketing initiatives. Our clients, big and small, have represented a variety of different industries, including financial services (American Express) and media (InterMedia Outdoors), a regional supermarket chain (Giant), consumer products (personal care, beverage, food and garden supply clients), professional networking associations (CEO Trust) and also technology transfer applications for a new entrepreneurial firm. Finally, Jay Gronlund has been teaching and conducting ideation sessions in his “Positioning and Brand Development” course at NYU since 1999, as well as doing workshops and simulations on this topic around the world – most recently in Thailand in late 2010.
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Key Topics
All our ideation sessions have been part of an ongoing process of business development and/or performance improvement. Initial ideas are further researched and refined, as they should be, and so the final results are rarely straightforward or clearly mirror the first round of ideas. While specific results must remain confidential, we can confidently claim that every one of our ideation sessions has definitely contributed to a new perspective, fresh thinking and a tangible, positive outcome for our clients.