“Sing like no one is listening,
Love like you’ve never been hurt,
Dance like nobody’s watching,
and live like it’s heaven on earth.”

~Mark Twain

In my pursuit of Finding Innovation, I’ve studied the trends and the essences of what made the great innovators of our times INNOVATIVE, what were the patterns, and how can they be replicated, and then I went deep down to analyse their dynamic behavior to the hope that I would find the secret…  

I also traveled around the Middle East & Africa, and worked closely with hundreds of Educators on the topics of Innovation in Learning & Teaching and noticed the same conclusion of what would constitute the secret of being “Innovative”.

Steve Jobs, didn’t believe in focus groups. Actually, he avoided them like the plague. Jobs believed in building great products that he would want to use himself.

Once you want to free your mind about a concept of harmony and music being correct, you can do whatever you want. So nobody told me what to do and there was no preconception of what to do.

~Giovanni Giorgio

So The Secret & Common Pattern that I Found in the heart of the great innovators of our times, is that they did things that they would want for themselves, music they would like to listen to, books they wanted to read, technology that would excite them… Without caring if the rest of the world will actually like it or not.

Our Tip for this week, is to find the essence of Innovation within you. So you can do the following 3 simple steps and repeat them as necessary 🙂

1. Ask yourself this question: “If I was the Last person on Earth, and I wanted to use this product, What should it be like?” Think that you’re the last person on earth and there’s literally no one to judge your product, and no one else to use it.
2. Think of it as a Legacy: if you’re going to leave this product for your children to use it after you do, what would you want them to think about it? don’t think too much, JUST MAKE IT AS GOOD AS IT CAN POSSIBLY BE!
3. Frankenstein it 🙂 : Make your product ALIVE, in a way that it will continue being great without you being involved, whether it was an article, a book, a software, a technology or whatever it was… Bring your stroke of innovation to awaken it to change the world.

I Still remember the discussion I’ve had with my Editor when I was in the process of Publishing my first national Best selling book, when she was telling me that my writing style was too casual for a non-fiction book and there’s a risk that the audience not liking it… I smiled and told her that I’ve simply written it in the Style I would’ve loved to Read :); She did a great job afterwards preserving that touch .

Have a great week & Cheers,
SC

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
–Henry Ford

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project