Improvides Blog and Articles2022-01-21T15:26:24+01:00

I now write all my articles on our community blog Idea to Value.com

Go there to get all of my latest insights on innovation, creativity and making ideas happen. However, links to the latest articles should still appear below here:

Go to the Idea to Value blog

Archive: Previous Improvides blog articles

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May 2013

Generate better ideas. Achieve better results

Creativity and the ability to implement innovative ideas are the most important skills any person, team or organisation need in order to develop and grow their business and services. However, difficulty generating ideas the right [...]

January 2017

This engineer replaced a $1,000.00+ medical device with one costing $0.20

Sometimes, you need to set yourself really strict constraints in order to come up with the most creative innovations. This is exactly what Manu Prakash did with his team at Stanford when trying to make a better, cheaper way to test blood samples in poorer countries. Check out his video above. He was trying to find a […]

Official Top 20 most influential innovation blogs & bloggers: 2016

Here is the only impartial list of the best Innovation blogs by the world’s most influential innovation bloggers. Ladies and Gentlemen, I know you care about innovation. But with all of the hundreds of writers out there, it can be tough to know who’s insights and advice are worth your attention. So over the past few […]

10 most popular creativity and innovation articles of 2016

Here you will find a list of the Top 10 most popular articles on Idea to Value published in 2016. As Editor, I’m amazingly proud of the rapid growth seen on the site in our first year. We had over 300,000 visitors, with some of our articles going viral and getting thousands of shares as […]

December 2016

How Steve Jobs predicted what would cause Apple to lose its innovative edge

One of the most misunderstood concepts in innovation management is why some companies can bring their ideas to life and continue innovating, while in other companies good ideas get no traction and die. Apple has long been seen as one of the world’s most innovative companies, but since the passing away of Steve Jobs in […]

Give the gift of creativity to your family in 2017, and merry Christmas

Our Christmas gift to you: Get 25% off your first month of Deep Creativity Training (now only $9) by using the coupon code “THANKSNICK” at checkout. Seasons Greetings from me and everyone else at Idea to Value. It’s been a fantastic first year for us, with so much to celebrate: Starting the website in March Hosting […]

What Top Gear vs. The Grand Tour teaches us about creativity vs ownership

You may be asking yourself what comparing two shows about fast cars has to do with creativity. The answer is … quite a lot actually. Let me explain. It all comes down to a complicated juggling act which everyone and every company struggles with at one point or another: The legacy of previous ideas vs […]

Uber’s latest innovation: using a friend’s location as a destination

Uber, the ride-sharing app already making taxi-services obsolete, has just announced their latest feature, and in my view it is a perfect example of innovation. It allows you to ask a contact whether they will allow you to use their location as a destination for their Uber ride. Genius. Check out the video above to […]

November 2016

Introducing the new Idea to Value Podcast

Hi everyone and welcome to the brand new Idea to Value podcast. A lot of people have been asking me for months whether I would consider putting my knowledge and insights of creativity and innovation into a Podcast, which people could listen to whenever and wherever they liked. Some people also tell me they learn […]

Innovation pioneer Dieter Rams’ “Ten principles for good design”

If you work in design or innovation, you might not necessarily have heard of Dieter Rams. But you will have definitely felt his impact in the design principles which underlay much of his work. Rams is renowned for his “less, but better” design philosophy, which helped him design a number of iconic products for both […]

Adobe just demonstrated “Photoshop for voice” and I now can’t trust anymore

For decades, people have been able to improve the quality of pictures using image editing software like Adobe Photoshop. Now, Adobe has just demonstrated a new tool they are working on, which could have an even bigger impact. It’s called VoCo, and it analyses people’s speech soundwaves to make it easy to change what a […]

FREE Webinar: Becoming even more creative (detailed training with Q&A)

Hi everyone, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has signed up so far for the How to become even more creative training. It’s been such a delight to see how much people love it and the messages I’m getting about how it has cleared up a lot of confusing topics around […]

New insights on how your creativity decreases as you get older

I couldn’t wait to teach you some amazing insights I recently found out on how creativity evolves over time, so I just grabbed by phone and shot this quick video for you. I also put together a much more detailed video on the research if you want the real juicy insights, and how it says […]

October 2016

Microsoft retakes the innovation crown with its new focus on creativity

Up until a few years ago, experts in the innovation space were using Microsoft as a case study for failing to innovate. They showed how Microsoft had “missed the boat” on several important technological trends, including losing search to Google, smartphones to Apple, operating systems and Office to Web 2.0 applications and apps to both […]

A tribute to Robert Brands, one of our authors who sadly passed away

This week, I received the sad news that the innovation community has lost a dear colleague. I recently found out that Robert Brands passed away on an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) weekend, doing what he loved: being adventurous. Robert was a frequent writer for Idea to Value, and a much-loved member of the worldwide innovation […]

This heartbreaking short film by two guys from PIXAR shows animation isn’t just for kids

When people think of Pixar, they usually think of family-friendly cartoons like Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and Toy Story. Well, two animators from the world’s most successful digital animation studio want to change your opinion on just what stories digital animations can tell. “Borrowed Time” , video shown above, is an animated short film, directed […]

First look at Nintendo’s new games console: The Nintendo Switch

Nintendo just released a trailer for its next generation console, which now finally has a name: The Nintendo Switch. After the phenomenal success of the Wii, Nintendo still has around $10 billion of cash reserves in the bank. However, their failure to convince customers of the capabilities and values of their follow-up system, the WiiU, […]

How China’s Shenzhen became the world capital of hardware innovation

When people talk about innovative cities, most people think of Silicon Valley near San Francisco, Berlin, London or Singapore. But hardly anyone usually thinks of anywhere in China. Most people still think of China as a technology copycat, stealing intellectual property and designs from western companies and producing inferior but cheaper knock-offs. Yet what most […]

Did you know: Some people are born with an imagination?

One of the most important skills for any creative person is that of visualisation. Whether it is remembering a specific image, like a sunset, your lover’s face or the goal scored by Didier Drogba against Everton, there is something special about being able to picture something in your mind’s eye. However, new research is telling us […]

September 2016

Why I have a problem with the Global Innovation Index

INSEAD Business School, along with Cornell University and the World Intellectual Property Organisation have just released their analysis of the world’s most innovative countries for 2016. Together, this is called the Global Innovation Index and aims to objectively measure several dozen indicators to assess which countries are comparatively more innovative than others. You may have seen graphics […]

How Hollywood turns this vehicle into any car you can think of using CGI

You probably know about green screen, and how film and TV studios use it to create computer-generated images for you favorite blockbusters. But did you know that a lot of the cars you see on screen, on TV and especially in commercials might be computer-generated as well? In the above video from WIRED, we take […]

Leaders agree: Creativity will be 3rd most important work skill by 2020

According to a new report from the World Economic Forum, it is clear that creativity at work is going to be one of the most important and in-demand skills in the next 5 years. In fact, it is going to be the third most important skill overall. This comes from a new Forum report, The […]

This video shows how bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics

One of the most pressing concerns in medical innovation is how to address the problem of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics. There are regular news updates about diseases that are becoming resistant to traditional drugs, such as MRSA and even Super Gonnoreah. Harvard Medical School just released the video above to showcase a recent experiment […]

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