What is an Innovate-A-thon?

An Innovate-A-thon is a series of complementary activities for creating something new and better ... an innovation!

An Innovate-A-thon typically has participants collaborating together to reach a goal in a predetermined period of time.  An independent, neutral facilitator/leader keeps the team focused, productive, and the process on-track and on-time.

Innovate-A-thon creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship principles have been refined through application in a variety of companies, business development support groups, nonprofit associations, universities, and other organizations.

An Innovate-A-thon program can be custom-structured to fit the needs of a particular organization or company, as well as at a variety of instructional and participation levels.

The Critical Success Factor

Every organization must proactively address change if it is to continue to survive and thrive.  The world changes ... client needs, wants, desires; competitive offerings; economic environments, et alia.  An Innovate-A-thon is a excellent tool for creating new and better solutions to evolving customer requirements.

The Critical Success Factor statement is an excellent Mission Statement template for most any organization, even non-profit entities.  

Innovation Impact Mindmap

 

Think of the Innovation Impact Mindmap as a toolkit to take along and use on your Innovate-A-thon venture adventure. 

The Critical Success Factor is highlighted in yellow.  It's the key to starting and maintaining a successful venture, business, and organization.

The Innovation Impact Mindmap started on my office whiteboard at the University of Arizona as a schematic outline of the syllabus for our entrepreneurship program.  A class syllabus is sequential, but the innovation and entrepreneurship processes usually are not.  They bounce around a bit, from here to there and round again.  The mindmap showed the "big picture" of what was being covered in class, and to point out that the way of "getting there" wasn't necessarily the same for everyone.

High-definition Innovation Impact Mindmap files are HERE.

A Little Bit of Inspiration ...

RulesOfSome.com is an ever-growing collection of right-to-the-point tips, tools, and rules of some very smart and savvy people for creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs ... a bit of inspiration for the Innovate-A-thon team!

Innovating is Competitive Creativity ...

CompetitiveCreativity.com contains a variety of Innovate-A-thon material, originally developed for some innovation and entrepreneurship programs and classes at the University of Arizona, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, University of Washington, University of Oregon, and several Fortune 500 companies.