1st Year Innovation

Years ago, in a city of eight million people, a love story began! It started quickly and without any introductions!

I fell in love with creativity and innovation, and became very hungry to learn more and more about it. I read and listened to different books, took different courses, and joined a lot of meetups to learn more and more. Then I coached in different places, some of the people I coached was better than me, I coached university professors, film producers and managers in the big companies, perhaps I learned more than what they learned from me.

I learned innovation at Stanford, Harvard and Berkeley universities, and I learned a lot through IDEO U.

The love for innovation made me talk about it a lot and passionately! I also started to encourage and inspire other people around me! Then I started receiving questions about innovation, and the most important and repeated question is: How can I learn innovation and where to start? Hence this article came.

I will answer this important question based on my personal experience and the research I have done.

For anyone who wants to learn about innovation, here is the plan for the first year, "First Year Innovation". There will be other articles for the next three years, God willing.

An important advice before you begin your journey to learn innovation: Focus -concentrer, foco-! What I will put between your hands is more than enough for the first year, so there is no need to disperse here and there. You also need to be consistent and committed, and this is the biggest challenge! Finally, if you can have a mentor during this year, this will be great. He can guide you through the journey, and you will refer to him if you encounter some obstacles, or you have some issues, or you felt lost for one reason or another. The mentor could be someone in your community or you could find good mentors online.

Step 1: Start by reading the Creative Confidence book for the brothers Tom Kelly and David Kelly. It is a myth-busting, muscle-building gem of a book. It shatters the false belief that only some people are creative. The book will teach you a lot about creativity, design thinking, self-confidence, passion, how to come up with creative ideas and how to apply it, and many other interesting topics.

You can finish the book in a week, or a month if you are with a busy schedule.

If you are too busy and do not have time to read, you can buy an audio version of the book in English from the Amazon site and listen to it in the car, while exercising or even at work. I have listened to this book two or three times.

After completing this book, I recommend you share what you have learned with your colleagues at the university or work or share it on social media networks. This will help you memorize what you have read, increase your confidence and motivate the people around you.

Step 2: Take the course "Hello Design Thinking" from IDEO U. Course price is $199.

This flexible, online experience introduces people new to innovation about the concepts of the design thinking process and offers innovators a tried-and-tested approach to creative problem solving. Through case studies with IDEO experts and five quick activities, you'll walk away with knowledge of how design thinking works and how to apply these tools and processes to your own work. It's the second step in unlocking your creative potential. The course is available in two languages: English and Spanish.

During the course you will find that some topics are the same as what you have read in the Creative Confidence book, and that is fine. This course is practical and it will help you better understand what you read in the book. Also, you will be able to apply what you have learned to a project or challenge you choose during the course.

This course can be completed within one week for people who are completely free, and within a month for employees. The course will be available for you for three months.

Step 3: Take the "Insights for Innovation" course. It is a five-week course and it costs $399. The course is available at certain times of the year and not all the time, you can check the date of the next session in their website.

In this course, an in-depth focus on the first phase of design thinking, will ground you in the needs of the people you’re creating for. In this course, you’ll develop empathy for your customers and surface insights for creating products and services they want and need. You’ll gain practical design thinking skills and mindsets that will help you turn your customer needs into human-centered solutions.

Join the course and collaborate with a global community of learners from diverse industries to push your learning, share and receive feedback and resources, and develop long-term connections.

What I like about this course and the one after is the amazing learning community it has. You will collaborate with a global community of learners from diverse industries to push your learning, share and receive feedback and resources, and develop long-term connections. I advise you to make connections with the people inside the community and outside through LinkedIn so the relationship continues after the end of the course.

In this course and the one after you will apply what you have learned to a real-life challenge, which will improve your skills.

Do not forget to write down the most important points and observations during the course, and after the course, take a week to summarize what you learned and share it with your colleagues at the university or work or through social media networks.

Step 4: Take "From Ideas to Action" course. I have coached this course with IDEO U. It is a five-week course and it costs $399. 

From Ideas to Action teaches the design thinking methods of generating ideas, making them tangible, and refining them through the process of experimentation. You will learn certain skills and mindsets of building to think and experimenting your way forward.

After completing the course we will do what we have done before. We will share what we have learned with those around us. This point is important so don’t ignore it, you will see it’s impact.

It is good to mention that you will receive a certificate for each course if you completed the requirements.

Step 5: Now that we have a good amount of information and applied what we have learned to some of the challenges during the training courses, the actual implementation and reflection phase begins. I want you to look around you and find a particular problem, a problem at home, community, university or work. Take this problem and solve it creatively. If you can work on the problem with a team of three or four people, this will be great! and if you do not have people to work with you, then you are the hero and we are sure you can do it by yourself.

The first real problem will be a bit difficult, so be patient, try and try and try. I am sure you will learn a lot from this experience.

Document the whole experiment and the learnings, then share with those around you. This experiment may take up to a one month.

Step 6: Take a break for one month. A month of rest and meditation.

Step 7: Today, you come back with a clear mind. Let us take a new challenge, take a second problem, and do what you did in the first problem, make sure you avoid the mistakes you did before and learn from the previous experience.

Within a month, create an innovative solution and document all that you have learned and then share it with those around you. Tell us what has distinguished this experience from the previous one.

Step 8: In the twelfth month now. You deserve a full month leave, do whatever you want to do. Take rest before starting a new challenge.

For those who do not have the financial ability to invest in the training courses mentioned before, they can still learn through the following sites, which are fairly good, but the learning experience is much less than the course mentioned before. The courses below are completely for free:

1. d.school Virtual Crash Course in Design Thinking: This is the standard 101 introduction. They put their recipe and playbook online, so you can follow along on your own, but it’s best to do with a small group or class. This will give you the basic idea in a 90-minute design challenge.
2. Acumen + IDEO: Introduction to Human-Centered Design and Prototyping. You’re supposed to have a team so that you can run through the process together. However, even if you just log in, you can download their materials, which I think are clear and informative.
3. Adobe Kickbox: a self-directed program with all the tools you need to be guided as a designer. 

A final advice, surround yourself with creative people. Participate in their meetups and gatherings, but do not let the different topics that are discussed take you away from your original plan. If you find a group on WhatsApp or LinkedIn for creativity and innovation, then try to join it. If you have the opportunity to participate in a design Jam or a competition for innovation in your city then do not miss it, you will learn from this experience a lot.

Congratulations hero, I can see you completed your first year! You became more creative, solved problems creatively, and inspired the people around you.

See you in the next article, 2nd Year Innovation!