Resources for Innovation
Innovation is critical to the progress of libraries across all sectors of the profession. While there are no surefire methods to engage in innovative practices it can be helpful to keep alert to best practices and new ideas that can help individuals and organizations to achieve their highest state of innovation. This page lists resources that can help anyone to think more creatively and be more innovative.
Report 103
InnovationWeek
Idea Connection Newsletter
Idea Sandbox
FutureThink: Weekly Innovation Tip
Published every other Tuesday this free newsletter offers essays about creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation - primarily with applications for business. It includes news and views on creativity, innovation, invention and ideas in business, announcements of new features on the JPB web site, food for thought and anything else relevant to people with an interest in innovation. The articles tend to have a connection to the services of the company that hosts the newsletter, which is slightly annoying, but it's a small price to pay for the interesting essays.
Suggested strategy: Go to the JPB website at https://www.jpb.com/report103/index.php and scroll down to the box where you can enter your email to begin your subscription. You can view sample issues at the Report 103 archives.
This free newsletter is delivered to your email inbox weekly. InnovationWeek is a weekly summary of innovation-related articles that have appeared in the media. Convenient links in these e-mail messages enable you to click through to the InnovationTools Web site to read a summary of the article; you can then click through to view the full article elsewhere on the Web. This newsletter makes it easy to keep up with news and articles about innovation that come from a wide range of resources.
Suggested strategy: Go to the Innovation Tools website to register for a subscription to InnovationWeek. Scroll down the page and complete the registration form. This same page contains a link to a sample issue.
This is a free weekly newsletter that can be digested quickly, but can frequently yield a few good ideas. There is typically a main article on news items, along with some additional links that could be news, an interesting new invention or idea, or some reader ideas.
Suggested strategy: Point your browser to the main page of the newsletter where you will find a registration form. Just enter your name and email address to subscribe. For a sample of the newsletter go to the page that features recent issues.
This free monthly newsletter is produced by a firm that specializes in better ideas through creative problem solving and brand building. Each issue provides tips and techniques that offer strategies for generating great ideas and for creative problem solving. Not every issue will be focused on innovation, but over the course of a year a reasonable number of good ideas can come from the Sandbox.
Suggested strategy: There is a page available to sign up to receive a copy of the newsletter in your e-mail inbox (an HTML version is easily had). You can view the archives for examples of past issues.
FutureThink: Weekly Innovation Tip
This is especially good for those pressed for time. It's a brief, weekly - and free - e-mail that provides just a single idea for boosting personal or group innovation. FutureThink also has a blog and a monthly newsletter for those seeking more news and ideas about innovation techniques.
Suggested strategy: Point your browser to the web-registration page for the Weekly Innovation Tip and sign up to start receiving your weekly tip. You can also sign up for the newsletter on the same page.