Over the last two days I led a live case study for MBA students at the Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. Their challenge was to identify a new flavor for Dasani Drops that is relevant to the brand and could drive incremental sales. I am grateful for the hard work shown by all 12 teams and am excited to get two teams in front of my friends at Coca-Cola. Beyond evaluating the soundness of each team's research and findings, I was also looking for signs that they were willing to color outside the lines. In the innovation workshop I run for left brainers, I explain that creativity is not a dark art – it is simply counter-intuitive problem solving. Yet if corporate whiteboards could talk they would tell tales about the three most common creativity killers: We accept assumptions and end up solving the wrong problem. We know what we know and narrow our thinking within well-trodden mental paths. We aren't comfortable pursuing multiple solution
Visit www.rehumanizebrands.com – The intersection of business and human behavior.