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Now, his promise to himself is coming to fruition with the publication of "21 Days to a Big Idea" ( Diversion Books), which hit the shelves as of Tuesday, Nov. 17.
The Co-Founder and “Chief Idea Guy” of the Growth Engine Co., a 15-year-old innovation agency based in Norwalk, Mattimore specializes in ideation and innovation process, front-end marketing research, branding, creating and developing new products and services, and innovation strategic planning.
The author of "Idea Stormers, How to lead and Inspire Creative Breakthroughs" and "99% Inspiration, A Real World Guide to Business Creativity," he said his 30 years of experience designing and facilitating over 1,000 ideation sessions, 500 focus groups and leading over 200 successful innovation projects helping companies create, develop and launch “the next big thing” has made him an expert, which is why he's all about sharing those tips with others.
One of his passions, in fact, is to invent new group creative techniques to address specific company challenges. A few of the individual and group idea-generation techniques he's invented -- which are covered in the book -- include: triggered brainwalking, patent prompts, idea hooks, strategic and positioning continuums, and “the worst idea” technique.
He also enjoys inventing new services such as global virtual ideation, action-learning creativity training, and disruptive war gaming.
Among some of the tips offered in the book, which incidentally, took him 100 days to write:
- Posting a whiteboard in a public place where employees are invited to contribute ideas against specific organizational, sales and marketing challenges.
- Asking employees to facilitate short, mini-ideation sessions to generate ideas for specific challenges.
- Inviting local speakers for a “lunch and learn” on a topic of interest, one not necessarily limited to their company’s specific business.
- Sponsoring a “Big Idea Club” where employees study books on creativity, innovation and creative leadership.
As of now, his 2016 new year's resolution is to finish a young-adult novel he's been working on about the misadventures of a group of young inventors. "Fiction is hard," he said of the project that so far, has taken him five years (and counting).
Stay tuned, however, as to what's next. The "21 Days to a Big Idea" author is, needless to say, full of ideas.
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