The leading papers from the leading authorities in library serials Over the past few years electronic journals have flourished to become an integral part of a modern library system. The challenges of licensing, financing, developing, managing, and delivering seamless and integrated access are topics of crucial importance. Growth, Creativity, and Collaboration: Great Visions on a Great Lake tackles these issues through this compilation of thought-provoking papers on the future of serial publications from the 2004 North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG)’s nineteenth annual conference, which took place on the shore of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Growth, Creativity, and Collaboration presents visionary experts who analyze the past, present, and promising future of library serials. The wide variety of stimulating topics include various aspects of electronic resources, financial issues facing the publication of serials, collaboration with vendors to assist in the development of new products and services, and the challenges and successes of librarians dealing with serial collection development and management. Tables and figures enhance the clarity of ideas, and the chapters are impeccably referenced. Growth, Creativity, and Collaboration: Great Visions on a Great Lake discusses: the role of libraries in the world the Big Deal the evolution of alternative publishing the economics of scholarly publishing the specifics of making journals print versus electronic publishing economics strategies to support Tier 3 publishers systems and standards in electronic resource management licensing issues for electronic products pricing models the hidden costs of e-journals the Hofstra University serial review process changes and access problems with e-journals vendor collaboration to create the products you want faculty collaboration in serials collections development and management understanding and implementing context-sensitive linking services understanding and using your usage statistics creative strategies to cope with your subscription agent’s bankruptcy resolution of license breaches Growth, Creativity, and Collaboration: Great Visions on a Great Lake creatively addresses the many issues involving any library’s handling of electronic resources. This eye-opening resource is perfect for librarians, publishers, and commercials vendors interested in the future of serial publication.

Orchestrating Collaboration at Work is an activity book for trainers, coaches, mediators and facilitators, who want to use the arts to create transformative learning experiences in organizations. All 70 activities are crafted using arts-based principles that offer new insights and skills development in creativity, communication, teamwork, and collaborative leadership. Painting, poetry, storytelling, music, and improvisational theater offer innovative and transformative learning experiences. You can use them as quick icebreakers or brainjuicers at meetings or training sessions, and as a means of mediating dialogue to stimulate employee engagement. You do NOT have to be an artist to use this book's offerings.

Swarm Creativity introduces a powerful new concept-Collaborative Innovation Networks, or COINs. Its aim is to make the concept of COINs as ubiquitous among business managers as any methodology to enhance quality and competitive advantage. The difference though is that COINs are nothing like other methodologies. A COIN is a cyberteam of self-motivated people with a collective vision, enabled by technology to collaborate in achieving a common goal--n innovation-by sharing ideas, information, and work. It is no exaggeration to state that COINs are the most productive engines of innovation ever. COINs have been around for hundreds of years. Many of us have already been a part of one without knowing it. What makes COINs so relevant today, though is that the concept has reached its tipping point-thanks to the Internet and the World Wide Web. This book explores why COINS are so important to business success in the new century. It explains the traits that characterize COIN members and COIN behavior. It makes the case for why businesses ought to be rushing to uncover their COINs and nurture them, and provides tools for building organizations that are more creative, productive and efficient by applying principles of creative collaboration, knowledge sharing and social networking. Through real-life examples in several business sectors, the book shows how to leverage COINs to develop successful products in R & D, grow better customer relationships, establish better project management, and build higher-performing teams. In short, this book answers four key questions: Why are COINs better at innovation? What are the key elements of COINs? Who are the people that participate in COINs and how do they become members? And how does an organization transform itself into a Collaborative Innovation Network?

Creativity often leads to the development of original ideas that are useful or influential, and maintaining creativity is crucial for the continued development of organizations in particular and society in general. Most research and writing has focused on individual creativity. Yet, in recent years there has been an increasing acknowledgment of the importance of the social and contextual factors in creativity. Even with the information explosion and the growing necessity for specialization, the development of innovations still requires group interaction at various stages in the creative process. Most organizations increasingly rely on the work of creative teams where each individual is an expert in a particular area. This volume summarizes the exciting new research developments on the processes involved in group creativity and innovation, and explores the relationship between group processes, group context, and creativity. It draws from a broad range of research perspectives, including those investigating cognition, groups, creativity, information systems, and organizational psychology. These different perspectives have been brought together in one volume in order to focus attention on this developing literature and its implications for theory and application. The chapters in this volume are organized into two sections. The first focuses on how group decision making is affected by factors such as cognitive fixation and flexibility, group diversity, minority dissent, group decision-making, brainstorming, and group support systems. Special attention is devoted to the various processes and conditions that can inhibit or facilitate group creativity. The second section explores how various contextual and environmental factors affect the creative processes of groups. The chapters explore issues of group autonomy, group socialization, mentoring, team innovation, knowledge transfer, and creativity at the level of cultures and societies. The research presented in this section makes it clear that a full understanding of group creativity cannot be accomplished without adequate attention to the group environment. It will be a useful source of information for scholars, practitioners, and students wishing to understand and facilitate group creativity.

Today’s consumers are more knowledgeable, networked, and vocal. For them consumption is not merely an act of buying products and services, but an expression of their creative potential. Consequently, they are demanding a say and a voice in how companies conceive, develop, and deliver value to them. It is not surprising, therefore, to hear that a large number of companies are transforming how they innovate—not only in terms of developing new products and services, but in how they are created, delivered, and supported to customers. Open Innovation thinking, where companies collaborate with suppliers, distributors, and customers to co-create unique value, is fast replacing traditional thinking that viewed innovation as a proprietary activity and marketing as a static, one-way broadcast. However, while there is significant advocacy and buy-in for collaborating with customers, there is little guidance for companies on how to undertake the journey from applause and appreciation to execution. Only reading about others’ success stories – Nike, Hallmark, P&G, Mozilla, etc. – is not sufficient for helping a company develop a blueprint for themselves. In Customer Driven Innovation, strategy and branding consultant Gaurav Bhalla presents a concrete framework to help companies systematically and effectively design and implement collaborative innovation programs with their customers that can be applied in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer contexts. The authors describe how today’s technologies allow companies to create dynamic dialogues with their customers through shared networks, virtual marketing techniques, and blogs to develop deeper relationships that reinforce brand loyalty and ultimately drive growth. They challenge traditional approaches to market research that measure "customer satisfaction" from a rear-window perspective, and help companies and their customers look forward instead.P>

'Collaborative Advantage offers the perfect recipe for successful businesses that improve lives' -- Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, co-founders of Ben and Jerry's 'A valuable contribution to the vital task of getting people to see the business world as a complex, interconnected ecosystem, rather than as a sharp-elbowed race to the bottom' -- Rory Sutherland, Vice-chairman of Ogilvy Group UK, and the Spectator's 'Wiki Man'. Strategic consultant and social entrepreneur Paul Skinner argues that we have now reached a turning point in history from which creating Competitive Advantage may no longer be in the best interests of an organization. He presents today's business and social challenges through a new strategic lens and offers this book as a practical guide to help you create Collaborative Advantage, transform your business and change the world. You will gain access to world-leading techniques to enable you to: · Mobilize staff, partners, collaborators and customers around a common purpose that gets everyone you need firmly on your side. · Foster improved innovation, reach more customers or beneficiaries, build greater loyalty, generate greater income and forge more ambitious partnerships. · De-couple your potential for growth from the level of resource your organization controls. This is an indispensable guide that will help you transform the growth of your business or the impact of your non-profit by bringing the fuller value-creating potential of the outside world inside your organization.

This book presents new ways of facilitating design thinking, through the combination of cognitive design strategies and information technologies. It provides readers with an in-depth understanding of the traditional and digital design processes and activities that are employed in architecture, computational design, communication design and graphic design. The book is divided into three parts: Part I, which focuses on creativity, uses evidence derived from empirical studies to develop an understanding of the way computational environments shape design thinking and may lead to more inventive outcomes. Part II considers the cognitive dimensions of design teams, crowds and collectives. It investigates the ways digital design platforms promote interactive and collective thinking. Lastly, Part III addresses culture, examining the linguistic and cultural context of the globalised design ecosystem. Providing valuable insights into design thinking, this book helps readers engage with their local and global environments. It will appeal to academics, researchers and professionals with an interest in understanding design thinking in the context of creativity, collaboration and culture.