June 2004	Newsletter Click here to send this to a friend Click to Subscribe	Volume 1, Issue 1
	Contents Welcome The Knowable Future Blog Entries Store Magazine The Conscious Manager	Welcome Welcome to the first edition of the Innovation Road Map Newsletter. It will be published monthly. The date of the publication will be around the middle of the month, depending on my travel schedule. It becomes the third part of the communication vehicles of the Innovation Road Map effort: Innovation Road Map Travelogue – a weekly blog (free) Innovation Road Map Newsletter – monthly newsletter (free) Innovation Road Map Magazine – a quarterly subscription based e-zine ($29.95 per year) All of these focus on improving innovation, creativity, strategy and leadership in people and their organizations. The goal of this effort is to describe, develop and illuminate the concept of an innovation road map. Two types of innovation road maps are required for an organization – a road map to plot the organization's way through storms of change while fending off competition and delighting customers and a road map to plot the organization's internal path of change to be able to take advantage of opportunities and avoid threats (or maybe even turn them into opportunities). And, as an individual reader of the magazine, you will also receive help in plotting your own course to becoming more innovative. Our blog (contraction of web log), or journal, contains our personal reflections on the topical areas of the innovation road map effort. The newsletter will contain an index to the blog's recent additions, information on and from the magazine, announcements, new products and services and items of topical interest (news or reflections on news). It will also contain reader contributions or links to reader articles when appropriate. Submit comments, news or article links to Paul Schumann. The magazine contains original and reprinted articles on creativity, innovation, strategy and leadership. It is published in an e-zine format. The magazine's web site contains abstracts of articles and book reviews with links to download PDF files of the complete articles. It also contains original art intended to illustrate or add humor, all are done with insight. The magazine also contains a section called Side Streets that contains short articles, stories and essays. The magazine always has a variety of quotes from modern and ancient sources. The magazine's web site also contains an archive of earlier additions of the magazine with an index of all the articles. Articles or suggested articles should be provided to Paul Schumann. The Knowable Future Paul Schumann will be making a presentation at the Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society on June 17th. His topic is "The Knowable Future". Is the future knowable? Or, is it a random walk? What are the long-term prospects for our future given our uncertain present? Change is rapid and events seem unpredictable. The historian H. G. Wells observed a century ago that the great events and personalities of the past have not altered the course of history; rather, they have largely served to either accelerate or retard the long-term forces of change. Given this and in light of all that has happened in the recent past, what can we really know about the future? In this intriguing presentation, Paul Schumann will explore what we really know about the future and why. He will discuss in easily understood terms how chaos, causal reality, complexity and the driving forces for change are interconnected into the knowable future. And, he will identify some of the driving forces that will shape our knowable future. See meeting agenda Blog Entries June 10, 2004 Strategic Thinking: An introduction to the article of the same name by Gregg Edwards in The Innovation Road Map Magazine (Vol. 1, No. 2) May 27, 2004 Going to Abilene and the Wizard of Oz – an essay on the old story about the management of agreement interwoven with lessons from the movie version of The Wizard of Oz. May 21, 2004 Blinded by Our Expertise – an essay about how our development of expertise can blind us to changes May 17, 2004 Complexity, Stress and Strategy – an essay about how the stress of short time frame thinking can lead to failure Visit the blog and see these and many more. Twenty six entries have been published since origination of the blog in November 2003. Read the blog. Store The Innovation Road Map effort also has a store that sells products and services for educational and promotional purposes. It has books, videos, coffee cups, posters, t-shirts and tools. If you have an innovation enhancement program in your organization or an innovative effort you could use some help on, some of these products maybe for you. The newsletter will focus on types of products, especially new offerings. Visit the store. Magazine This quarter's edition contains 12 articles, 8 book reviews, 1 new book announcement and 12 side street items. It's crammed full of new ideas to help you and your organization become more innovative. Articles include: - Complexipacity by David Pearce Snyder – a look into our complex future and the requirement in people to be able to deal with complexity - Strategic Thinking by Greg Edwards – the results of a study that found four important characteristics of strategic thinking when operating together -Benjamin Franklin's Innovation Profile by Paul Schumann – an analysis of Franklin's innovation over his life using a new tool, the innovation profile - Innovation DNA by Ruth Ann Hatori and Joyce Wycoff – an organic model of innovative organizations - A Topographic Map of the Innovation Landscape by Ross, Kleingeld and Lorenzen – a new tool to map the innovation capability of an organization All this and much more - Innovation Strategy, Storytelling in Hard Times, Leadership Success Skills, Increase Innovation through Improvisation, Deep Dive: Idea Richness and two articles about the Grande Dame of creativity and intuition, Anne Durrum Robinson. The character N. O. Vant makes an entry into this edition of the magazine (innovant – one having innovations). With creative art by Scott Byers, each edition of the magazine will feature N. O. Vant learning a valuable lesson about being an agent of change in an organization. The art is accompanied by a short essay. Find out more and subscribe ($29.95 per year). The Conscious Manager Looking for a good book to read with a different perspective? This may fit your need. For many of us with Western educated and disciplined minds, Zen is alluring but mysterious. To comprehend Zen requires that the Western mind unlearn much and spend years in dedication to study and practice. This book is the best I've read at helping understand how Western minds might benefit from Zen. With life and work becoming even more complex, we can all use help in becoming "conscious". The Conscious Manager: Zen for Decision Makers, Fred Phillips Purchase book ($19.20).
		Paul Schumann Editor & Publisher The Innovation Road Map Newsletter 4512 Autumn Leaf Hollow, Austin, TX 78731 PO Box 26947, Austin, TX 78755 512.302.1935 Visit The Innovation Road Map Web Site