UW Innovation Days - Feb 10-11

The UW-Madison College of Engineering hosts an annual inventions student competition that is in focus these next two days. If you have a chance to check it out, please do so. You can also learn more about this annual event at: http://innovation.wisc.edu/

Our group needs to find better ways to connect with this initiative... each year, a number of really interesting student projects emerge, some of which become viable as products that are adopted in industry. In a number of impressive ways, the College of Engineering engages its students in collaborative, team-based learning activities that prepare them to work in fields that increasingly require such skills.

Next MANIAC Breakfast Offers a 'YES...And' Improv Moment!

The MANIACs will enter the New Year with a bang on Thursday, January 27th when we welcome Barry Callen and Nell Weatherwax for a MANIAC Breakfast on "Improv Skills for the Workplace." We will meet at Memorial Union, 8-9:30am -- please register today for this free program!  Barry and Nell bring a wealth of experience from their work with CORPROV Improv Training, an approach that applies improv skills to a wide range of workplace challenges.

Have fun! Learn some skills! Be a MANIAC!

Next MANIAC Breakfast Plants a Garden of Innovation

The next MANIAC Breakfast focuses on "Planting a MANIAC Garden" with Erin Schneider.What are the core qualities required for creative, collaborative, group thinking and problem-solving? How might these unique characteristics be reflected in a garden, where various plants, fruits, and vegetables co-exist in a healthy, sustainable ecosystem? These are questions that engage the mind of Erin Schneider, an organic farmer and MANIAC Team Member. Join us as we explore the ways Erin has sought to answer these questions, and to consider how these ideas can inform our own efforts to 'plant innovation seeds' in our organizations. Register now!

These bi-monthly gatherings allow us to share creative approaches to professional challenges, identify new tools and strategies that can help us transform creative ideas into innovative solutions, and promote relationships that can help us address emerging needs as they arise.

For additional information, contact Harry Webne-Behrman at OHRD, 608-262-9934 or hwebnebehrman@ohr.wisc.edu

Connect at our next Jammin Innovative Facilitated Networking Session

Have you ever been to a bad networking session? Maybe there was no structure, it was a free-for-all at the beginning of a conference. Maybe it was a disguised as a happy hour at a bar. Maybe you didn’t get the chance to talk to anyone, or worse yet got stuck talking to someone for way too long. Maybe you just talked about the weather and didn’t get to talk about your idea or what you needed or provide any insight or assistance to anybody.

We've been working on innovating the networking session. Join us at our next Jam Session, it's like a facilitated workshop. It is part thinking about important questions, working on your "how you quickly communicate elevator speech," part group introduction, and part one-on-one or one-on-two speed networking. In this jam session people leave with a more comfortable and activity filled experience. They get to share with the whole group, hear from everyone, and go deeper one on one with many new people. They actually get to connect and converse!

Next Innovation Café Focuses on "Technology & Community" Nov 11th

Innovation and Collaboration Café: Technology & Community

Thursday, November 11, 8:30am-1:00pm, Pyle Center, $15

Join us at our next MANIAC Innovation Café!

This is an opportunity to explore a variety of technology tools and how they may be used to enhance innovation and collaboration in the workplace. The workshop will help participants recognize opportunities for technology tools in their workplace and projects; demonstrate the basics of web site design, social media (facebook/ twitter), blogs, surveys, and video conferencing; showcase good examples of technology use; and provide helpdesk support for real world technology questions. Register here! Or go to www.ohrd.wisc.edu, look for upcoming events.

You have MANIAC potential! Join us!

December Innovation Workshop on Creativity, Communication, & Collaboration

UW-MANIAC is offering a motivating two afternoon innovation workshop in December. Registration is open for Developing Innovation through Collaboration, Creativity, & Communication.

The Three C’s of Collaboration, Creativity, and Communication can help you to develop new innovations that can contribute to doing meaningful new things, improving processes for problem-solving, and having greater success in your work. You will meet new people and work with others to systematically generate and develop new ideas for the challenge of your choosing. Be guided step-by-step and activity-by-activity through an innovation process to develop and take action on new ideas for your real project. Learn the fundamental “best practice” activities for innovating and leave the workshop with more advanced innovation skills and a portfolio of new developed ideas.

By learning and using innovation tools and activities to create, collaborate, and communicate you will get important work done at this workshop away from the routine of your office. You will innovate how you work and create new innovations to take action on what is needed and wanted. New ideas that can make a difference in your work and life are motivating and engaging for you and your colleagues. Here are some key learning outcomes and actions we will take at the workshop:

Create:
+ Generate a wide range of relevant, new and different ideas based on
your challenge or opportunity through creative thinking tools.
+ Analyze, synthesize, and develop the best ideas into a portfolio of
concepts to act upon based on a best practice development system.

Collaborate:
+ Develop relationships quickly with fellow innovators to collaborate
in groups with at the workshop and beyond.
+ Connect one-on-one with fellow innovators through guided activities
designed to help you gain new insight and validation of your concepts.

Communicate:
+ Learn a simple and effective idea presentation format used by
innovative organizations that will allow you to showcase your new concepts.
+ Practice communicating your best concepts in ways that are engaging
and memorable using involvement, story, visuals, and metaphors.

Darin Eich is an innovation facilitator, researcher, and author who teaches individuals and organizations how to better ideate to innovate. Darin has a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Next UW-MANIAC Breakfast - "Stone Tool Making and Innovation" with Jeff Shokler

The UW-MANIAC network is engaged in a wide array of innovative programming this fall, starting with last week's "Jammin' in the Fall" networking session and continuing with our first Breakfast Series event on October 12th at the Union.

"Stone Tool Making and Innovation: Old Technology and New Ways of Thinking" is Jeff Shokler's passion… How can a very old technology, chipped stone tool production, give us new ways to think about what we do and how we do it? Join us for a flintknapping demonstration and exploration of the insights and new/different ways of thinking this old process can reveal to us. If you don't get anything else out of it you'll still start the morning off with a "bang!" as you get to see someone break rocks and make sharp things!


The second part of our session will be a dialogue around the topic, "Harvesting Inter-generational Wisdom in the Workplace." Using Appreciative inquiry, an asset-based approach to understanding and addressing a wide range of issues, we will facilitate an initial conversation around this important topic effecting our workplaces. This idea was sparked at a spring MANIAC Café, and our plan is to explore innovative ways to build from the dialogue in future conversations.

To register, go to the course site. For additional information, contact Harry Webne-Behrman at OHRD, 262-9934 or hwebnebehrman@ohr.wisc.edu

Get involved! Become a MANIAC. Innovate. Collaborate. Inspire meaningful change.