BRITE Ideas

I’m a guest blogger and discussion catalyst for the 2008 BRITE conference and CMO Summit on branding, innovation, and technology. It was put on by the Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School.

The kickoff CMO Summit today was off-the-record, but I’ll share a gem from Bernd Schmitt, Columbia Business School professor and director of the aformentioned Center. For those attempting brand innovation or reinvention, Bernd offered three compelling, compact “idea sourcing tools”:

1. Combine the incompatible. Consider doing what nobody would expect.
2. Benchmark outside your industry. Compare and aspire to standards of companies in totally different sectors.
3. Killing the sacred cows. Take your business’s most fundamental assumptions and “rules for doing things” and throw them out.

I’ll report my takeaways from the rest of the conference — the part on the record — later.

UPDATE:

Francois’ Gosseiaux‘s photos are up here.