Professional Networking Event (extra credit)

Today I attended an event of the BYU Management Society. It was located at the clubhouse of the Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Orem. I thought it was super awesome and I learned a lot. Also, lunch was included : )

The topic of the meeting was about innovation; DNA of an innovator. It was interesting because the speaker, Jeff Dyer, talked about many things that I am currently learning in marketing and in MCOM! It was really cool to see how some of the things that we are learning actually apply in the real world. In this post, I will talk a little about what I learned at the event.

The first thing that I learned is that innovators love to challenge the status quo. They like to think outside the box and do something that, sometimes, is not completely normal. However, it is by this way that the next billion-dollar idea can be brought about.

Second, the speaker emphasized that we are all more creative than we think. Part of our creativity is genetic, but we can develop our creativity. We can do a couple things to help spark a creative thought. One, we can modify things that already exist. If we do this, we already have a HUGE head start. This gives us a strong basis to follow. In addition, he explained that creativity loves constraint. It is hard to think of ideas when we have no constraints. When we have such a broad topic, it is hard to narrow down on a solution. If we have, however, specific constraints, we will develop specific answers.

The last thing that I really liked was the idea of acting differently. Sometimes people believe that innovators need to think differently. However, innovators need to act differently, and this will lead to a different thinking process.  

Overall, I loved the event and I took many notes. I plan to apply all of these things while I am here in school, but also later in my future career.