Real Estate Journal — Owners, Developers & Managers — 2017 GP-FM Show— April 28 - May 11, 2017 — 15B
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2017 GP-FM S how
By Glenn Ebersole, High Concrete Group LLC An Engineer’s perspective on how to inspire innovation
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7. Research what others outside your organization do to initiate and inspire innova- tion. Set a goal to identify three or four organizations that are very innovative and then re- quest visits to those companies to gain new perspectives on innovation. 8. Commit to personally do- ing something different from your ordinary routine. For example: take a different route to work; try a new menu item; or anything that you would not typically do on a daily basis. 9. Find a business coach or mentor and learn something
he word innovation appears frequently in advertisements, po-
from them. 10. Develop a proactive ap- proach to generating new ideas. Create a list of ques- tions/challenges you can pose to your team. This will en- able you to make innovation specific and proactive and consequently have it achieve more top-of-mind awareness and yield more strategically relevant ideas. 11. Create some momentum for innovation in your business by selecting and committing to a project that will result in a “quick win” and will provide confirmation that innovation
produces positive results. 12. Create a sense of urgency by setting an aggressive time- table for a project. 13. Reward creativity and innovation in personal and cre- ative ways. Develop rewards that will appeal personally to an individual’s interests and values. 14. Create and foster an environment that is fun and challenging. Creative people tend to be irreverent and like to have fun. 15. Break down individual isolation and create opportuni- ties for people to bounce ideas
off each other. Encourage and/ or force people to get out of their workstations and offices to meet in small groups to dis- cuss challenges, issues, trends, opportunities and threats, etc. 16. Breakdown hierarchy and emphasize and reward creative and innovative ideas regardless of where they come from in your business. 17. Create an environment that will allow everyone to speak freely when working with his or her teams. 18. Aim for simplicity so that the innovative ideas are easy continued on page 20B
s i t i o n i n g statements, b r a n d i n g , ma r k e t i n g and mission statements. And it is used by architec- tural, engi- neering and
Glenn Ebersole
high-tech firms, as well as by most businesses and organiza- tions in some fashion or form. But the question is how many of those firms and organiza- tions really make innovation a top priority? And how many of them truly are good at in- novation? One American Management Association/Human Resource Institute study found that al- though most organizations say that innovation is a top prior- ity, few companies are good at it. Have you been asked and tasked to innovate within your company or organization? Are you having difficulty getting started and achieving results? Probably many business- people have experienced or witnessed that one of the big- gest issues with innovation is that they really are not sure where to start. With that in mind, here are 20 tips on how to inspire and initiate innova- tion in business. 1. Develop a clearly defined and focused vision for innova- tion within your business. 2. Develop a set of measur- able goals that will clearly define what you want and need to get out of innovation. 3. Develop a system for track- ing and managing innovation. 4. Develop and implement a forum for sharing. Promote the open exchange of ideas and col- laboration among co-workers and teammembers. The forum could be face-to-face meetings or doing so online with mes- sage boards or blogs. 5. Engage the powerful tech- nique of brainstorming. The power of brainstorming en- ables you to address a business challenge, issue or opportunity and is effective because it sets no boundaries and allows peo- ple to say whatever they want. 6. Consider establishing an innovation team whose prior- ity is ensuring that innovation is a priority and that there is a clearly defined and focused effort to achieve innovation in your business.
THE NEW SHAPE OF PRECAST
1200 Intrepid at the Philadelphia Navy Yard is the newly completed precast concrete work of art designed by world-renowned starchitect Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). The front entrance façade gently curves inward while stretching outward creating a startling and gravity-defying visual that mimics the curved bows of the nearby battleships. The unique engineering requirements of the proj- ect meant that the gravity loads flowed directly to the ground and were not tied to the steel frame. Almost every piece of the front entrance façade is unique. This very complicated project presented a challenge that required an innovative solution using technical, engineering and creative exper- tise, and would not have been possible without the use of BIM and 3D modeling. For more information on this project and others visit us at www.highconcrete.com/news. “High Concrete saw our design as a wonderful opportunity to really show off their skills, talents and products. It has been a sincere joy to work with a group of precasters who are as engaged as they have been, willing to roll up their sleeves to work on solutions rather than seeing obstacles, and I am sure that they are proud of their efforts as much as we are.” Kai-Uwe Bergmann, AIA, RIBA, partner, BIG—Bjarke Ingels Group
Photograpy © Rasmus Hjortshøj—COAST
HIGH CONCRETE GROUP LLC n CONCRETE INNOVATIONS AND ANSWERS n CALL US AT 800-PRECAST n WWW.HIGHCONCRETE.COM
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