In this post on Fast Company, the author Kaihan Krippendorff suggests the 5 new year resolutions that could make you more innovative.

1. To be more innovative, you need more diverse sources of information and inspiration. Resolve to read magazines you’ve never considered, watch movies you think you’d hate, and attend lectures of topics apparently unrelated to what you do.
2. Innovators are “intense observers” and so are able to spot customer needs and emerging “weak signals.” This year put up your antenna. Pretend you are the producer of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and need to know which issues and topics people care about this week and this month.
3. Innovators try things just to see if they work while others want to know if they will work before they try them. Decide that this year you will start taking small risks. Force yourself to conduct, say, five low-risk experiments in your business this year.
4. Innovators are curious, and they ask questions not just because they are after something but because they enjoy the journey of discovery. This year find yourself continually asking “why?” and “how?” Read the newspaper, not just to absorb the decisions CEOs and other leaders make, but to challenge them. Ask “Why should CTS focus on growth & not margins?” and come up with three reasons why they should.
5. Innovators are great networkers and they network without a precise goal in mind. This year thrust yourself into new networks. Join a club, pick up a hobby, and plan lunches that will put you face-to-face with people who have no obvious networking value for you. You will be surprised by serendipitous opportunities they open up.

Read the full post here.

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