 The Innovise Guys
Introduction & Overview
Doug Stevenson and Gregg Fraley, A.K.A. The Innovise Guys™ have over 30 years of innovation and creative process experience between them. Both are leaders within the creativity/innovation community, most recently as the emcees for the annual CPSI Conference, sponsored by CEF, where Fraley serves as a board member. They also are versed in creative styles assessment measurements, including certifications in KAI and FourSight™. The have led workshops, done keynotes and have consulted all over the world and the US – From New York to San Francisco, Chicago to Austin and Italy, Ireland, The UK, South Africa and soon, Singapore.
The Innovise Guys use a broad array of tools and techniques, derived from their formal studies in creativity and improvisation. The breadth and variety of their repertoire mirrors the diversity of challenges they have faced: new product development for a substantial list of consumer products companies, marketing strategy for same and for nonprofits, branding, process improvement, oganizational
development, team building, training, leadership development, creating cultures of innovation and
keynotes & workshops & podcasts on all of the above. They have worked for sausage makers and fragrance
companies, for hospice organizations and to prevent adolescent suicide. From dog food, to fine wine to
baking soda and beer, appliances and insurance, greeting cards to tooth paste, they have run the gamut. They bring a refreshing, engaging and playful energy to their work, believing that FUN is fundamental and humor essential to productive creativity.
The Philosophy
The Innovise Guys can and often do bring a unique approach to ideation design and execution from which they derive their name. When the situation is appropriate, they incorporate adapted improvisation games as the key stimulus for generating ideas within the context of structured problem solving. Their method is called Innovisation™ and it is unique in the ideation industry in that it uses theater/improv games not just as energizers, but also as actual idea generation tools. In particular, their long-format scene for ideation, The Sidney™ works well to build bonded teams, keep group energy at a high level, and move the group into very different/breakthrough thinking quickly and for sustained periods.
The key to getting truly visionary ideas within these ideation games, and afterwards in the more classic brainstorming sessions, is to provide interesting stimuli. Prior to a session, The Innovise Guys research trends inside and outside of the relevant industry and develop stimuli to inject into the games designed to stimulate radically new ideas. The stimuli will be a mix of directly related trends, and completely unrelated trends and product/services/concepts that would work to create new combinations. Essentially, any stimulus would work as a classic ideation tool – Forced Association – within the improvisation games. The Innovise Guys would use/build-on the interesting work done by the client team to date, including qualitative and quantitative research, consumer insights, market data, competitive intelligence, ethnographic studies, product design trends, etc.
No Experience Necessary
Doing these games does not require any special experience. Gregg and Doug work with the group to orient them to the techniques, set up some guidelines and objectives, and then the fun/work begins. A benefit of this work approach is the bonding that it creates among group members -- working with an improv cast is often an unforgettable experience.
Prior to the session, the Innovise Guys work closely with their clients to map out a detailed agenda and session design. Key work would be developing specific areas of interest, or platform questions to use as drivers for the various games and classic ideation sessions.
The Innovise Guys
Gregg Fraley and Doug Stevenson are The Innovise Guys. They are hosts of a popular podcast that features interviews with creativity and innovation experts. Doug and Gregg have worked for many years helping organizations develop new products and services. Together they invented and developed the Innovisation concept and related tools for idea generation. Innovisation is a blend of structured problem solving and improvisational theater games.
Gregg Fraley
Gregg Fraley is an innovation consultant, writer, and speaker. He facilitates ideation sessions and consults on product development with the Fortune 100. He’s worked with J&J, Verizon, Frito-Lay, and Nestle-Purina among many others. Gregg has been hired by McKinsey, and Maddock Douglas to facilitate or participate as a trained brain in their brainstorming sessions.
His newly released business parable “Jack’s Notebook” puts the CPS (Creative Problem Solving, Osborn-Parnes model) process into an easy-to-read novel in an effort to reach a wider audience for deliberate creativity concepts.
Gregg worked with Warner Cable’s interactive QUBE system where he won an Emmy award for writing and a cable ACE award for Innovation. His technology career includes senior management and/or ownership positions in several software companies. He was a founder of Med-E-Systems, a software firm that developed the first wireless prescription system for physicians, the patented “Smart Scripts.” He was part of the team that took Advanced Health, a Med-E-Systems spin off, public in 1996.
In addition to his business interests Gregg has spent time learning the fine arts of stand-up comedy and improvisation. He’s worked with Players Workshop of Second City and Improv Olympics.
Gregg is a board member of the Creative Education Foundation (CEF) and a leader at the annual Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI conference) since 1996. He is a leader at the annual European creativity association meeting, the CREA conference in Italy. He is a professional member of the National Speakers Association (USA).
Doug Stevenson
Doug began his career over 25 years ago “thinking up stuff” for the Leo Burnett Advertising Agency for clients that included Heinz, Procter & Gamble, Pillsbury, United Airlines, Dewar’s and Memorex. He is currently an in-demand trained brain and a designer/facilitator of ideation sessions and inception to market innovation projects.
Doug trained as an improviser and comedy performer/writer at the Players’ Workshop of Second City. His first break happened when he won the lead in Second City Children’s Theater production of “The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor”. He could thereafter occasionally be seen in the improvised end-of-show sets on the main stage. He was a founding member of Improv Olympic champion “Headcheese”. His work as part of the Group “The Company We Keep” won recognition from critics and they were named “Comedy Group of the Year” by WXRT Radio. He also performed standup comedy.
Doug evolved into the theater of tradeshows, events and Experiential Marketing, initially as a writer and performer. Later, as Senior Account Executive and ultimately Director of Innovation and Vice President of Marketing, he has worked on projects with Disney Imagineering and numerous Fortune 500 clients, for whom he has traveled the nation and the world.
More recently, Doug has taught creativity at De Paul University at both the Ryan Center for Innovation and in The School for New Learning and has presented workshops at CPSI, Mind Camp, CREA, the Applied Improvisation Network conference and at Creativity & Innovation in Dublin. Among the associations of which he is a member are: the Business Marketing Association, the Creative Education Foundation, the American Creativity Association, the National Speakers Association, ASTDA and Trade Show Exhibitors Association and soon -- Meeting Planners International. He sits on the board of Child’s Play Touring Theatre.
Doug has a BA cum laude in American Studies from the University of Notre Dame, an MM (MBA) in Marketing & Nonprofit Management from the J.L. Kellogg School at Northwestern and a MSc from the International Center for Studies in Creativity (Buffalo State College) in Buffalo, New York.
Clients of the Innovise Guys - (Jointly, independently, as lead facilitators, and as subcontractors)
Business
American Licorice Company
Anheuser-Busch
Briggs & Stratton
Hallmark Cards
Humana Healthcare
Johnson & Johnson
Johnsonville Brats
Kellogg/Keebler
KFC
Kimberly Clark
Kraft/Nabisco
Nestle’
Purina
S.C. Johnson
Stouffer’s
Wine Australia
Yum!
Nonprofit
Adolescent Wellness
Chicago Public Schools
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Child’s Play Touring Theatre
Creative Education Foundation (CEF)
Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI)
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
San Diego Hospice & Institute for Palliative Studies
University of Notre Dame
Innovation Consultants
A New Leaf
Bamboo
Decision Analysts
Ideas to Go
Innovation Focus
Launch 1 2 3
Maddock Douglas
Mind Garden
Outpoint
Pamela Meyer & Associates
Think Shop
To the MAX
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