What's the profile of "business innovators"?

I have been thinking about "the personality profile and characteristics of business innovators". Much has been written on the topic of "creative people" but I would welcome thoughts from the online innovation community with regard to the profile of the "business innovator" (that may be different). My hope is that the community will share thoughts that others might find interesting. Here are two questions:

1. Personality profiles: What is the profile (traits, personality characteristics, soft skills, mindsets, thinking styles, problem-solving styles) of the kinds of people who operate well at the 'fuzzy front end' of the innovation process (e.g., exploring new opportunities, trying to define what a new product should be, etc.)? Some ideas to start the conversation: Comfort with ambiguity. Ability to make connections between things that are not obvious. Ability to put structure to ambiguity and language to intuition. Strategic thinking skills (what do we mean by that?). Ability to collect and analyze vague insights and trends and translate to tangible business or new product concepts. Intellectually curious. Any other thoughts?
2. Screening tools & techniques: What kinds of screening tools and techniques can be used to identify people with this profile? For example: Meyers Briggs, Keirsey Temperament Sorter. Any others?

Should be interesting for everyone to read... Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Derrick Palmer
InnovationPoint LLC http://www.innovation-point.com dpalmer@innovation-point.com

Technorati: innovation, creativity, consulting, idea, aside

posted by Naina @ Permalink 11/16/2004 04:52:00 PM   0 comments  --- Google It! ---

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