The Spark
News, insights and commentary from NS
Give It to Me Straight: Five Words That Are Overused in the Office
Hayden Grover Marketing & Sales Operations The workplace can be a buzzing hub of “I hate Monday” jokes, gallons of coffee...
Remote or In-Office: Does One Promote More Innovation Than the Other?
Nottingham Spirk During the pandemic, companies that offered limited or non-existent remote working opportunities were forced...
Measure Your Innovation Capability
“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” ― W. Edwards Deming Nottingham Spirk When it comes to organizatio...
Thaw the ‘Frozen Middle’ of Leadership for Creativity to Flow
Bill Nottingham | SmartBusiness Cleveland “Frozen middle” is a dismissive and frankly unfair term for middle managers who sup...
Empower Teams with Purpose
Bill Nottingham Managing Partner & VP, Growth Every three years, Lottery League brings together musicians from across Gre...
Seize the Moment Between Meetings, That’s When Ideas Take Shape
Nottingham Spirk Fast Company reported recently on General Motors’ policy against using a cell phone while walking. That mean...
A Little Empathy Goes a Long Way — and Trust Goes Even Farther
Bill Nottingham Managing Partner & VP, Growth Innovation requires risks. Does your culture encourage or discourage people...
Boundary Crossing with The Marvel Method
Nottingham Spirk John Nottingham has a saying: “Innovation is not something we do on Thursday.” His point is that creating is...
New Year: Resolve to Innovate More in 2017
Want to disrupt markets? Start by disrupting yourself. Nottingham Spirk The “Eureka!” moment is a real thing, but it’s widely...
MIT Sloan: Working Together Management
Bill Nottingham Managing Partner & VP, Growth Last month I attended an MIT Sloan Executive Education program called “Buil...
Millennials Are Changing Corporate Structure — for the Better
Millennials are prompting more companies to reconsider the traditional corporate hierarchy, according to Entrepreneur.com: “W...
Freedom and Responsibility Culture
As soon as Netflix announced its unlimited parental leave policy for new parents, doubters were quick to predict that the pol...
The “Open Office” Trend is Not a One-Size-Fits-All Solution for Innovation
Reorganizing your office into one massive conference room could do more harm than good. In the 1990s, “cubicles” became symbo...
Maintaining The Culture of Creativity
“Organizational Charts” by Manu Cornet Cartoonist Manu Cornet created a series of “organizational charts” for some of the big...
Create a Culture of Innovation
Nottingham Spirk At the core of Nottingham Spirk's business is a culture rooted in innovation. After 42 years in business, co...