Customers create their order on-line, book a two-hour time slot for picking up their groceries, and drive to a designated curbside pick up area.  A staff member loads their groceries into the car and off they go.

Busy patrons don’t need to wait at home for the delivery, E.Leclerc eliminates a shipping or delivery process, and subscribers to Fresh Ideas recognize the “Remove a Core Component” strategy at play.

“Why do our minds wander? Brain-scanning technology has uncovered some clues. It turns out that when your mind drifts, your temporal lobes — which are associated with processing long-term memories — become busier. So when you float off into a reverie, you’re actually doing important data-storage work.

Daydreaming isn’t just the mind’s way of processing information, though. Other scans have found that the wandering mind also utilizes the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that’s involved in problem-solving. The upshot, says Jonathan Schooler, a professor of psychology at UC Santa Barbara who is studying this area, is that your idling mind is likely doing deeply creative work, tackling your hairiest long-term tasks — projects you’ve been trying to address for months, the arc of your career, the state of your marriage. “Mind-wandering is actually a very involved task,” Schooler says. ‘You leave the here and now and focus on more remote concerns that nevertheless might be more important. We’ve been focusing on the downside of this, but we need to think about the upside.’”

On-task subscribers to Fresh Ideas will recognize links to the ‘Create Distance‘ strategy.

This pre-consumer textile waste has never been used, but doesn’t amount to enough for another production run – so off to the landfill it goes. Looptworks intervenes, upcycling the textile waste into limited-edition clothing and gear products.

Subscribers to Fresh Ideas will recognize this as a Rearrange the Sequence strategy at play.

Complying with Islamic beliefs about modest dress while pursuing sports-related interests was a persistent challenge.

The solution?

The Burqini, a comfortable, flexible form of sportswear suitable for Muslim women.

Subscribers to Fresh Ideas will appreciate linking this solution to the ‘Make a Note of Unusual Combinations‘ strategy.

MileMeter works “… to bring innovation and common sense to auto insurance” with a product that links your coverage fees to your mileage.  If you drive less you pay less.

Where’s the opportunity for your own version of the Fresh Ideas strategy, “Prototype Early and Often?”

Jane McGonigal thinks we should play even more  – when the games have been designed to teach transferable leadership skills and collaboratively solve the world’s most urgent challenges.

The recently released Evoke was designed with these goals, watch this trailer and recognize an example of the Fresh Ideas strategy ‘Turn Up the Volume’ at play:

Subscribers to Fresh Ideas will recognize this as an example of “Redefine the Problem.”

designers combine typography with skin, stones and shopping carts (among other things); creating interesting and sometimes unsettling images, and providing opportunities to practice two Fresh Ideas strategies:   ‘Collect the Eclectic‘ and ‘Make a Note of Unusual Combinations.’

Steven Tomasco of IBM Global Business Services noted that  ” …coming off the worst economic conditions they’d ever seen, [CEOs] didn’t fall back on management discipline, existing best practices, rigor, or operations.  In fact, they [did] just the opposite.”  60% of the CEOs polled named creativity as the most important leadership ability.  52% cited integrity and 35% cited global thinking.

You can learn more about what the CEOs said  here .

You can hone your creative edge here .