I have spent the later half of September writing on how to raise capital for your business. I wrote about the timing of a pitch, ten rules to follow when making a pitch, and how to get an opportunity to pitch your idea. I would like to now give you some resources that will aid in putting together the specific content of a good investment pitch.

Remember each pitch should be tailored to your specific situation and to the individual investor. The length of time you have to make your pitch will vary from 30 seconds to 20 minutes. If this is a formal meeting to pitch your business then 20 minutes is a good length to aim for. Nonetheless, a rule of thumb is to be prepared for anything and know your stuff well enough to adapt to the situation at hand.

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I received an email today from Ruben Robert the cofounder and head of marketing at Fellowforce.com. You may remember I introduced you to Fellowforce.com in this posting on June 16, 2007. Ruben sent me a press release outlining an exciting new way for organizations to gather innovative ideas.

Jeff Crites, Fellowforce.com Director/North America, explains:

“We started our platform for Open Innovation two months ago, and since then we’ve received ideas and suggestions for leading brands worldwide. The idea for this new service is due in large part to a submission in our own innovation box. A Fellowforce ‘Fellow’, Marcel Heinkens of the Netherlands, suggested we offer an Open Innovation widget for websites. Today, four weeks later, we’re introducing the ‘Innovate Us’ button, enabling any business to welcome ideas from a global force of innovators.”

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Incuby is the latest web 2.0 social site and it’s all about innovation. While it hasn’t launched yet, Incuby promises to connect innovators with consumers, peers, and investors.

The success of this site (as with all social sites) is dependant on its users and the quality of their contributions. The structure of the site looks promising from what I can infer from their catchy motion graphic preview. Time will tell if Incuby becomes an incubation hotbed for the next great innovations. Visit their website at www.incuby.com.

Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention is a powerful book written by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi offers deep insight into the creative process. Don’t worry if you cannot pronounce his name, this book is not a difficult read.

Overview

Drawing on 100 interviews with exceptional people, from biologists and physicists to politicians and business leaders, poets and artists, as well as his 30 years of research on the subject, Csikszentmihalyi uses his famous theory, Flow, to explore the creative process. His goal is to give the reader enough understanding about creativity and what leads to creative moments that they will be able reproduce creativity in their own lives.

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In my last post How To Identify Emerging Trends Part One I provided some advice and steps on finding emerging trends. Now I would like to give you some resources that will assist you in the process. These resources can help you confirm, test, and challenge emerging trends.

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Before you take your next big idea and turn it into a reality, ask yourself these 50 questions. Use these questions to tweak and enhance your idea. Some questions will help you assess and alter the quality of your idea. Others will help you tailor the idea to you personal preferences.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should give you a jump start on the competition!

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I came across a new innovation network, Fellow Force, on the Connected Collective Innovation blog.

The concept behind Fellow Force is that organizations post their problems and anyone can pitch a solution. The organization then selects the best solution and rewards a prize. This is basically like a job board only instead of making a proposal you give your idea to the organization.
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Are you currently working on an innovation? Check your project against these five common assumptions that kill innovation. The key to assumptions is to first identify them and then test them.

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