In Germany, people are obsessed with Durchlüftung.

It is one of those wonderful German words which means “to let air go through“.

In practice, it means that instead of just opening a window in a room to let fresh air in, Germans (and many other Europeans) will open windows on opposite sides of a flat / house to allow fresh air to pump out all of the existing stale air.

And while this works for air, it can also work for ideas.

In too many companies, once a list of ideas is developed and started, they can often become stale and just continue forever, even though they have not proven that they can become successful.

But because they are taking up the resources of the innovation team, there are not enough resources to try out new ideas. This is why these old ideas are called Zombie Ideas, because they just won’t die!

So every company should develop a habit of Idea Durchlüftung.

A time and process where old ideas are assessed and validated if they are making progress, or if new ideas should come in and push them out.

This is how you can keep your innovation portfolio fresh.

Did you know that scientific evidence shows your creativity decreases over time

Idea to Value Podcast: Listen and Subscribe now

Listen and Subscribe to the Idea to Value Podcast. The best expert insights on Creativity and Innovation. If you like them, please leave us a review as well.
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Stitcher
The following two tabs change content below.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy LinkedIn profileMy YouTube channel

Nick Skillicorn

Chief Editor, Founder & CEO at Improvides Innovation Consulting
Creativity & Innovation expert: I help individuals and companies build their creativity and innovation capabilities, so you can develop the next breakthrough idea which customers love. Chief Editor of Ideatovalue.com and Founder / CEO of Improvides Innovation Consulting. Coach / Speaker / Author / TEDx Speaker / Voted as one of the most influential innovation bloggers.