Information Centre

Creativity at work is not about getting in touch with your muse – rather it is all about developing new perspectives and solving practical problems - which is why it is particularly relevant to managers and their teams.

In this provocative article, Clive Lewis discusses the challenge facing leaders everywhere as they grapple with how to do more with less and be seen to be adding value to the organisations they lead.

Did you know that everyone can be creative – even the most logical of thinkers? Some people are naturally more creative than others, but we are all capable of developing our creativity from whatever level it is currently at.

Training specialist, Illumine, has found that its speed reading courses are not only helping to improve delegates’ reading speeds but also helping them overcome the stress of ‘information overwhelm’.
Although most of the literature on reading speed suggests that an average reading speed is between 240 and 250 words per minute (wpm), individuals attending Illumine’s first [...]

Can you imagine yourself standing in front of an audience without PowerPoint, without notes, without a script? Just think back to the last time it was vital to get your message across. Did you fully succeed?
The problem is that many people have a small but insistent voice in their heads at such time telling them [...]

How to respond quickly and build (rather than damage) your credibility when you are asked an unexpected question
You are a young/not so young/mature (delete as appropriate) executive, professional/manager/director (again, delete as appropriate) grabbing a coffee first thing on a Monday morning. Your boss (or boss’s boss or head of another department) spots you, ‘Ah, glad [...]

Who wouldn’t want to have the ability to say the right thing at the right time… to speak off the cuff, to improvise, even to wing it?
Have you ever admired someone who is spontaneous?  Someone who always seems to have the ‘right’ answer and is always cool, calm and collected? Could that be you?
Is this the gift of [...]

If you have attended one of Illumine Training’s creativity or innovation courses, this is space for you to discuss your experience during the course or subsequent to it, when you’ve used the techniques you learnt on the course.
If you have any questions, please feel free to post them here, or send them directly to info@illumine.co.uk .

In business and the public sector, creative thinking sometimes gets a bad press. There are lots of reasons for this, but one mistake above all others ensures that far too often, time is wasted and results from time spent trying to be creative, is wasted. In this short article, Clive Lewis, CEO of Illumine Training, [...]

 A common problem for teams who work towards a common purpose but do different things for most or all of the time, is how to build co-operation and understanding across the team. Most enlightened team leaders recognise either explicitly or implicitly the unique and valuable contribution each team member is able to make. However, it [...]

Impressed by those people who always remember everything? Those that can recall conversations, statistics, detailed information or events at just the ‘drop of a hat’? Isn’t it amazing when they can accurately recite a quote or who, when asked, remember precise facts and figures.
 
You can also become a master of memory!
Think of the business and studying benefits and the time [...]

Mind Mapping is an ideal resource for people managing projects; full-time project managers and line managers. In this article we’ll provide some helpful advice on how it can be applied to these roles and how Mind Mapping software adds another dimension.

If you are one of those people who still takes linear notes in meetings, or you use notes as an aid for training, for course revision or even as a record of ongoing project work then it really is time for a personal breakthrough in productivity. Cut down on your labour, improve your memory and use [...]

Working? Studying? Finding it hard to remember information? Can’t find something on a list? Are you sure you wrote that down somewhere?
Whether you are a business professional, student or both you’ll probably be making a lot of notes. Whether it’s taking notes in meetings or lectures, or making notes on a business report or text book [...]

An example of a Mind Map – see more examples at www.mind-mapping.co.uk

The Mind Map® is an expression of radiant thinking and is, therefore, a natural function of the human mind. It is a powerful graphic technique which provides a universal key to unlocking the potential of the brain.

Illumine, the practical thinking training specialist is pleased to support National Learning at Work Day 2010. We are offering a number of FREE resources specifically chosen for organisations to be able to use with individuals and teams.
National Learning at Work Day 2010 will take place on 20 May as part of Adult Learners’ Week on [...]

You’ve just overheard snippets of a conversation in the corridor. Some people are discussing a meeting that’s just finished.
“Time flew”… “I didn’t expect we’d achieve so much”… “that was a fantastic debate”… “amazing that we all managed to agree”… “really energised”… “can’t wait to get on with it”…
You are intrigued. It’s a bit different from [...]

Wasting too much time in meetings? Need your meeting to reach agreement about ways of working? Need to get a fast decision on strategy or tactics?
Many people hate meetings. Why? Because they frequently take up so much time and achieve so little. So what would team leaders, project managers and departmental heads give for a [...]

Collective intelligence has been called the process of enhancing the group IQ and, as such, it is an extremely attractive proposition for managers and leaders. But how do you mine this intelligence? In principle we know that we can achieve more when we work together with others – but in practice how can we make [...]

Illumine, the practical thinking training specialist, has turned its highly successful and acclaimed webinar on Mind Mapping into an equally successful e-learning programme.
 
Illumine – the world’s leading provider of Mind Mapping training for business – has developed a nine module e-learning programme which provides an introduction to Mind Mapping. Illumine was prompted to produce the [...]