“So how do you come up with new ideas?” This is a common question we normally get when we explain customers and stakeholders what we do (…) These are some fundamental lessons we have assimilated over years that we think would help engineers embrace innovation as a discipline that can and should be learned.

Yes, as an innovation firm it is our job to identify opportunities for innovation for our clients, and while there is certainly a methodology to it, it is hardly something reserved for "innovative people", if such a thing exists. The -not so- secret sauce of innovation is really a two-ingredient combination: collaboration and cross-pollination. Allow me to elaborate on both.

During 2016 and part of 2017 Envisioning Labs ran Test Tube, a crowdsourced innovation initiative with the mantra: "we build innovations that matter". This was our first attempt at accelerating the creation of important innovations that would deliver social and/or environmental impact. We did not succeed.