Suggestions for Making Innovation Fun

I recently read Think for a Change, an innovation blog by Paul Williams. He suggests that innovation should be fun, and I can't agree more. He lists a bunch of suggestions that I have pasted below. What I want to know is: What companies actually put these creative solutions to work? Have you tried it? Let me know what your results were. If you want to know more about innovating HR. Check out BrainReactions' free white papers.

Here are a few fun idea submission and generation examples:

• Have an 'American Inventor'-style competition
• Rent a dumpster or have a garbage can available for people to write down and throw away anything in your organization they don't feel works very well
• Hold a "Make Your Idea Real" day where people can build models or prototypes of their ideas
• Buy a roll of butcher paper and line the walls of the lunchroom with it and post a "starter problem" to solve
• Have people write down a problem they are having, then have them gift wrap it and exchange it with others who do the same thing
• Give every employee one of those poster boards that kids use for Science Fair projects and have them come up with an idea and fully describe how it works and/or would be implemented
• Have an Idea Picnic with your customers, suppliers, and vendors where they can mix with your employees and share ideas/solutions/complaints
• Sponsor a field trip to a museum or other idea rich environment for employees
• Encourage senior leadership to visit department meetings to share what keeps them up at night and solicit ideas