If you work for an organization that issues RFPs to consulting companies, I have one humble request for you:

Please cease and desist from using the phrase "we're moving in another direction" when it comes time to letting consultants know you've decided NOT to engage their services.

It may seem...

A few weeks ago, my wife and I had a huge fight. A doozy. The Super Bowl of all fights. If you're married -- or ever were -- I'm sure you've had at least one of these. Probably more.

You think you're right. They think they're right. You attack, they...

Psychologists agree that human beings are most creative at the age of five. After that, it's a slow and steady decline -- especially in the workplace. But wait! It doesn't have to be that way . What follows are 100 ways you can boost your own creativity on-the-job --...

When I co-founded my company in 1986, I had two business cards made. One said "President." The other said "Archduke." Whenever I gave clients a choice, they always wanted the Archduke card.

In time, I gave all the Archduke cards away and never re-ordered them -- in a...

When AT&T was deregulated in 1984, it opened the door for something the organization never had to deal with before -- competition. No longer a monopoly, Ma Bell had just become, via the intervention of the U.S. government, simply another telecommunications company, albeit a big one with lots of benefits...

Every person who has ever had a job has experienced at least one "moment of truth" in their work life -- a time when all the chips were on the table and the decision of whether to go "all in" or not had to be made.

One such moment happened...

There are some people who know everything about social media. There are others who know everything about hip hop. There are still others who know everything about the mating habits of tsetse flies.

Me? I know everything about excuses -- or at least the kind of excuses that people...

I am not a big fan of statistics, having realized, long ago, that most people use them to bend people to their will or sell things that others don't need. Mark Twain understood this years ago when he said, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."

But recently, a few...

I am getting into the back seat of a yellow cab, as I've done a thousand times before, having just tipped the too-smiling bellboy too much for holding open the door and inviting me, as he had been trained to do just last week, to "have a nice day."

Here,...

Some years ago, there was a big problem at one of America's most treasured monuments -- the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC.

Simply put, birds -- in huge numbers -- were pooping all over it, which made visiting the place a very unpleasant experience.

Attempts to remedy the situation caused...

Unless you've been in a coma your entire life, chances are good that you've had the experience of being a volunteer of some kind for a worthy non-profit organization -- local, national, or international.

That's the good news.

The not-so-good news is that many volunteer organizations, in various unconscious ways,...

Anyone with a remote control, a finger and the ability to read is familiar with the concept of a pause button.

You push it and whatever it is that has been the focus of your attention stops -- enabling you to either do something else for the moment or,...

By day, Mitch Ditkoff is the Co-Founder and President of Idea Champions, an innovation consulting and training company headquartered in Woodstock, NY. By night, he is a poet. The older he gets, the more he realizes there is very little difference between the two. Business needs more poetry and poetry needs more business. Full Moon at Sunrise, his new book of poetry in honor of the grand tradition of Rumi, Kabir, Hafiz, and countless unknown poets howling at countless unknown moons, is now available on Amazon. Makes a great gift or...

Last year, as I understand it, Rumi was a best-selling poet in the United States, 800 years after he was alive. Kabir, too, is still being widely read -- as is Hafiz, Gibran, and a host of other ecstatic poets from times gone by.

Many people assume these guys...

In 2012, more than five million books were published worldwide.

Of these, a sizable percentage were of the "self-help" variety, a growing genre that promises to help people improve the quality of their lives -- to become happier, healthier, smarter, kinder, thinner, cooler, richer, less depressed, selfish, anxious and, generally...

1. Lists get right to the point. No fluffy preambles are necessary.

2. Lists simplify.

3. Lists promise instant knowledge.

4. Lists provide choices.

5. Lists make it seem as if the list maker knows something that list readers don't.

6. Lists appeal to an ever expanding population of ADD...

Apparently, there has been some kind of mix up with the whole "2012 Mayan Calendar" thing.

A new translation of an ancient Mayan text -- "The Axhumuchicha Diaries" -- has just revealed that the word was actually "colander," as in the bowl-shaped thingee with holes on the bottom that allows...

Allow me to introduce myself. My name Mitch Ditkoff. I am the co-founder of Idea Champions, a "boutique" innovation consulting and training company headquartered in Woodstock, NY.

We've been in business since 1986 and, since that time, have responded to more than 1,200 RFPs.

Along the way,...

Ever since Twitter made its appearance on the scene in 2006, millions of people have become enamored with the prospect of delivering a message in 140 characters or less.

Short and sweet has become the name of the game. Brevity rules.

And why not? In a world ruled at...

Here's a fun test for you: If you can read the rest of this paragraph without logging onto Facebook, tweeting, or thinking about crop circles, there's a good chance you do not have ADD, ADHD, or any other recently-identified medical condition.

That's the good news.

The not-so-good news? The...