Seeking innovation? Look in new places.

To generate innovative ideas, companies need to look in areas beyond the familiar — and often slightly beyond their core, day-to-day businesses. That’s one of the messages of “In Search of Innovation,” an  article that is part of this week’s edition of Business Insight, which is produced in a collaboration between MIT Sloan Management Review and The Wall Street Journal.

In the article, researchers John Bessant, Kathrin Möslein and Bettina von Stamm describe eight ways companies can spark innovative thinking:

• Create scenarios of the future.
• Use the Web to create “marketplaces of ideas,” as InnoCentive does.
• Work with innovative “lead users.”
• “Deep dive” by closely  observing consumers’ behavior.
• Conduct “probe-and-learn” experiments in market segments you want to learn more about.
• Encourage staff to look for market trends.
• Foster entrepreneurial behavior in employees.
• Get different parts of the organization talking together.