Have you noticed? The Sixth Wave of technological innovation is crashing upon us. With it comes a rising tide of digital tools, clean tech solutions, and human-centered technologies—all rapidly converging. Yet amid the accelerating swirl of new AI tools and automation—in both business and personal life—one thing still seems to be true, at least for now: the future remains human, especially when it comes to advanced creativity, leadership, and innovation.

In this new age, machines compute, systems optimize, and algorithms predict. AI can even reframe problems—but it still can’t feel their human meaning. Only humans can imagine the unimaginable. Can dream. Can feel. Can connect unconnected dots and spark the next big “Eureka!” that transforms entire industries. That’s where TIPS enters the stage—as an innovative profiling tool built for the realities and rhythms of the innovation economy.

But how can you find out who in your organization are those creative types that can lead and drive this creative transformation? How can you uncover what innovator types you have on board? Enter TIPS, Thinkergy’s Talent & Innovator Profiling System built for the realities and rhythms of the disruptive innovation economy of the early 21st century.

TIPS as a Human Intelligence Hub

Intelligence can be defined in two ways: as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills, or as the collection of information of strategic value—often in a military or political context.

Now imagine merging these two perspectives and applying them to TIPS. Suddenly, TIPS becomes more than a mere people profiling test. It becomes a Talent & Innovator Intelligence Hub — an interconnected human intelligence system where insights about people converge. It helps leaders and teams connect individual strengths with collective business needs and innovation opportunities, turning scattered talent into a coherent force for performance and creativity.

At the same time, TIPS serves as a powerful way to gather strategic intelligence on the people side of business—insights that help leaders drive performance, shape collaboration, and fuel innovation in today’s fast-changing, disruptive age.

From Profiling to Multi-Level Awareness

Many people profiling tools stop at description: “This is who you are.” TIPS goes further. It answers key questions that support real-time business decisions, such as:

• Who are you? → Your TIPS profile
• How do you prefer to contribute? → Your cognitive styles
• Where do you feel at home? → Your natural base(s)
• What functions, industries, or environments align with your talent? → Your ideal playing field
• When do you thrive across the business and innovation lifecycle? → Your cycle match

But TIPS goes way beyond providing answers to individuals. It enables greater awareness on six levels:

• Self-Awareness: Individuals learn how to align themselves with roles, tasks, and ecosystems that energize their talent.
• People & Team Awareness: Leaders and managers understand how to compose cognitively diverse, high-performing teams.
• Talent Awareness: Human Capital can map and align talent across the organization, plan talent transitions more effectively, and retain top performers.
• Innovation Awareness: Innovation managers can place the right minds at the right time in the innovation project and creative process stage.
• Leadership Awareness: Executives gain insights into cognitive culture and align leadership styles with the business cycle.
• ROI Awareness: Senior leaders and CFOs begin to track how aligned talent drives tangible business outcomes. TIPS enables organizations to link talent awareness to financial performance—highlighting how strategic people placement, team flow, and innovation effectiveness impact ROI across the enterprise. In doing so, TIPS shifts profiling from an HR initiative to a boardroom conversation.

When aggregated across an enterprise, this layered awareness creates organizational intelligence: a living map of your people and their potential. It becomes the strategic foundation for aligning human energy with business priorities—a capability more essential than ever as AI changes the nature of work and the Sixth Wave gains momentum.

The TIPS Intelligence Hub: Tested Applications

Over the past decade, we’ve developed and tested a comprehensive suite of TIPS applications in real-life business settings. These tools range from individual self-awareness modules (such as My Profile, My Styles, or My Strength) to advanced organizational maps (Innovation Team Composer, Creative Change Response Map, and others).

While these tools have been conceptually developed and field-tested, many of them are now ready to evolve into next-generation digital formats. As technology rapidly advances, we’re exploring the best pathways to bring the TIPS Intelligence Hub to life—whether through AI-assisted interfaces, adaptive dashboards, conversational agents, or integrated systems that connect seamlessly with existing business platforms.

Our guiding principle is simple: go with the flow of innovation while staying true to the human-centered essence of TIPS. Whatever the medium, the goal remains the same—to make talent intelligence accessible, actionable, and alive across organizations.

Key modules of the hub include:

• Talent Maps: Visual layouts of where your people sit on the TIPS map, by function, team, office location, or business unit.
• Profile Filters: Searchable filters to find, group, and analyze talent clusters (e.g., all Ideators in Marketing).
• Team Builders: Compose project teams based on innovation stages, task needs, or profile synergy.
• Mobility Guidance: Identify talents ready for new roles, realignment, or development—and where they might best go.
• TIPS Pulse: A tool to track organizational alignment, cognitive fit, team diversity, and creative change readiness over time.

This comprehensive application range already surpasses the reach of legacy tools like MBTI, DISC, or HBDI—and it will continue to grow as we uncover new applications in future projects.

Augmenting Human Intelligence with AI

TIPS is conceptually designed to scale into AI-augmented decision systems that extend the reach of its tested modules. As technology evolves, several directions are emerging where AI can amplify TIPS’s human-intelligence capabilities:

• TIPS Hiring Assistant: Match candidates to roles, team gaps, or innovation needs — resulting in faster, fairer, and more data-driven hiring decisions, fewer mismatches, and lower recruitment costs.
• TIPS Learning Advisor: Recommend personalized training and growth paths — leading to higher training ROI, better skill relevance, and smarter upskilling.
• TIPS Change Coach: Help leaders engage drivers, skeptics, and resisters—accelerating change adoption and strengthening cultural alignment.
• TIPS × X-IDEA Integration: Integrate profiles into the creative process—assigning the right minds to the right stages and thinking tools for better ideas and smoother workflows.

These AI extensions build on the existing TIPS Intelligence Hub—bringing automation, pattern recognition, and predictive capabilities to modules such as Talent Maps, Team Builders, or TIPS Pulse. Whatever technologies take shape—AI agents, conversational personas, or integrated dashboards—they will only create value when grounded in human insight, ethical use, and real-world validation. AI is only as smart as the human data it learns from—and TIPS provides the cognitive insights to guide that learning. 

From Human Intelligence to Cultural Intelligence

For TIPS to stick, it must become part of a company’s cultural DNA. Embedding the hub into core processes ensures that:

• Recruitment & Onboarding: Every new hire is TIPS-ed for role alignment and smoother integration.
• Performance Reviews: Managers assess not just outcomes, but contributions aligned with natural strengths.
• Innovation Projects: Teams are staffed with both innovation type-fit and process stage-fit cognitive diversity.
• Strategic Alignment: Leadership teams review cognitive coverage to align with the business life cycle.

When embedded this way, TIPS evolves into a shared language of alignment and contribution. People begin to ask: “Is this project right for me?” or “Are we placing the right person in that role?” Decisions stop being political—or driven by biases and personal favoritism—and start being profile-based and cognitively aligned.

Navigating Talent in Real Time with TIPS

If TIPS is the intelligence hub of your people system, it also functions as your organizational GPS. Just as a GPS navigates through changing landscapes, TIPS helps you chart people across dynamic environments:

• It shows you where your talents are.
• It guides you where each one fits best now.
• And it helps you navigate where your talents can grow next as old roles vane and new roles emerge.

Combine people intelligence, business context, and real-time decision-making, and the TIPS Hub becomes your compass, dashboard, and co-pilot—all at once.

Conclusion: TIPS — Where Human Intelligence Becomes Your Hardest-to-Copy Advantage

TIPS was never meant to be “just another profiling tool.” From day one, it was built to add tangible value to business and innovation performance. It’s a people-intelligence hub for a new era of work—one that prioritizes human authenticity, business relevance, and organizational alignment.

As AI continues to reshape jobs, structures, and industries, the organizations that truly know their people—and know how to activate their talent—will lead the way. Because in the Sixth Wave, your greatest edge isn’t artificial—it’s human.

• Curious About the TIPS Intelligence Hub? Visit the TIPS website and download our free TIPS booklet to explore how this next-generation Talent & Innovator Intelligence Hub can unlock human potential and elevate performance across your organization.
• Discover Your TIPS Profile Today: Take the TIPS online test and uncover your unique talent profile. For just USD 88.88, you’ll gain deep insights into your cognitive strengths and innovation potential—your first step toward greater self-awareness and impact.
• Interested in Scaling TIPS Globally? Are you a global consultancy, talent development firm, or innovation-focused organization with the resources and reach to help scale TIPS? We’re open to strategic partnerships that combine deep capital, strong distribution, and shared purpose. Contact us to explore how we can drive global impact together.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2025.