Leveraging Alien Thinking: Exclusive Interview with Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade
For the past decade, Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade, professors of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School, have studied inventors, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, and artists. These people, or “aliens,” as the authors call them, are able to make leaps of creativity, and use five patterns of thinking that distinguish them from the rest of us.
Interview with Stefan H. Thomke, Author of “Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments”
I had the opportunity recently to interview fellow author Stefan H. Thomke, the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School to talk with him about his new book Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments, to explore the important role that experimentation plays in business and innovation.
Interview with Scott D. Anthony, Author of Eat, Sleep, Innovate: How to Make Creativity an Everyday Habit Inside Your Organization
I had the opportunity recently to interview fellow author Scott D. Anthony of consulting firm Innosight to talk with him about his new book Eat, Sleep, Innovate: How to Make Creativity an Everyday Habit Inside Your Organization, which is his eighth book with his co-authors Paul Cobban, Natalie Painchaud, and Andy Parker. Congratulations Scott!
Richard Li-Hua on Innovation in China
China’s ambition of become an innovation-oriented country by 2020 is an important part of the nation’s long-term strategic plan. Being the second largest science and technology thesis producer, and running the second largest economy next to the US, a lot of things are happening in China. Innovation Management spoke to Professor Richard Li-Hua, word-leading expert on innovation about his thoughts on China’s innovation.
Richard Li-Hua on Innovation and Innovation Management
Innovation changes the world and is the key to tackling the slow recovery of the western economy, and to solving unemployment issues according to professor Richard Li-Hua, a world-leading expert on innovation. Innovation Management spoke to him about his thoughts on the need for, and the role of, innovation management.
How Appreciative Inquiry Can Help you to be More Creative: Interview with William E. Smith, Ph.D.
Appreciative inquiry gives us the power to transcend current models, thinking, judgements and structures, so we can realize more of our creative potential, explains William E. Smith Ph.D, President of ODII. Bill is an innovative thinker and practitioner in the field of leadership, organization and social development. He's developed new, creative approaches to organization for multinational corporations, governments, and villages all over the world.
A valuable new open innovation primer for small companies from Stefan Lindegaard
How can small companies participate effectively in open innovation? That's the central focus of Stefan Lindegaard's new book, Making Open Innovation Work.
Become a creative artist whose medium is everyday life, urges improv expert
As an accomplished improv performer, singer and actress, Cathy Rose Salit believes we all get too stuck in our 'scripts,' too comfortable with our 'stock characters.' We need to try new things, to expand our personal repertoire, to become more creative in our work and lives.
What’s your Point of View on Challenge Driven Innovation?
Challenge Driven Innovation (CDI) is an innovation framework developed by InnoCentive that accelerates traditional innovation outcomes by leveraging open innovation and crowd sourcing along with defined methodology, process, and tools to help organizations develop and implement actionable solutions to their key problems, opportunities, and challenges. We asked Adi Codaty, currently Innovation and R&D Head at United Health Group in India about his point of view on CDI.
Predictive Computing and What it Means to Innovators
In this interview with Kevin Maney, co-author of The Two-Second Advantage, I dig deeper into what the rise of predictive computing means to innovators.
How Can we Improve Creativity and Innovation Capabilities?
Get some hands on advice from this week’s expert Sven Andrén, the architect behind the Idea Management program at the Swedish MNC TetraPak. What is his take on the best way to reward employees that come up with ideas? How can we involve more employees in our idea generation? And is there a value of using different idea generation techniques or is the traditional “brainstorming technique” sufficient? Where can I find more idea generation techniques?
Building World Class Innovation Programs
In the June issue of Harvard Business review, Intuit, the American software company, was labeled “a design-driven innovation machine.” InnovationManagement talked to Roy Rosin who was Intuit’s first innovation leader, building the company’s innovation programs and working with teams on creating new products and services.
Channeling the Energy and Wisdom of the Crowd
Paul Dombowsky is the founder and CEO of Ideavibes and the charity crowdfunding initiative Fundchange. Today he talks with IM about the importance of listening to the less-heard voices and the inspiring influence open communication is having in the workplace as well as in our communities.
Want your Organization to Thrive? Create a Supportive Environment for Creativity
Employees have tremendous creative capacity. If properly harnessed with a supportive culture, it can help companies to thrive in today's turbulent business world.
How Improvisational Techniques can Benefit Innovators
The techniques of improvisational performance can be applied in helpful ways to any situation where people are collaborating to innovate or build something, says improv expert Kat Koppett.
How creativity is revolutionizing the book business: Corey Michael Blake
Corey Michael Blake is president of Round Table Companies, a firm that works closely with authors to develop graphic novels. In this interview with Michelle James, he explains how the book business is being transformed today, and the central role of creativity in all parts of the revolution.
The future of creativity is relational
The future of creativity is relational, based upon engaging and connecting with others, according to author and consultant Peggy Noonan.
Enabling Innovative Mobile Startups
Petra Söderling is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Mobile Brain Bank, encouraging out-of-job mobile professionals to turn into entrepreneurs. Petra tells IM a bit about her project and what we can expect in the near future.
Skin Care Giant Launches New Open Innovation Approach
The skin care market is an interesting business to be in. Every single person on our planet is a potential customer and yet it takes a good deal of focus and expertise in every corporate function to become globally the number one. This is what Beiersdorf, the Hamburg (Germany) based champion in the skin care business has achieved with its Nivea brand. Innovation is a key ingredient in the success formula. InnovationManagement caught up with Martin Rudolph from Beiersdorf and discussed about innovation and in particular about the Open Innovation approaches Beiersdorf is taking.
Fostering Experience Led Design
Gus Desbarats has been designing and directing award-winning, commercially successful innovation continuously, for the last 28 years, for some of the world’s top brands. Today Gus shares his insightful views on innovation management and the importance of putting people’s experiences at the heart of business and innovation.
Building the Blocks of Social Innovation
Social innovation advocates challenge us to make the development and improvement of modern society our primary innovation goal. This week IM spoke with Josef Hochgerner, who created the first Centre for Social Innovation world-wide (1990) and introduced a definition of social innovation which increasingly meets approval among innovation experts. Find out more about his experiences and views on innovation management.
Directing R&D for a Good Cause
Many innovation managers are concerned with the successful transfer of new technology from universities to industries while monitoring and protecting intellectual property. This week IM spoke with Ariadna J. Rodríguez-Diaz who is in charge of the protection of intellectual property in new technologies for education at the School of Engineering at UNAM.
Achieving Sustainable Innovation
Creative business solutions benefit the bottom line, but many times they can also solve environmental challenges by cutting waste and better utilizing resources. Tanja Bisgaard from Novitas Innovation tells IM how she hopes to help her clients, their customers and the planet all at the same time.
The Wizard of Light Bulb Moments
Do you believe in idea wizards? Some claim that Tom Evans is just that - an author, inspirational speaker and creative catalyst who has a knack for helping others find their creative flow. This week IM caught up with him to find out more on his innovative vision.
Asking the Important Questions: A Guide to Design Thinking And a Better Way to Serve Customers
Design thinking should be a way of life for senior managers. Melba Kurman spoke to Sara Beckman, design and innovation expert at Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, about how to apply design thinking to the innovation process.
Changing Focus to Improve Innovation
Stephen Shapiro has extensive experience in leading innovation initiatives and has now authored various books on the subject. Read more about how he thinks innovation should be focused and what we can expect from him later this year.
Promoting a Mindset where “Problems” are Seen as Opportunities
This week IM spoke with Daniel Åhlström who is currently the Technical Center Director at Autoliv Sverige AB in Vårgårda, Sweden. Daniel shares his views on the importance of creating a creative climate while at the same time establishing a productive process for new development and innovation.
Transferring Innovation from Science to Business
From Science to Business on effective firm--university partnerships is a new book on the university-enterprise arm of innovation. Karin Wall talks with author Dr. Georges Haour, Professor at the executive education institute IMD.