The Idea Game Helps Teams ‘Battle’ to Produce the Best Ideas
The Idea Game is a new group brainstorming tool that corporate teams can use to generate fresh ideas and insights. Developed by Swedish creativity consulting firm Realize AB, it provides a variety of creative stimuli using a card deck and game board to generate ideas, and "idea battles" to help identify and improve upon the best ideas.
5 Ways Small Businesses can Innovate Like the Big Guys
In traditional thinking, being competitive in the global marketplace requires a significant investment in time and resources. But the reality is that any organization today can take advantage of open innovation to innovate faster and cheaper than ever before, positioning them as true competition in the industry. This article will explore the top five ways SMEs can leverage open innovation.
How to Change Perspective and Make Magic Happen
Why is it so hard to open up to other perspectives when “thinking outside the box” is the one of the mantras of innovation? In this blog, Susanna Bill provides concrete advise for how to practice in order to make other perspectives less scary, using the experience of Cirque du Soleil as a mini case.
Does Your Organization Have Innovation Harmony?
Innovation is inherently multidisciplinary. Successful innovation requires harmony; that is, a high degree of communication, collaboration and cooperation. This article explores what is meant by innovation harmony and how to go about achieving it.
Pulp Innovation Chapter XLVII: The Management Two-Step
Just as Marlowe and Susan are ready to present their vision document to management, they discover some of the members will not be attending. Another disappointing setback for the innovation community.
Need Innovation? Seek Out Your Mad Scientists
“Mad scientists”—rule-breaking geniuses whose resistance to convention sometimes produces radical innovations—are both a blessing and a challenge to R&D organizations. Recent studies suggest how such rogue innovators can shape a company’s culture and what can be done to channel their influence.
5 Essential Questions to Test the Viability of an Idea
Scott Anthony, author of the new book, The Little Black Book of Innovation: How It Works. How To Do It, has developed a set of 5 questions that he uses to gauge the commercial viability of any new idea.
Greening Higher Places
Population pressure and environmental concerns are pushing cities around the world to embrace the concept of green roofs. As climate change distorts natural systems, the environmental, economic and aesthetic benefits of green roofs are set to create a new norm in city management.
Recasting the Internal Communications Group’s Charter through Collaborative Innovation
Organizations fund internal communications groups to develop and disseminate the central narrative for the group. Changes wrought by the Digital Age have usurped this group’s role as the exclusive interpreter and messenger for intra-firm information, however. In this article, innovation architect Doug Collins advocates that internal communications reframe and refresh its charter by embracing the practice of collaborative innovation in order to facilitate engagement amongst staff.
10 Innovation Lessons from the Movie Moneyball
Very recently I had a pleasant surprise watching Moneyball movie in my local cinemas. I was expecting a typical "losers become winners" movie but it's actually a great story about disruptive innovation. Here are 10 take-aways from this excellent movie.
Pulp Innovation Chapter XLVI: Shop Talk and Sushi
After Marlowe and Susan work well into the evening to develop a strategic document for the management team to review and approve, they head out for some quality co-worker time.
DSM’s Innovative Power: Adapting To The Future Through Co-innovation
DSM has recently been in the news twice. One occassion due the launch of an open innovation contest that challenges designers and creative thinkers to develop high-quality sports equipment using the company’s own Arnitel® Eco material. The other occassion because the American ethanol producer POET and DSM announced a joint venture to demonstrate commercial cellulosic bio-ethanol production and license the technology by 2013. On top of this news, Deloitte and VNCI published a report on the state of the chemical industry in the Netherlands where DSM is headquartered.
Starting Innovation Seems Easier for Smaller Companies
After polling innovation managers and experts from all over the world about the size of the organization in relation to the ease of starting an innovation initiative, Gijs Van Wulfen takes a look at the arguments.
Reducing Congestion – Courtesy of Technology and Business Model Innovation?
Congestion is a growing problem in towns, cities and on motorways the world over as the number of cars continues to increase. Two, currently separate but potentially converging developments, namely seriously smart driverless cars and shared ownership schemes, could reduce car ownership and congestion, while still ensuring – even extending –mobility and independence.
How Scenario Planning Can Help You Innovate Better
In these uncertain times, are you ready to take advantage of the opportunities that will arise in the next few years, or are you paralyzed by indecision? Scenario thinking can help you to be part of the first group.
Growth and Stagnation – Similarities Between Ant and Man
Sometimes we find ourselves unwillingly obeying unwritten laws and rules that hinder us from growing our business the way we want to. In this blog, Bengt Järrehult looks at studies done on ant societies and draws different parallels to human organizations. Is stagnation a natural phenomenon after a period of growth?
How to Build Your Innovation Skills
In the 21st century economy, having strong innovation skills is critical. This year, instead of the proverbial New Year’s resolution to lose weight or get a new job, why not commit to building your innovation ability? This article discusses the urgency for building your innovation skills, and outlines some simple and effective ways for doing it.
Enterprise Social Media Usage Pays Off In Innovation And Knowledge Sharing
This concludes the survey by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), the global community of information professionals, authored by Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan Center for Digital Business and the AIIM Task Force on Social Business and Innovation.
Pulp Innovation Chapter XLV: What do you want from your Open Innovation Software?
Marlowe gathers the Accipiter executives to sit in on enthusiastic open innovation software demonstrations. Will the team arrive at the necessary conclusions about their innovation community?
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 Dr. Frank Ermark, working with innovation portfolio management at Nokia Mobile Phones about his point of view on CDI.
Learning by Doing
New forms of learning by doing seem to be emerging. Technology could play a role in finding innovative ways to enable skills development and greater understanding of personal actions, reactions and decisions.
Applying Collaborative Innovation to Design Thinking
“Innovate or die” becomes the order of the day. People in response seek ways to innovate. Of late, many have embraced the practice of collaborative innovation, with its application of social media to sourcing crowds and ideas, and design thinking, with its structured approach to vetting hypotheses about new business opportunities. Having arrived in the organization by different routes, they exist as potential complements. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores ways to combine the practices to their mutual benefit.
Five Dimensions to Conceptualize Your Idea to Make it a Successful Innovation
When conceptualizing a new idea, it is essential to direct the thinking to specific dimensions and search answers to certain questions to help evolve the idea from the initial thought through the various stages of innovation. This article suggests a framework for conceptualizing an idea and helps develop an understanding of the dimensions and questions that you need to consider.
Pulp Innovation Chapter XLIV: Defining Goals and Structure of an Innovation Community
Marlowe continues the struggle to get his top client to define the structure and direction for their innovation community. Has he signed up for a project that is doomed from the very beginning?