How Next-Generation Social Technologies can Help Drive Innovation
Product innovation is about developing and delivering the “next” product or service-to-market quickly and cost-effectively. A well-managed innovation process that meets customer demands for new and unique products and services can contribute to creating a competitive advantage and business growth. Organizations can improve their innovation processes through the use of next-generation social technologies, says Catherine Constantinides.
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.
Never Start Innovation with an Idea
Are you trying to come up with the next big idea to jump-start innovation in your company? Try another approach. Gijs van Wulfen gives us three reasons why you should not start an innovation initiative with new ideas, rather formulate a clear and concrete innovation assignment. Here's how!
Can we Dent the Universe, Too? 6 tips for Innovation Inspired by Steve Jobs
Jobs had a spectacular innovation compass; some of its directions can guide our inner innovators too, according to Andrew Sherman.
How to Accelerate Innovation through Challenge Driven Innovation
Challenge Driven Innovation enables companies to tap into diverse perspectives and talent to solve problems faster, more cost-effectively and with less risk, ultimately resulting in accelerated innovation outcomes and improved business performance. In this article Steve Bonadio introduces the concept of “Challenges” and their role in the emerging innovation management framework called Challenge Driven Innovation (CDI).
3 Ways to Tap into the Voice of the Culture
For decades we’ve been taught the surest way to developing successful new products is to listen to the voice of the customer. And we’ve all experienced focus groups and surveys. Consumers tell you they want one thing and then turn around and do another. So which is the right voice to listen to? Harvey Briggs provides some guidelines.
Pulp Innovation XXX: Developing the Front End
The firm has recently hired an ethnography and market research expert and now it's time to integrate these skills into their methodology. Matt and Marlow discuss the details.
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.
Where We Innovate: The Innovation Infrastructure
What are the essential elements of infrastructure and tools to support the innovation process? There are four key parts of this infrastructure, which we explore in detail in this chapter from The Innovation Master Plan.
Food For Our Times?
Food trucks are continuing to spread in America. They started in Los Angeles and have spread to San Francisco, Portland, Austin, New York, New Orleans, and shortly Chicago, to name a few. As hard times continue, they may be the perfect answer for low cost eating out, literally. And for hungry entrepreneurs.
The End of Mass Innovation
Marketing guru Seth Godin, in his book We are All Weird, argues that the age of mass markets is over. Furthermore, the alternative to mass is not niche, but weird.
Stop the Reckless Brainstorming and Focus your Creativity!
In their desperation to be innovative, companies often brainstorm themselves into idea overload, generating ideas that ultimately are failures. But what if companies could focus those brainstorming efforts and develop an efficient, targeted process for creativity? InnovationManagement asked Tony Ulwick to share his thoughts on how to leverage the creativity and get a better outcome.
Copycat Innovation: A Practical Route to Profitable Innovation
Copycat innovation, the act of adapting a solution that has been used successful in another industry or profession, is a more reliable, affordable route to innovation, suggests Dr. Yew Kam Keong, Ph.D.
Measuring for Innovation – A Guide for Innovative Teams
As innovation is a necessity for any organization today, the ability to assess and measure the progress and impact of your innovation efforts might be a true source of competitive advantage. This in-depth article offers fresh experiences, best practice and insights from how a number of multinational companies within the MedTech, telecom and manufacturing industries are working with establishing and implementing innovation measurement programs.
Pulp Innovation XXIX: Skunkworks Strategy
With the decision made to implement a skunkworks, now it's time to deal with logistics. Marlow advises on the best plan of action.
DHL’s Open Innovation Contest And The Quest For Radical Decentralization
DHL Solutions & Innovations (DSI) is aiming to gather ideas and input from academics, politicians, IT experts and others, to further develop their existing concept for City Logistics in a collaborative and innovative way. With several innovations such as the Consolidation Center, the DHL Smart Truck, the Packstation (24/7 Service Point) and other "green" ideas, DHL is at the cutting edge of the market when it comes to urban logistics.
Winning with Social Product Innovation – New Stories of Success
My next few blog posts are going to be deep dives into the strategic challenges companies face when implementing social product innovation. But before I drag everyone down into the challenges, I wanted to share some great success stories.
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.
The Challenge of Relative Values
Two new research studies examine on the one hand personal values among young adults on the other the realities of corporate values and culture. Both have some harsh truths to tell. The two forms of ‘relative values’ these studies discuss, have implications for strategic flexibility and devolved decision making for market success. Coupled with greater transparency they may also mean that companies need to take a long hard look at their corporate cultures.
Harvesting Intangible Assets is an Essential Guide to Maximizing the Value of your IP
Harvesting Intangible Assets: Uncover Hidden Revenue in Your Company's Intellectual Property by Andrew Sherman is a clear, comprehensive guide to identifying, managing and leveraging your organizations intellectual assets – which may include patents, trademarks, customer information, software code, databases, business models, systems, processes and employee expertise.
Idea Management: How to Select the Right Solutions to Implement
Most ideation activities result in the generation of a number of ideas. However, in most cases, only one idea – or a collection of ideas combined into one bigger idea – will actually be implemented. This does not mean that any one of the solutions is actually the right solution. Only that one solution is chosen. Unfortunately, the designers of many an innovation initiative fail to consider this simple fact. As a result, the chosen idea is often not in the best interest of the individual or the organisation running the initiative. Worse, in many cases no idea is ever implemented.
The Benefits of Partnering with US Universities in the Era of Open Innovation
Today's University is a rich resource for companies seeking game-changing technological breakthroughs. In this in-depth article Melba Kurman looks at the benefits of open innovation partnerships between companies and American university researchers.