How to Harness the Value of Outsourcing-led Innovation
Companies who are engaged in developing innovation processes are also likely to be involved in outsourcing significant aspects of their operations. So how do you innovate when you've also outsourced? Sanjiv Gossain explores the issues.
Teaching Lateral Thinking to Leaders
Everyone can greatly benefit from improved lateral thinking skills, and no one more than entrepreneurs, managers and CEOs. This is exactly where motivational speaker and author, Paul Sloane focuses his energy. In this week's Hello There Paul tells IM about his experience and asks for your input on his most recent project.
Putting Higher Principles into Innovation Management: How to Be Guided by The Classical Approach to People
As innovation becomes a prevalent activity in organizations is it time to rethink how we approach the culture of innovative people? Deborah Mills-Scofield who previously worked with Bell Labs and now consults on innovations practice, argues we need a return to timeless values if we are going to make innovation sustainable.
This is no time for ‘idea tourism’
Seth Godin recently published a blog post about a concept called "idea tourism." In it, he warns that we can't just be spectators when we come in contact with big ideas that could potentially transform our businesses. Rather than superfically reading about this big idea, I decided to dig deeper into it, to understand what it really means to you and I.
Pulp Innovation
Jeffrey Philips is well known in the innovation community as a thought leader and practitioner. Meet Jeffrey the novelist, hard boiled. Pulp Innovation is a fictional look at the challenges of innovation in large firms, in the noir genre. We'll be serialising it over the coming weeks and welcome your feedback.
Is it Time to Rewrite the Innovation Playbook: Ten New Requirements in the Age of Hyperinnovation
In the world of hyperinnovation innovation itself is changing. In place of a monolithic R&D based innovation culture we suddenly have a proliferation of innovation approaches and new pressures on enterprises to innovate. Haydn Shaughnessy and Nick Vitalari argue the innovation playbook needs to be rewritten, and relabelled.
What types of leaders can support a creative culture and organizational innovation?
A recent article in the journal Academy of Management Perspectives provides insight into senior leadership traits that are necessary to inspire the people in a business and support a creativity and growth-oriented culture, key ingredients for expanding a firm's innovation capabilities.
Highlighting Global Innovation Trends
Richard Bendis, president and CEO of Innovation America tells IM about his personal approach to innovation management and how he is helping others to embrace innovation in the interest of encouraging our future leaders.
Collaboration & Co-Creation: New Platforms for Marketing & Innovation, by Gaurav Bhalla, published by Springer, 2011
A new book by Innovation Management contributor Gaurav Bhalla tackles the growing importance of the customer in the innovation process. Paul Hobcraft looks at what it means to collaborate and co-create with customers.
Innovation in Large Companies – The Use of Web 2.0 as an Innovation Pathway
The impact of Web 2.0 has lived up its early buzz and has produced a new ‘economy’ based on sharing. Many firms recognize that these new technologies facilitate innovation but are unsure about how best to exploit them. Marta Dominguez looks at how to enable innovation through Web 2.0.
Recommended reading: A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing
I recently received a copy of a new book on open innovation, edited by Paul Sloane, that draws together some of the best advice on this growing area into a single volume.
Participation in Idea Generation Events: What’s realistic?
What is a realistic level of participation in idea generation events? Jeffrey Baumgartner sheds some light on this important issue.
The Purposeful Entrepreneur
What makes an entrepreneur's decision making different from an executive's and can the two ever meet? We asked investor and start-up champion Tony Fish to explore entrepreneur vs. executive innovator as he prepares to launch a novel new digital collaborative incubator in London.
A Death Match of Ideas- Why Don’t Managers Place the Right Bets in Successful Companies?
How do managers of large and prosperous companies decide which ideas to embrace and why do they produce so few innovations? Gunjan Bardwaj explains how psychological decision making theories can shed some light on these common and complex questions.
Large Firms and the Growth of Start-up Culture: a Key Dependency in the Age of Innovation
Steven Klepper, the recipient of the 2011 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research, has spent all of his professional career looking at how innovation and the fate of large firms are so closely intertwined. His conclusions on how large firms, start-ups and clusters interact should be required reading for innovation managers and strategists everywhere.
“Getting Transformational Solutions Off of the White Board and Into the Real World”
Saul Kaplan, founder and Chief Catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory tells IM about how he is teaming up with passionate innovators to make real and lasting change in education, health care, energy, and entrepreneurship. Read more to find out how.
Let Customers Destroy Internal Innovation Blockers
If you are pushing up against corporate resistance to innovation, then it might be time to switch tactics. Gijs van Wulfen explains a better way of dealing with the company's immune response.
How to Engage SMEs in Innovation Networks- Lessons from the Dutch campaign FuturizedBusinesses
Current public innovation support often fails to activate a significant group of SMEs. As a result, the innovation infrastructure is not utilized to its true value and capacity by a key constituency – small and growing companies. Not-for-profit intermediary Syntens initiated a campaign “FuturizedBusinesses” with Regional Development Agencies and the Chambers of Commerce to tackle this. Here's what we learned.
Innovation Opportunity: Turn Products into Services
How can your products be turned into services, and your services re-thought to make them even more comprehensive? This growing area offers many opportunities for innovation, says Jeffrey Baumgartner.
The Front End of Innovation Does not Conform to a Funnel
Much of the action in innovation during the past five years has been around the front end of innovation – acquiring and gating new ideas. Doug Collins asks whether we are applying the right processes to the fuzzy front end..
Business Platforms – An Unplanned Revolution
The rise of business platforms is changing the rules of competition almost unnoticed. Given a bad name from customer lock-in during the 1990's the new generation of cloud based platforms are revolutionising business.
Ripples Become Tsunamis
Commonly the best way to initiate change is to enable leaders to pave the way forward. Mike Myatt is considered to be among the world's top CEO coaches and today he tells IM more about his experiences working with real leaders who embrace change and innovation.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Innovation Policy
How effective is innovation policy and which policies help or hinder? The Innovation Technology and Innovation Foundation takes a fresh look at global competition, examining the role of innovation policies in shaping competitive environments.
Nokia’s Rise and (Relative) Fall. What Lessons for European Innovation Policy?
The tale of Nokia being squeezed from the top by Apple and Google and from the bottom by companies from Taiwan and India holds just as important lessons for European innovation polices as it does for Nokia.