Eva Diedrichs on Innovation Management
This week InnovationManagement spoke with Eva Diedrichs, senior consultant at A.T. Kearney, Top Management Consulting. Learn more about their IMP³rove program and the rewards of helping thousands of small and medium sized enterprises, investors in innovation projects as well as the public sector find innovation success.
Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire- a Roadmap to a Sustainable Culture of Ingenuity and Purpose
In this book review Paul Hobcraft looks at “Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire- a Roadmap to a Sustainable Culture of Ingenuity and Purpose” by Braden Kelley, published by Wiley.
Innovation in South America
According to the last INSEAD Global Innovation Index 2009-2010, all South American countries are ranked below the 40th position. To improve the innovation situation in the region there are three main focus areas to be addressed: encouraging a culture of collaboration and the use of social media, encouraging intrapreneurs, and to introduce Management 2.0. Other key issues are Internet penetration and the Enterprise 2.0 concept.
Why Diversity is the Mother of Creativity
Diversity is the key to creativity. Not just diversity in your workforce, but in your personal life, the teams you form and the managers whom you hire and promote, explains Jeffrey Baumgartner.
Clusters Are Obsolete
Are Clusters or cluster initiatives really adding any tangible value to firms? Are they obsolete? Maybe not yet, but I believe if the present policy tools and institutional frameworks are not reformed they may very well soon become so. In the following blog I would like to focus on three areas that have not been given enough importance by policy makers: focus beyond geographies, new clusters and cluster performance.
The Positive and Negative Equity of Innovation Cultures
The culture of innovation can mean many things. Most obviously it can refer to how a company creates an innovative culture, which is different from being in an innovation culture. I want to look at how innovative cultures intersect, and how important this is for what companies can achieve. The two concepts I want to introduce are: positive and negative equity in innovation cultures. How do you create the former and shed the latter?
Nikolaus Franke on Innovation Management
This week InnovationManagement spoke with Nikolaus Franke, Director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. Find out more about his views on innovation management, what he finds exciting about working with young, innovative minds and why he believes changes are needed in the educational system in order to foster creativity.
Make Yourself Obsolete or Your Competitors Will
As history teaches us, maintaining the status quo may keep you in the money in the short term, but long term it can hurt your company and your industry. You have two choices: Make yourself obsolete, or your competitors will, warns Patrick Lefler.
Innovation Acromegali: How to Diagnose It & How to Cure It
This is the first piece in a blog series written by Ehsan Ehsani on innovation management leading practices.
Students Innovating for Emerging Markets
Existing technologies, such as telecommunications, are often designed for the developed world. But an innovative focus is also urgently needed to address issues in developing countries. This is something that the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, has acted upon and is sending students to Africa with the purpose to identify needs and develop innovative solutions. Read more in this interview with Professor Margareta Norell Bergendahl.
The Man who Innovated the Postal Service
Looking back through history, innovation has often occured when one big thinker envisioned a new way to solve a customer's problem in an elegant way. A case in point: mail delivery.
Can Europe Really Become an Innovation Union?
Máire Geoghegan Quinn, the Commissioner for Research & Innovation in Europe, set a goal for Europe to become an innovation economy. By removing innovation bottlenecks, focusing on societal challenges and introducing a new form of Partnerships (European Innovation Partnerships) where (pan) European stakeholders can work together, Europe will create 3,7 million new jobs and position itself as a world player if not leader in innovation.
Anders Sundelin on Innovation Management
This week InnovationManagement spoke with Anders Sundelin, VP of Business Operations at CIP Professional Services, about his views on innovation management. Read more about the satisfying process of helping companies to create and capture value in their organization and what kind of challenges arise in this line of work.
The crucial role of networks in helping firms generate and execute new ideas
Interpersonal networks within organizations have a huge influence on how successfully firms can generate and execute new ideas, says innovation professor Tim Kastelle.
Weak signals, connections and leveraging networks are keys to creativity: Smyre
To creatively prepare for the future in an era of great transition, we need to pay attention to weak signals and look for conections in everything, says futurist Rick Smyre.
Flavors of Competition
In 1795, Napoleon Bonaparte instituted a prize for an invention that would help always provide his troops with food. The eventual result came to be canning. So while we might believe that competition in the market place is a force for innovation, competition for some prize may also work.
How Partners React to an Open Innovation Strategy
I have cited Psion Teklogix, provider of rugged mobile computers, several times on my blog for their promising approach to open innovation. Last month, the company took a big step forward with its strategic interpretation of open innovation – called Open Source Mobility (OSM) – when it brought its global partners together for a series of conferences at which they unveiled a new platform designed to give resellers and developer partners the opportunity to co-create with Psion.
From Blind Spots to Strategic Intelligence
Nothing breeds success like success, at least according to the old proverb. However, this is not always the case when it comes to business growth. Many organizations, from Polaroid to Sony, have become victims of their own success: they achieved enormous growth by introducing new products – the Polaroid camera, the Sony Walkman – but as the marketplace matured this growth slowed and they were left looking for alternative paths.
The Best Time to Innovate is all the Time
This week InnovationManagement spoke with Idris Mootee - worldwide strategic innovation advisor and CEO of the global strategic innovation and design firm, Idea Couture Inc. Read more about his views on innovation management and why he’s passionate about transforming large, complex, even successful organizations into innovative organizations.
India’s Emergence as an Innovation Mecca
A mega-trend in innovation is reverse innovation. Reverse or frugal innovation describes innovations originally developed and/or adopted in the developing world which later become prominent in mature world markets. It is an interesting trend that is introducing a new perspective to innovation. It is based on the idea ‘jugaad’, which describes activity in India to adapt existing solutions using low cost technology.
Collaboration and Co-creation: Incentives Are Important
Customer collaboration and co-creation rests on a few key assumptions; that customers are passionate about the collaboration objective(s), and are willing and able to offer their time and creativity. Notice the deliberate usage of the word “offer,” not donate or contribute. Why? Why should customers offer their time and creativity? And what do they get in return? We know how the company or organization inviting collaboration benefits. But how do the collaborators benefit; what’s in it for them?
Evolving Innovation in Large Companies Through Web 2.0: No Goals – No Promise
The impact of Web 2.0 has lived up its early technology buzz, and has produced a new ‘economy’ based on sharing. Many firms are seeing these new technologies as facilitating innovation, but are unsure about how best to exploit them. This article is the opener to a series of pieces on how to achieve innovation using the enablers offered by Web 2.0.
Service Innovation: How to go From Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services
In this book review Paul Hobcraft looks at “Service Innovation: How to go from customer needs to breakthrough services,” a book by Lance Bettencourt, published by McGraw-Hill.
IP Strategy in the Innovation Process
This week InnovationManagement spoke with Jackie Hutter, Chief Intellectual Property Strategist of The Hutter Group LLC about her perspective and experiences with innovation management. Learn more about how and when IP counseling should enter into the innovation process (if at all) and what exciting new technological projects are in the works.