News

Wearable Technology – From Geek to Chic?

Wearable technology – smart watches and smart glasses especially, but others too – are being touted as the next big thing. And the race is well and truly on with giants such as Apple and Google entering the field but also smaller companies such as Pebble and mc10. The challenge will be to overcome the geek image much wearable technology has had until now and make us ‘want’ another device. Specialist applications may indicate the way forward at first, especially in sport and health.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:40:27-08:00February 20th, 2013|Categories: News, Trend Alert|Tags: smart watches, Technology, trend, trends, wearable technology|

Crowdsourcing Government?

Governments could be described as the largest and longest running crowd-funding schemes in existence. Sadly, whereas crowd-funding is seen as innovative, flexible, responsive, bottom up, transparent, enabling – among other things; governments would be hard pushed to receive similar accolades. However, times are changing and governments are beginning to adopt some of the characteristics of crowd-funding and crowdsourcing. But there is a long way to go.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:22:49-08:00January 9th, 2013|Categories: News, Trend Alert|Tags: Crowdsourcing, government, public sector innovation, transparency, trend|

Case: Open Innovation in the Biorefinery Industry

Last year I came in contact with the co-founder and advisor of the Biorrefiniria Brasil open innovation community, José Augusto T. R. Tomé. He started an interesting venture within the chemical sector, a venture focused on biorefinery. Read further to learn more about his vibrant innovation community and open innovation in general.

Ideascale2019-11-28T09:23:31-08:00December 7th, 2012|Categories: Interview, News, Open Innovation|Tags: bio-industries, case study, chemical industry, green innovations, Innovation Management, Interview, interviews|

Is Cash becoming Obsolete?

Finding ways to make it easier and more convenient to spend money is the aim of many innovations in the area of electronic payments. A number of innovative electronic payment alternatives are all vying to become the new standard in electronic payments and displace the long time standard, the card with a magnetic strip. Any of these new technologies could make the need to carry cash obsolete.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:12:37-08:00December 5th, 2012|Categories: News, Trend Alert|Tags: cash, economic innovation, electronic payments, financial innovation, mobile, Technology, trend, trends|

6 Mega-forces of Change that Affect Innovation

Today, there are six essential forces that are driving the changes that are occurring across much of today’s world. While these may not be the most pressing issues for your company, chances are that some combination of them will have a significant influence on your situation, on the strategic choices you make and thus on your approach to innovation.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:12:27-08:00November 28th, 2012|Categories: News, Strategies, Support for SMEs, Trend Alert|Tags: 24-hour news cycle, acceleration, business development, Business Model Innovation, business strategy, business trends, Change Management, commoditization, Competition, digital innovation, digital revolution, digitization, enterprise innovation, global business trends, global market, global markets, global trends, globalization, information distribution, innovation trends, manufacturing, outsourcing, social media, speed of innovation, wikileaks|

Engagement Is Key to Business Performance: Digital Innovation as Catalyst

Booz&Co wrote in their article “The Social Life of Brands” on Strategy+Business that the value of a brand is linked with the relationships it has with its customers, creating and retaining them. For marketing, its fundamental task is managing these relationships. In a recent research by Gallup the results were striking, a 240 percent boost in performance was achieved when both employees and customers were enaged. This is exactly, in a highly technological driven business environment, digital innovation is the catalyst that improves engagement and provide means to manage relationships better, faster and in a cheaper way though digital.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:09:21-08:00November 23rd, 2012|Categories: News|Tags: automotive industry, branding, case study, Competition, competitiveness, customer engagement, customer experience, customer experience management, data analysis, digital era, digital innovation, digital platform, Employee Engagement, feedback, in-depth article, marketing, marketing campaign, social media, Volvo|

Artificial Meat: A Solution to Growing Demand?

With the global population estimated to reach 9 billion by 2050 the ability to feed everyone is a growing concern. Scientists are warning of food shortages if we maintain our current diets leading many to advocate for more people to become vegetarians, as vegetables are much less resource intensive than a diet which includes animal proteins. But perhaps there is an alternative- laboratory or in-vitro meat.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:41:38-08:00November 7th, 2012|Categories: News, Trend Alert|Tags: 3D printing, artificial meat, food & beverage, food shortage, sustainability, trend, trends|

Chinese Consumers to the Rescue

Between now and 2020, Chinese consumers will become the main driver of China’s economy, and probably also the global economy. The opportunities are enormous, worth billions of dollars as per capita incomes treble, and disposable income tops $10 billion per year. Meeting Chinese consumers’ needs is perhaps one of the greatest opportunities ever; it is also one of the greatest challenges, if we are not to deplete the planet disastrously; nor create debt fuelled bubbles, or high inflation.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:41:39-08:00October 31st, 2012|Categories: News, Trend Alert|Tags: china, consumer, economic trends, economy, trend|

Open Innovation Also Means Engaging the Inside

An article on the Financial Post website triggered me to write this article. A lot is being written about open innovation and much of them focus on, as the article says “spurring innovation by bringing the outside in”. Why should you engage your employees? They are the beginning of the equation that results in profitability and happy shareholders. Michael Porter said that employees are the major source for a company to increase competence and profits. Take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers and your profits. Open innovation can be the ‘mechanism’ to do so.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:41:25-08:00October 26th, 2012|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, News, Open Innovation|Tags: employee driven, Employee Engagement, Innovation Culture, Open Innovation, profitability, R&D, Stakeholders|

Future Funerals

Taking care of the dead is an important part of any society, and the practice reflects the prevailing culture of the living. Social change is therefore reflected in funeral changes and some of the disruptions to its industry.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:33:29-08:00October 17th, 2012|Categories: News, Trend Alert|Tags: environment, funeral, green innovations, sustainability|

Technology Helping to Prevent Falls

Embedded intelligence and sensors are set to revolutionise many aspects of healthcare and support for older people. Some of those technologies, which are wearable, ingestible, responsive and communicative, herald significant changes and benefits ahead, and could reduce the growing costs of falls among older people.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:27:21-08:00October 10th, 2012|Categories: News, Trend Alert|Tags: healthcare, istopfalls, smartpills, Technology, trend|

3D Revolution Speeding Up

We first discussed 3D printing in 2008, highlighting potential applications, the increasing range of materials being used, and the growing complexity of products which could be printed. That progress continues creating both opportunities and challenges the impacts of which companies need to assess across their product ranges and supply chains.

Ideascale2021-12-03T14:44:17-08:00August 15th, 2012|Categories: News, Trend Alert|Tags: 3D printing, disruptive innovation, disruptive technology, trend|

How to Court Serendipitous Network Intelligence

Most innovators understand what serendipity is. Dictionary.com calls it "an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident." But have you ever heard of serendipitous network intelligence?

Ideascale2021-12-03T11:20:56-08:00June 7th, 2012|Categories: Book Review, News|Tags: back pocket questions, information curator, innovation, intelligence, network, newsfeed, Reid Hoffman, serendipity, value|

Big Data & Digital Technologies Transform Businesses but Lack Capabilities

According to McKinsey’s first annual survey on the topic, most C-level executives say that the three key trends in digital business are big data and analytics, digital marketing and social-media tools, and the use of new delivery platforms such as cloud computing and mobility. These form the strategic priorities at their companies. However, they also report some tough challenges. Nearly half of respondents say their companies’ investments in digital initiatives are too small to deliver on their goals.

Ideascale2021-12-03T10:32:26-08:00June 1st, 2012|Categories: News|Tags: analytics, big data, business development, case study, digital platform, digital technologies, emerging technologies, social media|

IBM CEO Study: Openness by Social Media Is Key Enabler to Organizational Success

According to the IBM CEO study conducted amongst 1,700 CEOs from 64 countries and 18 sectors, Open CEOs' identify openness enabled and supported by social media and technologies, as a major influence on their organization and its success. These organizations perform better because they are utilizing the collective intelligence, are more agile, able to act quickly to gain higher profitability and growth.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:10:10-07:00May 25th, 2012|Categories: Enabling Factors, News, Open Innovation|Tags: case study, CEO, Communication, customer engagement, Employee Engagement, openness, social media, social networks|