Influencing Leadership

Focused on communicating to and influencing leadership (ex: “How do I get funding for this project?”)

The Case for Innovation and Talent Management

As globalization of the world economy continues and accelerates, we are beginning a process of fundamental change in organizational design that will take us to configurations we cannot yet fully imagine. However, we can already see enough to identify major opportunities for organizations that want to exploit the benefits of these changes, even as they unfold.

Ideascale2021-12-02T07:41:16-08:00January 5th, 2011|Categories: Organization & Culture, Strategies|Tags: Ideation, Innovation Culture, Innovation Management, innovation process, Innovation Strategy, intrapreneur, new technology, talent management|

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.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:06:34-07:00November 9th, 2010|Categories: Evergreen, Interview, Open Innovation|Tags: Best Practices, Business Model Innovation, business partners, business process, Collaboration, innovation challenges, Innovation Strategy, Interview, leadership, lessons learned, Open Innovation, open innovation strategy, partners, Teamwork|

Achieving Success in the Fuzzy Front End Phase of Innovation

Activities in the front end of the innovation process are often difficult to anticipate, overview and perform. Yet they are critical to successful outcomes of the innovation process. In light of a growing managerial interest in the front end, this article identifies key success factors for managing the front end, balancing acts which innovation managers need to address, as well as key contingencies affecting front end activities. Proficiency in the front end is indeed no easy task, but will have an enormous positive impact on performance for those firms that succeed.

Ideascale2021-12-20T18:22:24-08:00October 20th, 2010|Categories: Life Cycle Processes|Tags: front end of innovation, fuzzy front end of innovation, idea refinement, Ideation, innovation life cycle processes, Innovation Management, innovation process, Product Development|

Structuring Companies for Innovation and Operations

The appropriate structuring of companies is becoming more and more relevant as a mechanism for managing and enhancing their innovation capability. This article explores the concept of the Viable Systems Model (VSM) of Stafford Beer as a tool to better structure organisations for effective innovation and efficient operation.

Ideascale2021-12-01T15:44:00-08:00October 6th, 2010|Categories: Life Cycle Processes|Tags: ambidexterity, bureaucracy, Change Management, company culture, company structure, complex adaptive systems, enterprise innovation, hierarchy, Innovation Culture, innovation life cycle processes, innovation support, MNC, organizational change, organizational structure, organizational system, restructuring, siloing, Viable Systems Model, viable systems theory|

Vision, evangelism and innovation

What does it take to keep innovation going in today's turbulent times? One strong possibility is a compelling vision that transforms employees, partners and customers into evangelists for your cause.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-01T15:44:05-08:00October 5th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: coaching, evangelism, initiatives, innovation, stall, sustainable, teams, vision|

How social media tools are invigorating creativity: George Por

Social creativity is on the rise, driven by tools that enable us to create value through tweets, blogs, wikis, videos and other empowering technologies, says George Por.

Sarah Vandenberg2020-08-04T15:43:34-07:00September 15th, 2010|Categories: Interview|Tags: attention training, collective creativity, collective intelligence, communities of practice, community design, creative leader, Creativity, empowering, engage, executive seminar, focus, improve, Interview, learn, listen, measure, mindful, open spaces, paradigm of work, participate, personal advisory board, self-healing, social creativity, social media, social media audit, strategic, strategy development, Technology, transformation, value-creating relationship|

Innovate to Thrive – No Risk …No Innovation

Part two in a series of articles by Robert Brands discusses the need and importance of taking risks to achieve successful innovations. Since the high failure rate, organizations pursuing the practice of Innovation must have a tolerance for failure. The material is based on 25 years of hands on experience in the innovation space and the recently published book “Robert's Rules of innovation”.

Ideascale2019-11-28T07:46:22-08:00September 6th, 2010|Categories: Organization & Culture|Tags: best practice, choosing ideas, company culture, encouraging innovation, experimentation, idea assessment, idea management, Ideation, Innovation Culture, Innovation Management, innovation rules, risk management|

Tony Ulwick on Innovation Management

InnovationManagement spoke to Tony Ulwick, founder and CEO of Strategyn, Inc., and publisher of numerous articles on innovation management in the Harvard Business Review and the Sloan Management Review. What are his views on innovation management, what does he like about his job and what should the newly appointed innovation manager who is having a hard time getting the much needed support and buy-in from the top management do?

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:06:44-07:00August 31st, 2010|Categories: Interview, Leadership|Tags: business process, defining innovation, effective innovation, Ideation, innovation measurement, innovation process, institutionalization, Interview, interviews, problem definition, process improvement, process measurement, results measurement, thought-leader|

A more creative approach to educating future leaders

In economically and socially advanced societies, education is the leading industry going forward. Yet it continues to operate as if it is still 1950. If education is the imperative in our societies, it needs to use new techniques, new methods, new tools, and creativity to make the educational experience more rewarding. It is time for education to catch up with society once again.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-01T15:34:12-08:00August 30th, 2010|Categories: Leadership, Training & Education|Tags: Creativity, education, imagination, interactive, leaders, learning experience, online, Problem Solving, project managers, research, teachers, teaching methods, Technology, visual storytelling|

Keeping a Constant Flow of Innovations at BASF

InnovationManagement recently spoke to Dr Thomas Weber, Managing Director of BASF’s Future Business, about what it takes for a large company to maintain a constant flow of innovation ideas and a spirit of enthusiasm to feed the pipeline.

Ideascale2021-12-01T14:11:05-08:00August 23rd, 2010|Categories: Interview, Organization & Culture|Tags: BASF, Business Model Innovation, company culture, customer needs, Ideation, Innovation Culture, innovation metrics, Interview, interviews, market demand, market intelligence, new materials, product pipeline, unmet needs|

The New Dutch Economy: Innovative, International and Involving

The Dutch Innovation Platform, a think-tank established by the Dutch Government, recently released a report Nederland 2020, Back in the top 5 outlining the steps the Netherlands needs to take to regain its former position in the top 5 of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI). In this article Rob Blaaboer, contributing editor from the Netherlands, suggests a way to reach the New Dutch economy, i.e. innovative, international and involving, and how to get back in the top 5.

Ideascale2021-12-01T14:04:04-08:00August 5th, 2010|Categories: Organization & Culture|Tags: economy, education, entrepreneurship, europe, global competitiveness index, globalization, government innovation, industry innovation, innovation focus, innovation platform, innovation policy, internationalization, national innovation, Netherlands, public sector innovation, service innovation|

Innovation Strategy: Hurdles are for Leaping Over

The biggest hurdle to innovation is probably allowing hurdles to become insurmountable. The thing to remember, however, is that hurdles are for jumping over. The best method of jumping over innovation hurdles is through creativity and innovation.

Sarah Vandenberg2020-08-04T16:12:28-07:00July 28th, 2010|Categories: Strategies|Tags: challenge, challenge driven innovation, creative ideas, Creativity, disruptive innovation, evaluate idea, fear, hurdle, idea generation, Innovation Strategy, middle managers, Problem Solving, reward|

Recruiting Tomorrow’s Innovative Minds

Amid news headlines of financial crisis and unemployment rates, China is moving ahead, steadily bouncing back from any dips in the country’s growth during the last two years. Multinational companies in China are bracing for a renewed talent war of job-hopping and poaching, as economic growth accelerates. Although the talent war will likely emerge first in the East, it will spread to become global as demographic shifts become more pronounced. InnovationManagement interviewed Sam Kondo Steffensen, CEO of MillionBrains, to get his perspective on how talent should be recruited and managed.

Ideascale2021-12-01T13:59:15-08:00July 23rd, 2010|Categories: Blog Archive, Interview|Tags: employee retention, hiring trends, innovative hiring, intelligent recruiting tool, Interview, leadership, recognizing talent, recruitment, talent management, talent retention, team development|

Crowdsourcing 2.0: user-centred innovation meets social media

President Obama ‘crowdsourced’ a part of his political agenda with his change.gov initiative, which embraced the conversation and allowed users to identify topics that were important to them and vote on their relative importance. The addition of social media tools and philosophy to the mix resulted in a perfectly ordered list of the political issues that mattered most to US citizens.

Ideascale2021-12-01T13:51:15-08:00July 12th, 2010|Categories: Blog Archive|Tags: Collaboration, Communication, cross-industry collaboration, Crowdsourcing, government innovation, Innovation Management, innovation patterns, innovation trends, Open Innovation, public innovation, R&D, social innovation, social media|

To Innovate, Forget about what the ‘Experts’ Say

Experts tend to be notoriously wrong in their assumptions, especially regarding the impact of new technologies. So don't focus your strategy or innovation efforts on their perception of what the future will or won't look like.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-01T13:51:10-08:00July 6th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: expertise, inspiration, lessons learned, quotes|