Building an Imagination Machine: Exclusive Interview with Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller
Imagination is one of the least understood but most crucial ingredients of success. It’s what makes the difference between an incremental change and the kinds of pivots and paradigm shifts that are essential to transformation — especially during a crisis.
Leveraging Alien Thinking: Exclusive Interview with Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade
For the past decade, Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade, professors of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School, have studied inventors, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, and artists. These people, or “aliens,” as the authors call them, are able to make leaps of creativity, and use five patterns of thinking that distinguish them from the rest of us.
Interview with Erich Joachimsthaler, Author of The Interaction Field
I had the opportunity recently to interview fellow author Erich Joachimsthaler, the Founder and CEO of Vivaldi, one of the largest independent global strategy and business transformation firms, to talk with him about his new book The Interaction Field: The Revolutionary New Way to Create Shared Value for Businesses, Customers, and Society, to explore the important role that connections play in both business and innovation.
Interview with Stefan H. Thomke, Author of “Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments”
I had the opportunity recently to interview fellow author Stefan H. Thomke, the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School to talk with him about his new book Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments, to explore the important role that experimentation plays in business and innovation.
Innovation Programs & Entrepreneurship: Busting Myths
A lot of companies aspire to implement successful innovation programs but the programs fail surrounded by certain myths. A seasoned entrepreneur has bust those myths in the article based on his personal experience.
Interview with Scott D. Anthony, Author of Eat, Sleep, Innovate: How to Make Creativity an Everyday Habit Inside Your Organization
I had the opportunity recently to interview fellow author Scott D. Anthony of consulting firm Innosight to talk with him about his new book Eat, Sleep, Innovate: How to Make Creativity an Everyday Habit Inside Your Organization, which is his eighth book with his co-authors Paul Cobban, Natalie Painchaud, and Andy Parker. Congratulations Scott!
Book Review: Innovation Abyss
Dr. Chris DeArmitt says he’s tired of hearing people constantly talk about improving innovation methods and efforts, only to find that no real innovation is actually taking place. He also suggests that books on innovation are generally written by theorists and academics; people with no hands-on experience and no real value to contribute to the actual practice of innovation. So who can tell us what’s actually going on?
A Modern Reading of Drucker’s Classic “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”
Peter Drucker wrote Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the 1980s as a book that for the first time put innovation as a regular management tool, side-by-side with strategy and operations in a managed business. It offers little mystification of the term "innovation" and there is much of a practical approach to where innovation is made---or might be made.
Writing Proposals: A Handbook of What Makes Your Project Right For Funding
Whether you are a startup, researcher or consultant, at some point you may find yourself in a situation where you need to write a proposal for funding. Preparing proposals is a detailed process that takes lots of precious time and if you’re not familiar with the best practices for writing them, I dare say you may be wasting your time.
Creative Strength Training
Creativity: a highly sought-after skill which can be illusive in times of need. The big question is what can we do about it? Whether you’re a professional artist, dancer, comedian, scientist, inventor or entrepreneur, you will experience the highs and lows, inspiration, frustration, self-criticism, doubt, and problem solving within your personal creative process. In the end, we’re all bringing something new into the world and hoping it will find its place and be well-received by others.
Inspiring Business Lessons from the World’s Greatest Thinkers and Innovators
Otto von Bismarck once said, “Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.” In Paul Sloane’s latest book, Think Like an Innovator, you will learn from the struggles and accomplishments of 76 of the world’s greatest thinkers: artists, business leaders, geniuses, inventors, mavericks, pioneers, scientists and visionaries.
Foresight and Extreme Creativity: Strategy for the 21st Century
Judging by experience, most top managers and innovators feel that they are in a maelstrom of change. For some, the rate of change and the magnitude of the consequences induced are so high that they feel a kind of ‘Present Shock’ – a term coined by Douglas Rushkoff, building upon Alvin Toffler’s concept of Future Shock, to describe the psychological impact that occurs when too much is happening simultaneously.
15 Clever Thinking Tools to Create Winning Ideas Quickly
When faced with tricky business challenges, success is often linked with the ability to create new and meaningfully different experiences that are better than existing alternatives. Being different involves change, and implementing change and rethinking working practices is a big task for individuals and organisations.
A New Approach to a Longstanding Team Building Tool
After dedicating his professional career to teaching team building in companies followed by fifteen years of travelling the world to teach people about the DISC model, author and keynote speaker Merrick Rosenberg continues his mission in a new book that takes a more playful approach to personal assessment and learning behavioral differences.
Practical Guide for Decision-Makers and Problem-Solvers
Corporate managers and entrepreneurs alike are accustomed to making tough decisions and seeking out the best possible solutions to everyday problems. It comes with the territory, but it’s not inherently easy. In order to reach a leadership position or own a company you probably have a knack for decision-making, but when the future of a business depends on the outcome, it’s important to reduce cognitive biases and calculate carefully.
A New Disruptive Paradigm
Let’s face it, running a business in today’s world is a formidable endeavor: change and disruption have become the new norm. In an effort to keep up, innovation is at the top of every executive’s priority list and new innovation methodologies, training and strategies are available every day. But is all the hype really helpful while Western businesses and policy-makers are working under an outdated paradigm?
30 Minutes to Get Unplugged from the Innovation Hype
At a time when organisations are plugging more effort into innovation, Gerard Harkin has written a book called 'Innovation Unplugged'. Why? As he puts it himself, Gerard is on a mission to make innovation more effective by ‘unplugging’ from the hype, confusion and ‘gobbledygook’ that are so prevalent today, and return to the basic principles of innovation, and its role in enabling business growth.
Three Box Solution for Sustainable Innovation
“Before you can create, you must forget,” writes Vijay Govindarajan (VG), one of the world’s leading experts on strategy and innovation in his latest book “The Three Box Solution – A Strategy For Leading Innovation.” Why does VG say this and what can we learn from him?
Innovation & Ideation for Designers (and their Public)
In today’s crowded marketplace a new product is only as good as its packaging and marketing campaigns. How can you make it stand out from the competition? How can you update the design of your product without alienating your customer? The new book “Creative Anarchy: How to Break the Rules of graphic Design for Creative Success” provides ideation techniques and creative tools to push boundaries and expectations while preserving the function and message of the design.
How Surrounding Yourself with the Best Will Drive Business and Innovation Value
I spoke with Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, author of the new book “It's Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best” about the linkages between HR and innovation perspectives to drive business value. It is a great read and is in-line with some of my thinking about the role of HR in driving innovation success in large corporate organizations, so I wanted to have a chat and gather his thoughts.
Two Books for the Chief Innovation Officer
Organizations, embracing innovation, have taken the seemingly logical step of designating people to help “foment a culture of innovation.” Enter the chief innovation officer.
Innovation Support in Latin America and Europe: Theory, Practice and Policy in Innovation and Innovation Systems
This book analyzes innovation within the setting of Latin America,which is one of the most dynamic business regions in the world. The objective throughout the book is to narrow down different innovation definitions, explore the need for training innovation professionals, elaborate strategies and enunciate best practices for ensuring its delivery, and review innovation and knowledge transfer projects.
Book Review: Kill The Company
Is your company too bogged down in meetings, emails, policies, and procedures, leaving little time for big-picture thinking and innovation? Then you need to read Lisa Bodell’s book, Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution.
An Introduction to the Book No Straight Lines: Making Sense of our Non-linear World
In his book No Straight Lines: making sense of our non-linear world, author Alan Moore argues that humanity shifts gear when it demands fundamental change to its real world circumstances and that this moment stands as a turning point in the collective approach to the organisation of the economy and society as a whole. This deeply thought provoking work is relevant for innovation management professionals in all industries, as it: challenges how we think innovation gets done, and then offers up new viable alternatives; argues that innovation can be accelerated and costs reduced; demonstrates that we need a new vocabulary to describe non-linear innovation and finally, explains how innovation can also help build a more regenerative world.
Making Your Idea Matter
For many innovative people, the problem is not coming up with enough ideas, but getting attention for those ideas we decide to implement. To solve this problem, we need to invest more time developing persuasive stories that make an emotional connection with the people we're trying to influence. That's the message of Bernadette Jiwa's terrific book Make Your Idea Matter: Stand Out With a Better Story.
Steal Like an Artist: A Concise, Inspiring Guide for Creators
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon is a wonderful little book that is designed for anyone who is ever has had a desire to create something amazing, but doesn't know where to start.
Thinking About Starting Your Own Venture? Read Hugh MacLeod’s Book, ‘Evil Plans’
Are you a cubicle slave who longs to be their own boss, to take their Really Big Idea and run with it, unencumbered by the shackles of the corporate world? Then you need to pick up Hugh MacLeod's new book, Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination.
What is Best ‘Shape’ for Persuasive Ideas?
How can you 'shape' your idea so it stands out compared to everything else that's competing for people's attention, is persuasive and easy to support and share? The authors of a new book, The Impact Equation, share one effective approach.