Why Crowdsourcing is Critical to the Future of Education

Educational institutions have the reputation of being slow-moving behemoths, but this label is undeserved. According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the educational sector worldwide is more innovative than it gets credit for.

4 Ways Your Travel Brand Can Innovate with the Help of the Crowd

When you’re thinking about innovation in the field of travel and transportation, more horsepower, hydraulics, and fuel efficiency might come to mind. But with the pace of change increasing rapidly, it’s difficult to imagine how government organizations and private companies will be able to absorb some of the most exponential and impactful changes that are sure to come in the next decade.

Cut Costs in Health Care by Treating it Like Pollution

We seem to have a problem. Health care costs are doubling every thirteen years in the US, (Regalado 2013). By 2030 they will devour a third of the US federal budget (Regalado 2013). In spite of this, the US was ranked last in 2011 by the Commonwealth Fund in quality of health care among similar countries (Wikipedia 2013). We can sense the impending disaster and it seems the hope is that our usual panaceas for all problems, policy, technology or better education, will someday deliver us from our pains. But how?

Reinventing the Consulting Business Model

The traditional consulting business model is based on two principle ideas: (1) hiring people (top talent if possible) and (2) charging clients a fee per hour or day for gaining access to this talent, its expertise and/or manpower. Depending on the type of consulting or the brand, the pendulum swings more towards focusing on providing, and buying on the customer side, the more sophisticated expertise or the simpler manpower.

The Limits of Industry-Centered Strategic Thinking in an Era of Convergence

A decade ago, when purchasing a new cellphone,informed customers would likely choose between Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, or perhaps even Siemens. Today, youngsters, hipsters, techies and executives alike opt for Apple, Samsung and LG. What happened?

Getting a Better Return on Your Innovation Investment

In its latest Global Innovation Excellence Study Arthur D. Little provides hard evidence on which innovation practices separate top innovators from others within and across a wide range of industries. The study zooms in on the relationship between innovation success - based on impact of innovation - and innovation performance - based on a comprehensive framework which breaks down innovation activity into different areas and looks at adoption of best practices in each – and is available as an online toolkit. The toolkit is readily accessible and provides valuable feedback on innovation performance as measured against peers, including opportunities for improvement.

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.

How to Deal with the Trust Problems Created by Open Innovation

Securing good ideas through open innovation processes and crowdsourcing is spurring differentiation and growth for companies that get it right but is it also storing up a trust problem? The development of ideas in an open environment is driving some creatives away. Maxine Horn of Creative Barcode, lights up a road to ‘open protection’ and a richer ideas environment for the enterprise.

What We Can Learn From MIT – It’s All About Impact not Income

MIT has an incredible reputation, is an amazing brand, and is connected to numerous tech transfer successes. It is true that the system in the US is very different to that in Sweden: The laws are different, there is more money available in most parts of the US system, the domestic market is larger and the culture is very different. However, this is not say that Sweden cannot learn from the example of MIT, and apply whatever is feasible.

Defining an Innovative Firm – It is Much More Than Technology

Innovation is very much the word of the moment. We hear it used in science, the arts, in politics, in society, and often for good reason. For example, the creation and building of the European Union, is one of the most innovative – and indeed frustrating – processes in history. So what actually is innovation? Read more in this article by IMD professor Georges Haour, IMD, one of the world's top business schools.

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.

Collaboration is the New Hot Thing

Collaboration is the new hot thing. The idea is not new and one can trace its origins from the Silk route, to the old Italian Shipping cluster, to the Medicis, to the evolution of different industries, to the new age of globalisation to the new age we see today. However, we live in a business age with hype cycles and buzzwords serving as adrenalins. Everybody is talking collaboration. The new impetus has come because of three main reasons.

Why Business Model Innovation Matters

Managers frequently rely on innovation to drive profitable growth. In many industries new products and services are fundamental. However, although product and service innovations are and have been important to firms for decades, competitive pressures and the search for increased profit have pushed business model innovation higher on the priority list.