innovation

Communicate to Innovate: Tips from the World of Improvisation

Effective communication is at the heart of innovation: harnessing insights from customers, partners and co-workers, sharing ideas, building upon points of view, advocating and gaining support for one’s innovations all require razor sharp communication. Interestingly enough, communicating effectively is a two-way street. The sender and receiver of information are both responsible for landing it appropriately, and both sides need to actively participate. Two simple, but powerful behaviors that can help increase the efficiency of communication are listening and declaring.

Ideascale2021-12-07T15:36:53-08:00December 17th, 2015|Categories: Leadership, Organization & Culture|Tags: Communication, customer engagement, Employee Engagement, innovation, soft skills|

10 Ways to Reduce the Innovation Failure Rate

You are not able to stand still in this fast paced business environment, but most of the time innovation fails. Innovation process-expert Robert Cooper shows that of every seven new product/service projects, about four enter development, 1.5 are launched, and only one succeeds. Innovation is so difficult to master, indeed. I love to share with you five reasons why innovation goes wrong and give you ten ways to reduce your failure rate of innovation.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:22:25-07:00December 4th, 2015|Categories: Enabling Factors, Idea Management, Leadership, Strategies|Tags: back end of innovation, Best Practices, Business Model Innovation, customer engagement, Failure, fuzzy front end of innovation, goal setting, habits, Ideation, innovation, innovation process, Innovation Strategy, innovation success, invention, lessons learned, mindset, motivation|

5 Great Ways to Ignite Your Team’s Energy

There are always periods when, as a manager, you might feel that your team members aren’t as productive as they could be, when their morale seems a little low or when they don’t seem as fully engaged with their work as you would like them to be. This can lead to them leaving the company if the situation becomes really bad, which costs the company both money and time spent either hiring a replacement or training a current employee to replace them.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:22:30-07:00October 29th, 2015|Categories: Organization & Culture|Tags: Communication, Employee Engagement, innovation, innovation team, leadership, management, strengths, Teamwork|

5 Traits that Make a Good Leader

Whether leaders are the captain of a team, the head of a household or the president of a company, their quest usually revolves around one thing: success. Quality leadership skills are often hard to measure on a daily basis, but their long-term effects are obvious and undeniable. Leaders are a lot of things and contain many traits, but there are five essential habits that, if practiced and pursued in an honest and consistent fashion, can help turn anyone into a leader and enable them to create their own success.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:22:34-07:00September 24th, 2015|Categories: Leadership, Organization & Culture|Tags: Communication, generosity, habits, innovation, integrity, leadership, passion, soft skills, Success|

Tips to Achieve an Innovative and Differentiated Startup Project

This is the era of rapid changes and disruptive innovations, and no startup, irrespective of size or industry, should be launched without a high degree of innovation and differentiation. This article is about the why, what, and the how— the systematic way to achieve this, based on the long international experience of the author, Dr. Stephen M. Sweid.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:20:59-07:00July 21st, 2015|Categories: Enabling Factors, Support for SMEs|Tags: business development, business innovation, business model, business plan, Change Management, creative thinking, disruption, disruptive innovation, divergent thinking, incremental change, innovation, Problem Solving, risk-taking, SME, smes, startup, Success, team diversity|

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.

Ideascale2021-11-16T13:40:43-08:00July 13th, 2015|Categories: Strategies|Tags: business model, Business Model Innovation, consulting, in-depth article, industry innovation, innovation, staffing|

Rethinking The Way We Generate Insights

Identifying new sources of growth has become increasingly more complex given the myriad of alternatives that new business models, strategic partnerships, advanced technologies, and other disruptive mechanisms offer us. Taking a systematic approach to finding these opportunities means veering from our usual mode of operations to a much more speculative mindset where the learning journey is as important as the destination itself.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:03-07:00June 30th, 2015|Categories: Idea Management, Organization & Culture|Tags: business growth, challenge, community, Creativity, discovery, growth opportunities, growth strategy, improvisation, innovation, insights|

Mind Mapping for Business… Are you Serious?

Time and time again I get asked and challenged on an age-old issue of whether or not mind mapping is, at worst, just another fad, a ”nice to have” or, at best, a real value-adding benefit that has a serious place within a business or organisation.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:19-07:00March 23rd, 2015|Categories: Strategies|Tags: business innovation, innovation, innovation tool, innovation toolbox, mind mapping|

4 Ways To Encourage Innovation In Your Startup Business

As the market becomes saturated, it becomes difficult for many businesses, especially startup enterprises, to stay on top of their competitions. Technology has paved a way for firms to revolutionize their marketing and management strategies. Another tried and tested way to infiltrate their specific markets successfully is to inspire innovation within their offices, from employees to their brand.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:19-07:00March 18th, 2015|Categories: Idea Management, Strategies, Support for SMEs|Tags: challenge, competitive advantage, customer engagement, downgrade, Employee Engagement, enterprise innovation, entrepreneur, Failure, innovation, resources, small business, SME, startup, Technology|

Be Ready for the Next Major Technology Shifts in Your Industry

Technological and industry shifts are important drivers of innovation. Look no further than the advent of the mobile broadband Internet and the shift to the era of intelligent, connected devices. Even though shifts are difficult to anticipate, they often lead to fundamental business changes. Staying up to date with these changes is vital.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:20-07:00March 11th, 2015|Categories: Strategies|Tags: Change Management, collective intelligence, Crowdsourcing, customer engagement, experimentation, innovation, Open Innovation, strategic partnership, technological advancement, Technology|

How a Safe Workplace Can Lead to More Innovation

Maintaining a safe workplace is obviously very important if you want to avoid costly accidents and injuries on the job, but it has several other benefits as well. In this article, Tom Reddon highlights a few reasons why keeping a safe workplace makes good business sense.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:21-07:00February 24th, 2015|Categories: Organization & Culture|Tags: construction, Employee Engagement, employee satisfaction, HR, innovation, workplace safety|

Adaptability and Collaboration for Sustainable Business Growth

The four simple axioms in the “The Manifesto for Agile Software Development” express the core values for getting work done efficiently. In the last chapter excerpt of Agile Innovation we looked at individuals and interactions as well how to create a rapid working prototype. Today we’ll continue discussing the next elements: collaboration and carrying out change in a corporate setting.

Ideascale2021-12-06T07:48:03-08:00January 29th, 2015|Categories: Agile Innovation|Tags: agile innovation, agile innovation book, Change Management, co-creation, Collaboration, Competition, culture, education, ethnography, Ideation, innovation, Innovation Culture, serialized book, Teamwork, training|

Starting at Sprint Zero: A Better Way to Innovate

How is Agile changing the world? Let’s begin with a bit of background. If you are new to Agile Software technique, then the term sprint zero, as used in the title of this chapter, may not mean much to you, but for Agile practitioners it means the initial phase of work where you sort the project out to make sure you start properly when you’re about to tackle a large programming endeavor.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:27-07:00January 19th, 2015|Categories: Agile Innovation|Tags: agile innovation, agile innovation book, Change Management, Competition, Failure, innovation, IT, serialized book, software, sprint zero|

6 Mind Mapping Uses for Personal Productivity

With the increase of, and dramatic improvement in, mind mapping software and its emergence as a value-adding toolkit conveniently available for use on our computers, laptops, tablets, etc. signifies that mind-mapping can be used within an every-day working environment. Jamie MacDonald takes a closer look at six uses for mind mapping in business situations that most of us engage in on a frequent basis.

Ideascale2021-12-06T07:43:09-08:00December 23rd, 2014|Categories: Idea Management, Strategies|Tags: Ideation, innovation, innovation management software, mind mapping, Product Development, productivity, project management, software|

Learning From Innovation Hubs: Fluidity, Serendipity, and Community Combined

Innovation hubs are popping up from Addis to Amsterdam and Boston to Bangalore. Fuelled by ideals of openness, community and collaboration, hubs aim to be the next orgware for innovation—beyond business incubators and R&D labs. Managers, policymakers and investors have taken note, but are grappling with how to engage. What makes hubs so appealing and can they teach innovation managers anything new?

Ideascale2021-12-06T07:43:03-08:00December 15th, 2014|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Strategies|Tags: Collaboration, community, design thinking, incubator, innovation, innovation hub, openness, team diversity|