What Do Innovators Look Like?
Crowdsourced innovation is a tactic used more and more often by government organizations as well as enterprise corporations. This means that innovation teams need to add a new skill set to their resumé: communications.
Crowdsourced innovation is a tactic used more and more often by government organizations as well as enterprise corporations. This means that innovation teams need to add a new skill set to their resumé: communications.
The election of 2016 will certainly be one for the history books. Regardless of your political leanings, there was one sure thing to celebrate during this election cycle. The Innovate Your State Fix California Challenge—a crowdsourcing campaign aimed at promoting public participation in order to determine ways to improve government—had an initiative on the ballot in California!
Innovation at best is like watering a nice healthy plant, making it grow and blossom; however, watering without the plant is just getting the dirt wet. Nothing happens. Currently, all over the world and with more than 100 major innovation themed events yearly, complete with great photo opportunities for local and national leadership, most nations have little to show for these super expensive efforts. It seems that we talk a lot about innovation and find ourselves stuck in the suffocation of great ideas. And, suddenly the Trump nation erupts on a high note!
For many years, companies were convinced of the competitive advantage of closed research and development. They jealously protected their intellectual property behind closed doors and dramatically revealed it to the public after years of development. This old model has since been replaced by open innovation.
Innovation may have a different meaning for every individual, but the true key to thinking outside the box lies in a diverse mindset. Allowing diversity into a business plan can be the secret to succeeding and achieving greatness. Don’t just take my word for it; evidence backs it up too.
The Global Competitiveness Report assesses the competitiveness landscape of 138 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity. Switzerland, Singapore and the United States remain the three world’s most competitive economies.
Innovation that Matters examines and ranks 25 cities’ readiness to capitalize on the inevitable shift to a digital economy. It carves out critical trends every U.S. city leader can learn from and offers recommendations local leaders can adopt to strengthen their region’s digital competitiveness.
For those of you who read my articles on a regular basis, you will know that I tend to focus on driving innovative activities and cultures within large, corporate organizations. Today however, I would like to focus on the value of innovation to growing, mid-market companies. For the purposes of this article I will consider mid-market companies as anywhere from 300 – 3,000 employees. This is just an arbitrary number, but it provides context for our discussion.
Which companies lead the world in turning creative ideas into protected, commercialized inventions? The IP & Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world's premier provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, answered that question today with the announcement of its fourth annual 2014 Top 100 Global Innovators list. The program honors the 100 most innovative organizations globally, as measured by a series of patent-related metrics.
The discussion around integrating Western Management with Eastern Philosophies has gained considerable traction, and for good reason - both Europe and China have undergone significant transformations during the past 30 years and collaboration has never been more relevant than in the post-recession context. In this exclusive interview, Professor Richard Li-Hua discusses the key considerations around this topic and indicates how innovation managers can benefit from this integration.
The practice of collaborative innovation brings the wisdom of the crowds to bear on the unknown: unpredictable scenarios where expert intuition leads people astray. The fiscal cliff that today confronts the U.S. and world economies qualifies. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores how practitioners can help their organizations navigate this Black Swan event. The message? Act now: collaborative innovation was made for this scenario.
Today's University is a rich resource for companies seeking game-changing technological breakthroughs. In this in-depth article Melba Kurman looks at the benefits of open innovation partnerships between companies and American university researchers.
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.