Monthly Archives: October 2009
In a recent post on the Spigit blog, Study – Collaborative Networks Produce Better Ideas, I described the research of Professor Ronald Burt. He found that employees who are better connected across the organization generate higher quality ideas than those with limited connections. Wider access to the ideas, knowledge, experiences and judgment of colleagues makes employees stronger in innovation.I posted this write-up in the Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn. One person made this observation:”Need to keep in mind that collaborative networks have little to do with technology. There are certain personality types that keep the organization connected. The proportions of those people in an organization is related to the specific corporate culture.”There’s a good alternative perspective. That really, the same people that connect via collaborative networks are those that would be doing it in an offline world as well. The rest of the employee population likely continues to work in … Continue reading
Thanks to a tweet from Richard Dedor, Chris Reaburn and I were last minute attendees at a Kansas City PRSA lunch session by Dan Schawbel based on his book “Me 2.0 – Build a Personal Brand to Achieve Career Success.”The talk was part of a career day for students interested in PR, so the average audience age was 20. As a result, Dan’s slant on personal branding was customized for the industry and audience life stage.The concepts he covered were nonetheless applicable to anyone working on personal branding. From talking with many people in mid-career transitions, however, they tend to be woefully behind on how personal branding applies to their situations. So for the 25 times 2.0 crowd, here are three suggestions customized for you:1. Volunteering for meaningful assignments with professional associations is a great mid-career internship.Dan highlights the necessity of internships for college-age job seekers. Mid career job seekers … Continue reading
Click above to Enlargeby Braden KelleyUnfortunately, more often than not I see examples of social media strategy gone wrong. So, it stands out when I see a company like Lufthansa doing social media the right way – at least with their MySkyStatus site. Let’s look briefly at why this is a good execution of a social media strategy:Easy to useGives the customer something of value with minimal effortThe value is something that people naturally want to shareWorks just as well with the competition’s product as with their ownGives customer a visual idea of what they are going to get before they invest any time or effortBrand impression is minimal, and no fear of mentioning the competitionIt gives the user a choice of how much information they want to discloseNow if we can convince the airlines that charging people for extra bags and other pointless fees are a bad idea (like … Continue reading
by Kevin RobertsTV will never die, YouTube will never kill it. YouTube (or its future manifestations) will never die either, TV will never kill it. We’re in the world of and/and, where possibilities are not mutually exclusive and creative exposure is based on merit.A couple of weeks ago, YouTube hit a billion views a day, and the inevitable happened. TV and YouTube are looking at working together. The Daily Telegraph says that the UK’s Channel 4 is looking at a deal to sell its own advertising around its own content on YouTube and sharing the revenue with YouTube (read Google). It’s like someone moving into your house, renting your living room unsolicited, and giving you a cut of the profits. And I say, good luck to them!!The power is with the creative champions, and YouTube have proven to be just that. As Steve Jobs said, “creativity is just connecting things.” … Continue reading
I recently made another trip to China. My purpose was to meet with innovation leaders in order to build further on my understanding of the Chinese innovation community and thus on my global perspectives on innovation.I had a couple of meetings and I did an improvised session at a company. Having met about 15 people and having spent 5 days in Beijing, I have to say that my expectations of what will happen in China grew even higher. The reason for this is the innovation people of China.They are hungry, bright and very eager to learn. Yes, they still have a lot to learn. And many of them do not seem to have the creative mindset and the ability to think in a more holistic way which I believe is necessary in order to make innovation happen. These are tough things to learn and many Chinese people will never get … Continue reading
Congratulations to the team at Invention Machine for hosting this week’s conference, Power to Innovate, at the Seaport Hotel in Boston. The theme of the conference centered around the Innovation Intelligence EcosystemTM and how companies can boost performance by coordinating information, communities, and innovation activities. Invention Machine’s premier product, Goldfire, is at the center of this ecosystem.”Goldfire is a unique innovation software platform that transforms ideas into commercial products – generating and validating concepts and making innovation a sustainable process. Designed with engineers, scientists and researchers in mind, Goldfire automates every day innovation tasks – from identifying a new market to developing a new product to improving existing product offerings – and empowering users with a repeatable process. Fusing proven innovation methods for generating ideas along with advanced technologies for accessing precise concepts from corporate and worldwide knowledge sources, Goldfire stimulates creative thinking and speeds inventive problem solving—helping product development … Continue reading
