Monthly Archives: October 2009
We are happy to bring you some of the key points and insights from Dr. David Matheson’s talk at the Optimizing Innovation Conference, which was held October 21-22, 2009 in New York City.Dr. David Matheson of SmartOrg conducted a workshop on optimizing profitable growth in uncertain times. He started by talking about how when it comes to innovation, you should always start with the following three questions:Does anybody care?Can we do it?Should we do it?And then explore some of the things that make innovation difficult to pursue:Time horizonPaybackUncertaintyRiskCompetitive LandscapeScale & ReachMission FitIncentive StructureMarket Adoption RateRegulationPast ExperienceUnknown UnknownsYou have to keep in mind that the mental models that people use for project evaluation, don’t work for innovation (assumption, hockey sticks, etc.).”How good are you at articulating your ignorance?”When it comes to evaluating innovation projects and building an innovation portfolio, you have to make people state percentage ranges (one person’s definition of … Continue reading
We are happy to bring you some of the key points and insights from Joe Boggio and Michael Steep’s talk at the Optimizing Innovation Conference, which was held October 21-22, 2009 in New York City.Joe Boggio, Director of Innovation Management Solutions and Michael Steep, Chief of Operations at Microsoft spoke about:Innovation at MicrosoftBuilding Open Innovation CompetenciesTechnology Enabled InnovationMike Steep sits on a team that looks at cross-Microsoft innovations. Innovation at Microsoft from amongst its 90,000 people, breaks down time horizons as follows:Present -> Product Groups (40,000 in product groups)2-4 yrs -> Microsoft Labs (maybe 200 in the lab environment)5-10 yrs -> Microsoft Research (800-1000)The challenge Microsoft has is leveraging their technical capability to lead the industry in a new way in the future, while working against the challenge of the short-term focus of each product group.There are three main innovation processes at Microsoft:Think Week – any employee can write a … Continue reading
We are happy to bring you some of the key points and insights from Rajendra Seksaria’s talk at the Optimizing Innovation Conference, which was held October 21-22, 2009 in New York City.Rajendra Seksaria, AVP, Business & Process Integration at AT&T spoke about successfully managing your innovation process. Before AT&T, Rajendra spent time with IBM Consulting during the early days:Discovering and developing staff with creative minds in order to capitalize on their knowledge and optimizing the innovation processImportant to create an environment where you can harness the best people (inside and outside)Streamlining process and minimizing riskDatabases are not the key to innovation – connecting people is”Many people cannot make the mental switch from protecting an existing business to creating a new business.”But at the same time, you also have to be careful not to abandon a dying business too early or you may not have the money to fund the new … Continue reading
We are happy to bring you some of the key points and insights from Patrick O’Riordan’s talk at the Optimizing Innovation Conference, which was held October 21-22, 2009 in New York City.Patrick O’Riordan, Global Director of Insights & Innovation at Anheuser Busch-Inbev spoke about balancing short, mid, and long-term initiative in your innovation pipeline. Patrick sits in the marketing organization and serves the top 10 markets and focuses on filling the innovation pipeline using a decentralized, lean organization. Recently, they’ve been opening up more to their peers and people outside of their organization.They’ve lost global share of thoat over the last 10 years (Diageo too), but they are gaining within alcoholic beverages at the expense of spirits. The Chinese are gaining a taste for beer and China is the biggest market (by consumption).Anheuser Busch-InBev has a ‘World Class Commercial Program’ focused on creating a marketing excellence culture – focused on … Continue reading
We are happy to bring you some of the key points and insights from a panel discussion at the Optimizing Innovation Conference, which was held October 21-22, 2009 in New York City.The panel topic was “Successfully Innovating in the Current Economy”. The panelists were Robert Repetto (Wyeth Biotech), Halina Karachuck (AXA Equitable), Randy Calson (Diageo), and Karen Morris (Chartis Insurance). I will bring you key responses from the panelists by question:Question 1 – “What challenges are you facing in the current environment?”"We innovate around whatever the world throws at us, so events won’t change our approach and how we build our model/systems/tools/etc., but what we focus on and the money we have available might change.” – Robert Repetto (Wyeth Biotech)”We are seeing resources being cut for innovation and growing risk aversion despite people “wanting” innovation.” – Halina Karachuck (AXA Equitable)”These are the best of times and the worst of times … Continue reading
If your organization confuses loyalty and tenure there is trouble on the horizon. If your business highly values tenure as a measure for employee evaluation, it is time for you to consider updating your talent management practices and procedures. So, what’s wrong with tenure you ask? In principle very little; but in practice virtually everything. Think of any organization that has mediocre talent, where management has frustrated you with consistent under-performance, or where cavalier attitudes and a sense of entitlement overshadow a focus on productivity and performance, and I’ll show you an organization that embraces tenure.An old business saying that sums-up my feelings about tenure goes like this:”The only thing worse than an employee who quits and leaves is an employee who quits and stays.”You see tenure is not synonymous with loyalty, but rather is a more often a measure of compliance and survival. Ask yourself this question: Who is … Continue reading
