Monthly Archives: May 2010
This is the fourth of several ‘Innovation Perspectives’ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘How should firms collaborate with customers and/or value chain partners to co-create new products and services?’. Here is the next perspective in the series: by Mike Dalton Innovate with Your Eyes Wide Open – Five Upfront Actions to Improve Any Collaboration Henry Chesbrough put it best, “You cannot meet your growth objectives if you ignore all of the smart people out there who aren’t on your payroll.” Hearing that, you can’t help but think you’re missing out on something really great if you don’t have a portfolio full of outside alliances. No wonder open innovation has become a “best practice.” Unfortunately, so-called best practices lead many companies astray. In fact, one study showed that more than 70% of attempts to collaborate fail when partners venture outside of traditional … Continue reading
The biggest problem with the leadership industry is found within the ranks of those who call themselves leadership advisors. There is nothing short of a voluminous amount of leadership information being published on a daily basis. The number of books, blogs, tweets, videos, webcasts, podcasts, etc., being pushed into the market is reaching truly overwhelming proportions. It’s been my experience that regardless of the subject, it is precisely when the noise becomes the loudest, that it’s most difficult for the consumer to extract quality and value from the market. The text that follows is meant as both a rebuke of my industry, and a challenge to my fellow practitioners… It is my hope that this post stimulates vigorous discussion, and a great deal of thought on how we evolve the practice & discipline of leadership, not for our own glory, but for the good of our clients and society as … Continue reading
A Kaiser Permanente Perspective by Jennifer Ruzek Liebermann (via THCB) “How do you inspire and enable innovation in a large organization?” That’s the question I grapple with daily as director of Kaiser Permanente’s health care innovation center. I’ve observed that it isn’t sufficient to have a dedicated Innovation Center, an Innovation & Advanced Technology Group, or in-house Innovation Consultancy design group – all of which Kaiser Permanente has. The real question to solve is: “How do you create a culture that enables innovation throughout an organization?” To explore answers to that, this week I am joining with physicians, nurses and design thinking, quality and innovation experts from the United Kingdom’s National Health Service and Kaiser Permanente for three days in South Devon, England, at the NHS Horizon Centre for Innovation, Education & Research in Healthcare, to share successful failures and best practices in innovation. One contribution the NHS already has … Continue reading
Anders Quitzau, an Innovation Executive at IBM forwarded an interesting presentation that gives a good overview of the many innovation activities that take place at IBM. How IBM Innovates (PDF) – Anders Quitzau Some keywords are open and global as summed up by this quote by Sam Palmisano (CEO): “We opened up our labs, said to the world, ‘Here are our crown jewels, have at them’. The Jam – and programs like it – are greatly accelerating our ability to innovate in meaningful ways for business and society” Anders, thanks for sharing this… Don’t miss an article – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group! Stefan Lindegaard is a speaker, network facilitator and strategic advisor who focus on the topics of open innovation, intrapreneurship and how to identify and develop the people who drive innovation.
This is the third of several ‘Innovation Perspectives’ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘How should firms collaborate with customers and/or value chain partners to co-create new products and services?’. Here is the next perspective in the series: by Mark Prus Collaborating With Your Consumers for Innovation… Good Idea? Bad Idea? I have been a Marketing Director, an Innovation Director, and a Market Research Director at a top tier consumer packaged goods company. So I guess I can answer this question from three different perspectives. If I wear my Market Research Director Hat, I want to believe that consumers have all the answers and if I design the proper research I can get at those answers. Alas, when it comes to Innovation that is not easily done. At our company Market Research was involved in very early stage Innovation work (to gain … Continue reading
The Customer Segment of “Me” by Ric Merrifield I think a lot of people have seen this collision coming, where so many people want to express their individuality, but so many of the things we buy are mass-produced – it gets harder and harder in many ways for people to express their individuality without spending a fortune. Somewhat of a third vector in this collision is the rise of a term called “crowdsourcing” where people look to the groups of people who buy or use their products (the term is broader than that, but that’s a common focus) for ideas on innovation and product direction. Chaordix is one company in particular that I have gotten familiar with and it is interesting to watch them introduce the term “crowd” into the business lexicon and help organizations understand the need to get in touch with their crowds, however big, or small, they … Continue reading
