One of the things I always get asked about from the companies I work with is how to manage their innovation resources. Should they bet big on an unproven, but possibly breakthrough idea? Or focus on improving the products that they already know their customers want? Or maybe leveraging existing resources into a new market? This is an important question. ...

The former CEO of Herman Miller, Max DePree said, “I’ve got so many MBAs, but what I need is a poet. Poets are the original systems thinkers.” This poetic mode is the critical perspective for a human-factor and design business – and Herman Miller is the most apt precursor in the design thinking revolution, so they knew the value of this ...

ISPIM Announces the 2016 Grand Prize Winner for Professional Innovation Management.

A lot of innovation research is still based on asking people what they think, often in highly unrealistic research environments. Asking the wrong questions, or maybe the act of asking questions itself, risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and killing the really big ideas off before they have a chance.

Disruptive innovation is a good thing, but disruption to the innovation process is not. Our research shows that innovation communication breakdowns lead to significant disruption in the innovation process – yet this is an entirely avoidable situation. This article is the third of a three-part series exploring some of the findings from the latest IX Research report, "The Role of Communication in Successful Innovation."

Is a common innovation language really that important? Our research indicates that it is: 2 out of 3 innovation practitioners has experienced difficulty communicating about innovation in the past year, and for those that do, these breakdowns occur on a regular basis. This article is the second of a three-part series exploring some of the findings from the latest IX Research report, "The Role of Communication in Successful Innovation."