Innovation: The Who's Where's and How's

The cat is so totally out of the bag that it is not even funny. Open Innovation is here to stay and service providers must respond in kind and able to assist our enterprise and media customers in this process. Why? because service provides are at the intersection of all relevant forces. Take the enterprise markets as an example. As they discover the twin powers of community building around their brands and Web 2.0-type mechanisms to converse with their communities, they are increasingly seeking holistic solutions from service providers that understand these dynamics best. Bringing these two disparate worlds together is not easy and requires entities that understand the power of combining evolving communications technology with applications. Further, it must be done in a consultative manner and via an interactive dialogue . In order to most efficiently do this, service providers must be conversant with Innovation methodologies that can accelerate the process of creating, advancing and ...

Like it or not as we grow doing what we do we create orbits around us. If one is working in Innovation one must take tangents to learn about Innovation management and the latest thought provoking ideas on how best to design our enterprise systems and people. While in this tangential process of discovery one realizes that there is so much we don’t know that needs to be explored and in this journey one creates an orbit of like-minded people on the same mission and with the same intentions. Or, are they? At the risk of using a cliché, all is connected and there are many relevant intersections to learn from. For starters there are economic, organizational and leadership theories. Further, there is psychology and brain research. There are also human nature theories and political economic theories. In short, there is lots of fertile ground to intersect and interact with via conferences, books, exec training, research papers, one-on-one meetings, videos, etc… Engaging in this process is quite...

I was asked to participate in an Innovation management survey the other day regarding the question of Transformation and how well companies handle this very important condition. I call it a “condition”, because transforming the way a company thinks (which by extension means transforming peoples mindsets) is a very difficult task that I have had some experience with. Someone once said that 80% of the World’s problems are caused by miscommunications. I believe this to be true. We humans are very imperfect when it comes to processing information. We need to synthesize and we need to have artificial constructs in order to make sense of things. Add to that cultural differences and we really are in difficult territory interpreting things. This leads to massive “lost in translation” issues. One of my deep insights in working in Innovation environments is that communications plays a massive role. How one communicates internally with colleagues differs extensively from how one communicates to ...

This weekend I was reading an interview in the Atlantic magazine with a Chinese money manager – Gao Xiging - who controls about $200 Billion of China’s wealth; wealth that is basically keeping our nation from collapsing and that was obtained from American’s out of control consumption. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/fallows-chinese-banker The interviewer was James Fallows, a fantastic journalist with immense international experience, specifically in Asia. The Chinese gentleman was educated in the USA as a lawyer and graduated from Duke University and had worked in the USA before moving back to China to take on this role. His vision therefore is a broad vision composed of US-based and Chinese perspectives. The interview was about the financial crisis that in large part was precipitated by us and our “pragmatic” American attitudes; a pragmatism that in my view is hurting us. What really caught my attention, however, was his statement about what our new President needs to tell the ...

I know it has been a long time… Google, as I understand, is brutal on us bloggers that do not keep up their blogging activity, so I guess search result may not be picking this up until I get going again. Time to catch up. In any case, I wanted to pick up on the theme from my last entry. That is, that nothing will forever by static and everything is becoming furiously dynamic. Witness the incredible pace of change and how fast things are happening. Witness how quickly wild capital can collapse economies and event countries. Witness how quickly the greed-based subprime mess/contagion is collapsing industries and how quickly old, stale, static leadership is being proven wrong, false, cruel and in the end- hyper-irresponsible. Exhibit one: GM. This albatross is where it is partly due to shockingly bad leadership totally devoid of foresight. It does not take a genius (or maybe it does) to figure out that GM was too big, had too many brands and had leadership unwilling to make the tough choi...

I know that for some of you the experience of opening up and using a Google phone is either: 1) fait accompli, for all those of you in advanced mobile markets such as Korea, Japan and to some extend Europe, or 2) who cares, for all of you that just want a phone to work as a phone. So, here is the thing, the last thing a Google phone does (and for that matter the iPhone) is make calls. As I have noted before, calling these "hand-top" devices "phones" is a total misnomer. These devices represent the future in so many ways that it is hard to qualify them. For starters, they are the source of some of the greatest innovations, such as the inventor of a microscope that attaches to the phone camera and can take and send pictures for the purposes of diagnosing diseases all around the World in ten minutes or less. http://www.popsci.com/ Part of innovation management is trying to develop "forevision" and watching my son's unfolding experience was quite revealing...

A few years back I met a writer of novels who had been on that journey for many years. He was young and was fortunate to have the funds to be able to go places to "get inspired". Fast forward a few years and a conversation I had with my brother in law who had the opportunity to meet Bruce Springsteen and talk about his creative process. It turns out, he needs inspiration as well. The creative process requires inspiration, period. And those involved in Innovation management need it as well. I think humans in general require inspiration and the first thing we need to acknowledge is that this is a thing we NEED in order to live to the fullest. I want to share a piece that I received from an inspirational speaker that I had the pleasure of meeting last year during our kick-off. His name is Eric Taylor and is the founder of Selfgrowth .com and empowerment group international. One of the things that I have decided to do is to gravitate to people that can inspire and Eric is one of ...

As I sit here in my hotel room in LA with the patio door ajar, I can feel that famous temperate and sweet weather that has made California a world destination and the creative cauldron that it is. On the occasion of the American Film Market tradeshow taking place here, I am trying to understand the impacts of the digital revolution on this industry. As I have said before I do not feel that the industry leaders are assesing these impacts in a methodical way. OK, so perhaps they are and I just don't see it and they are quietly trying to assess the synergistic impacts (or not) of all the technology-driven trends and facts bearing down on them. One interesting company from Europe doing just that, has created a web-based marketplace for the buying and selling of content (all of it destined to be digital). It is a "simple" B2B portal where you can easily preview any content that wishes to use the service (for a fee of course). It is sort of like an "Amazon" for conten...

Innovation is at times pressing the reset button and starting anew, rejoicing in the new energy that is thrust upon us when exploring with new eyes and minds wide open. Liberating the soul to explore new horizons and possibilities is part of the human condition; It is at the core of what liberty means. Once new conditions are unleashed and unshackled, everything seems possible. I had one of those moments this AM where I could feel this new energy; a sort of rebirth. Like it or not, the events of last night have shaken every social dynamic and construct; it is truly a colossal event full of portent and potential. My day today started at 3:00 am, as I needed to catch a flight to the West coast. After an instantaneous waking I performed a quick check of CNN and quickly discovered the ground shaking events of last night putting the first "black" president in office. I was elated not for reasons that most people would suspect; I was elated because the USA and the world needed to c...

I wonder if we will ever see the day when we have "The Oscar's for Teaching and Education". I was lamenting this very thing with my wife the other day over coffee. Or maybe, we can have "The Oscar's for the greatest Innovation of the year" In my experience, I find that a "life learning ethos" is a must in any society that wants to be at the front end of change and innovation, and critical to innovation management, creativity and - in general - creative thinking. I saw a great quote yesterday in the hallway of my daughters school from Gandhi. "We must be the change that we wish to see" It fits in that we need to revamp our ideas of what education is and what it is for. It fits because in order to advance our minds and views we need to start the process of becoming life learners with ourselves. I leave you with the top 8 recommendations from the aforementioned insitute available at: http://www.itif.org/files/TimelyTargetedTemporaryTransf...

Yes, here I go again... Watching and hearing Dr. Greenspan in front of Congress yesterday was truly a revelation in one sense and a confirmation of another. There is a wholesale detachment out there from our leaders that is very hard to comprehend given what is transpiring. It is as if they are operating in a different orbit, immune from the physical world. They speak and move as in a cloud, floating above the chaos and pain. It is truly remarkable. I understand how it can happen, though, it is that blissful human condition that comes when one is called an "oracle" and when one is drunk with power and hijacked by collective acquiescence . These things have vanquished historical leaders, and here again it has claimed its latest victim. There is something that Mr. Greenspan said yesterday that resonates with my prevailing ethos that in order to advance innovation thinking you need leaders with a different set of attributes and human assets, not rooted in ego-centered leaders...

So here we go again, from one extreme to another. We basically had eight years of one political party drunk with power ruining things for everyone. Now, based on the latest Wall Street Journal op ed ( October 17, 2008) we are already talking about the liberal super majority destined to get drunk on power and really ravage things for everyone. This could absolutely be true and could happen. Let us hope that they have learned the lessons from the last eight years and don’t. I hope that if Senator Obama wins he will have the intellectual fortitude (as he appears he does) to perform post mortems on what has happened and guard against abuse of power. The point, however, is that once again we the people are engaging in what I call “snappy polarity”. We swing from one extreme to the other as if there is no middle ground and no lessons to be gained from hybrid thinking and new proposals. I will stop here because this is not a political but an innovation blog. There is analogous behavior in bus...

So here is the deal...Innovation and creativity go hand in hand and the stimulation of creativity is becoming an area of focus in the mainstream think tanks. (I know, I sound like a broken Mp3). For the latest on this, please go to your latest issue of Harvard Business Review (October 2008 issue). If you don't have it, sorry, you are missing some good stuff. I am not pushing, HBR , mind you. What I am trying to push for is for the wholesome adoption of creative teaching in our society because in my job, I see a dearth of creativity in the people that are not in "creative" endeavors but are responsible for the heartbeat of companies. In any case, here is the link to the article for those that may want to download it (and pay for it). http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=R0810G But wait, there is more. For all those Executives out there that may just have arrived at this blog by accident and are trying to institute an innovati...

What can a lowly Innovation blogger say about what is going on in the World...not much, really. Our "leaders" are so embattled trying to prevent the next depression, that all voices have been drowned out now in favor of operational execution of a rescue plan that while innovative is seriously complex, complicated and time consuming to execute well. The crisis, unfortunately, needs action real-time, as in now, and not 6 months from now when the "reverse auctions" might finally be put in place. In my view this crisis elevates an issue that has been in my mind for a long time and it is the issue of Human nature and the lack of relevance we attribute to it. In very simple terms: As a nation rooted in puritanical principles, we seem to willfully dismiss and discount human nature as a factor in human actions. In this latest episode, we have ignored greed as a supremely relevant human instinct . Did we really think that the mortgage broker would NOT sell the wrong mortgag...

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Dr Atkinson last month. He is the founder of The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) based in Washington DC. The ITIF is a small think thank producing wonderful reasearch and advancing the cause of technology anb Innovation. One of its missions is to elevate the profile of technology and Innovation as a driver of economic growth and economic development. The following report is a must read for everyone in Innovation Policy circles: http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=34 Based on my conversation with Dr. Atkinson it appears that there people in government that do not believe -let me repeat - DO NOT believe that the greatest economic expansion of all time during the 90's happened - in large part - because of technology and Innovation. Apparently the Internet, digital telecommunications, Google, the wireless revolution, the Iphone...all of it happened becuase for other reasons and had nothing to do with new Innovations hitting t...

This morning during my drive to work I was listening to NPR where they were discussing – what else- the latest “Innovation”to come out of Pennsylvania street. As a congresswoman was being interviewed about her no vote, she mentioned the word “prudence” and expounded on it being part of the mid-western value system. In my world prudence is a universal value, but let us drop this line of thinking for now. Like everyone else, however, her analysis stopped there and did not take the next logical leap, which is how do we stimulate the prudent people; first as a way of thanking them for being prudent and second as a vehicle for fixing the economic mess that we are being told we are in. Being in innovation and involved in a daily process of evangelization of new ideas to internal and external audiences, I have come upon the realization that in many instances companies mobilize their entire "enlightened" energy to change the minds of the reluctant few which in may intances are CEO...

Lack of Leadership and Innovation thinking continues...watching the debate last week was a painful experience for me. Besides the total lack of respect that McCain exhibited to his counter part, there is so much to say about the lack of intellectual rigor that was so evident from our septuagenarian candidate. How can we still be talking solely about spending and framing the debate in a spender and not-spender polarity? Have our leaders so diluted the message – and ourselves - that we cannot develop the debate past the spending, no-spending mantras? Do we have to rescue everyone from celebrity-induced trances (including our supposed leaders) in order broaden the debate and make them understand that education and our children are NOT “expenses”. Have we become so deficient in understanding this? Education is an INVESTMENT and not an expense. Healthcare is an investment in our people and not an expense. Broadband connectivity is an investment in our knowledge infrastructure and not and ex...

Please, please, to all those with the power to create, affect change and inspire; to all those powers - be them metaphysical or spiritual- please give us real leaders and please give us the capacity to understand what real leadership is. Give us the capacity to think deeply and with great care. Give us the capacity to get past our self imposed celebrity filters and stop the analysis at: “she seems nice.” Give us the analytical mind-sets to be able to connect facts and not fiction. Give us the critical thinking skills and the brain power to go back and see what a disaster immature and arrogant un-leadership has been laid on our door step and that of the World. Give us the strength to not react to emotional triggers. More importantly, however: Give us the strength to look in the mirror and say to ourselves, I am responsible for the mess this country is in due to my own flaccid and indifferent participation. Let’s get active and demand more. Let’s demand an idea revolution and do nothing ...

In discussing Innovation and Information Technologies the other day with the Founder of Technology think tank, it occurred to me that we have a "branding" problem with IT and in general Technology. The fact is that the major economic expansions are driven by innovations in technology. Witness the 90's boom. While it led to a crash, it nevertheless created immense wealth for many. This fact however, does not seem to be known by the populace. Why? I theorize that it is because people have a hard time "connecting" the benefits of technology with their daily lives and their jobs. It is an imperative that we do a better job of making these connections for our customers. Apple is a great example of a "technology company" that has figured out (for now) how to translate technology into customer experience, i e., where technology meets the road, if I can borrow and change a known aphorism . The more important point here is the following: If we do a better job o...

So here is the deal, I need to buy a new car because – well - because my lifestyle is forcing me to. I have to have a car in order to survive in the suburbia-induced car culture that I have created for myself and family. It does not help that public transportation in Northern Virginia is as rare as a bicyclist hitting a bear and survives to tell about it. This actually happened in Montana yesterday. You don't believe me? Check it out: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/custom/offbeat/sns-ap-odd-bicyclist-vs-bear,0,26902.story The car that I have chosen to purchase is a Honda Fit, an environmentally-aware car responsive to the new world order consisting of high prices, a warming environment and immature politicians. It is actually a ULEV (ultra low emissions vehicle) car rapped in a small, sporty and utilitarian package. And, but of course, it is a Honda, a car of supreme quality. If you want to read about the car, click here: http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/hot_lists/car_shoppi...

Another great voice from the silent -but becoming louder - Innovation movement is raising the alarm. This time not from someone raised and protected in academic or think-tank circles, this time it is from someone that has been in the technology and innovation trenches for her entire career. Her name is Judy Estrin and was former CTO of Cisco and an entrepreneur , founder of four technology startups . Please check out the article below. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/technology/01estrin.htm?_r=1& adxnnl =1& oref = slogin & adxnnlx =1220620493-Tb12 xYB 2 EfoxHkvGFog ++w There has been an innovation slowdown. It is fact . Why? I do not really now. I theorize that it has to do with economic cycle maturity (in that we may have reached our economic and creative zenith), or our lack of attention and focus on the core issues, those being education, infrastructure and health-care . Maybe it is has been caused by the "crowding effect" an economics term that describ...

I hate to say it...but I told them so... The scene was a digital event in Hollywood about 1 year ago when I ventured the comment that there will come a time when digital technology will allow the making of entire movies without actors. The responses from the audience ranged from a resounding "no way" to "it will never happen" to "you are crazy" It never ceases to amaze me how dismissive people continue to be regarding the power of digital technology. It is a form of willful ignorance. Not unlike that displayed by our politicians that refuse to adopt new ideas becuase they simply do not understand them. So, here we are a year later and a new technology/product called Aguru Dome offers exactly what I postured 1 year ago; the ability to make real-life digital doubles so real that we are almost there in terms of not needing actors. Interestingly enough, I have no seen a lot of the traditional media carry this news item. I actually found it on a BBC web site ...

On the occasion of my travels to Europe (for work and pleasure) I find myself thinking about perspectives and how much travelling can help reset thinking and aid in Innovative creation. The mere fact of being around new historic surroundings and observing differing human behaviors can be so refreshing. Case in point were two observation. The first was an older couple here in Budapest. They were in their mid 60's early 70's. I saw them in a park this past Sunday sitting side by side at the base of a statue staring into their individual mobile phone screens. They did this for the longest time so they were either playing games or reading some kind of email/text. The length of time that they were doing this was uncanny and a behavior that I have never seen in the USA. Like I have asserted many times, mobile broadband is the future and here in Europe things are a bit more advanced than in the USA, including adoption at all ages. The second observation was more pedestrian and not f...

I know my audience is interested in this sort of thing, so I am including a link to the Forum on Global Leadership and its final report. I was a contributor to this report. http://www.ibm.com/ibm/globalleadership/pdf/online_FGL_white_paper_final.pdf For those who reeeally know me, you know that the international/global dimension is front and center for me in many respects and for many reasons. The subject of my last entry had lots to do with the global dimension as a vector of influence in creating true, cultured leaders. The initiative for this Forum came directly from the C-Level's of IBM. I congratulate IBM for doing so and reaching out to those that want to make a difference. This final report was created using the theories of open innovation, including reaching out to the "global-idea-bank" that ALL of us are part of. Pleease, please, please...share this report with everyone that you can: CEO's, friends, family and colleagues. It is of the utmost importance to do...

I know, I know...It has been a long time... There is so much to say and so much to comment on that I basically shut down for a few weeks. Add to that vacation and business travel schedules, family duties,etc...Well you get the drift. One though that has congealed on my mind has to do with this issue of "leadership" and "leadership development". I get flyer upon flyer and email upon email from just about every top Business school (Harvard, UVA , Duke, Wharton) pitching my these "leadership development" seminars that - incidentally - range in price from $6k to $25K. Not an insignificant amount for a weeks' time. So, I am thinking: what does leadership development mean? In my view - and this is strictly my opinion- it means FIRST having an open, global, sympathetic and empathetic mind. Without this basis, I ascertain, it will be very difficult to "develop" leadership qualities. This basis- call it world aware- can ONLY be achieved by experien...

If looking for inspiration is your thing, then look no further than the SouthWest corner of Utah. The natural beauty inherent in the national parks here rival any man made creation anywhere, anyplace. The splendor of this land is truly beyond belief and makes one think very hard about the meaning embedded in the red-colored canyon walls. This beauty can only and truly be experienced by hiking deep into the canyons. Here one finds riveting peace and quiet once one pulls away from the throng of tourists going for the quick hikes. A peace punctuated by overarching silence and only the sounds of the natural World sans humans. Peace being what it is; something that we all want, is an interesting subject more so when one sees a billboard on the side of the road asking the following: "Can peace be achieved without prayer?" The implication that peace cannot be achieved without it is really upsetting to me and drove the writing of this blog. We humans have the power to use what God, ...

Now, I find this very interesting. In this years ranking of the top 10 States, 6 are in the East, 2 in the West and surprisingly 2 in the Middle (west, sort of middle). I can understand Massachusetts taking the top spot with all its academic resources. It is surprising to see Maryland with the second spot and Colorado with the third spot. Interestingly, California (the mother of Innovation for the USA came in 4 th place.) Virginia came in 6 th place in my opinion due to its addiction...I mean dependency...on the defense industry. It is a known fact that Virginia has ceded the ground on biotech to Maryland, perhaps another reason for the standing of each state. Lots here to digest and percolate and I will not play editor on this one any longer... http://www.milkeninstitute.org/tech/ Ok, one more.... Interesting to note that California- while not taking the top spot- is still the greatest source of new ideas. So what does this fact say about California? Could it be that the creative,...

Here is a fantastic example of innovative thinking. By totally shifting their perspective, these two researchers from Duke University have uncovered a brilliant new way of understanding fuel consumption and where we ought to focus our efforts. A very simple shift from "miles per gallon" to "gallons per mile" opened up an entire new way of seeing and finding solutions. Here is the link: http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/news/larrick-soll-mpg-0608.html?utm_source=ee_newsletter0608& utm _medium=email& utm _campaign=executive_education Next time you are confronted with some spare time, recast old ways of thinking into new ones just for the fun of it.; you will be amazed at what you can come up with. One example for my industry, Telecom. Old thinking: "We provide telecommunications infrastructure services to industry and consumers." New Way of thinking: "Our technology and communications infrastructure enables the World's creative impulses." Pe...

Well, yes, here I go on this thing about creativity. I have to post this piece because, again, I feel that as part of the new renaissance that we are living through, the subject of creativity is gaining currency everywhere you look. The latest example is the venerable HBR (Harvard Business Review). In the April 2008 issue of HBR , they interview Twyla Tharp, the World famous choreographer on the subject of creativity. Here is the link. Please have a look. It is a great interview. http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?_requestid=25852&value=BR0804&ml_subscriber=true&ml_action=get-article&ml_ issueid =BR0804& articleID =R0804B& pageNumber =1 So as not to bore everyone with my own crazy ideas (not so crazy, I am finding out) here is an excerpt from the interview. "I think everyone can be creative, but you have to prepare for it with routine. There's is no other way around it. It's an absolute mistake to think th...

Being on the road and participating in many conferences and forums, I come across many with lamentations on the way things are going: Kids don’t read books anymore, the music industry is under attack, our attention spans are reduced, no one is reflective anymore, on and on… I tell them yes, you are right; things are changing, but that is the nature of evolution. We are evolving as we speak –like it or not. I go on to say, this very exchange of ideas, this very moment is evolution at its core. There is proof of this emerging everywhere. The digital natives think differently than most of us digital emigrants. Brain research is starting to emerge that shows how kids are using different areas of the brain to process thoughts. Further, their patterns of technology-use are drastically different. A few examples: increasingly they are cutting the cord on fixed line telephony, they rather text and IM than email, they are skimmers of information and bore quickly with long form text, they are def...

So there I was on my long bicycle ride of the weekend. It was a very hot Saturday with temperatures in the mid 90’s with a humidity index in the mid 100’s. I was making my way to my daughter’s soccer game that was to start at 12:30PM. I had started at around 10AM when the heat was still manageable and the route that I had picked and that I knew well, called for an ascent from the Potomac River in Washington DC into the suburbs of Virginia and past the infamous beltway. (The rise in elevation is not easily discernable in a car but - trust me - it is quite discernible in a bicycle in a hot day.) In any case, as I was trudging along and struggling up a particularly steep climb, two riders passed me as if I was standing still. (I was so proud of my progress until that point). Based on their attire (both wearing the same) it was fairly obvious that they were pro’s or semi pro’s After passing, I decided to try to keep up with them to see how far I could go. As we moved along I noticed that I...

Being in technology and believing deeply in the power of the same to change the World, many times I encounter those not so convinced and that challenge my beliefs by assertions and lamentations that society is worse for it. Further, having the privilege of having grown up in other countries and cultures, I field many criticisms from abroad from the many friends and family that I have left behind. These people are a constant sounding board, and are not shy about expressing their view of the World and the shortcomings of the USA and its foreign policy practices. From there, by extension, of course, other related subjects emerge such as: imperialism, over-consumption, climate change, over-use of technology, etc... Basically, when one visits - as I am now doing in Chile - one is exposed to provocative discussions from relatives and friends frustrated by the state of the World that many blame on the existing political elite reigning in the USA. The refreshing thing is that they do it acknow...

Believe what you want about climate change, but the science is hard to refute. Changes are happening and while the connection between human activity and changes has not been proven, it is hard to not acknowledge that we are having an impact. Sort of like the cigarette-is-bad-for-your-health debate of decades ago…Boy, were we ever wrong about smoking. In any case, what brings me to the arduous task of transferring fuzzy thoughts into actual readable text that my scarce audience can read, has to do with individual actions and the inherent value they possess to drive collective action and from there power to effect change. You see, I believe that the sooner we can aggregate these individual actions into a cohesive whole, the sooner we will get started in achieving change. Easy, right? Well, no, very difficult indeed. Changing people’s behavior has to be up there with managing the universe in terms of difficulty. I have been thinking about this for awhile because I have taken it upon mysel...

Ok, so how more official can it get? I don’t know about you, but for me The Economist ( www.economist.com ) is as reputable a publication as they come concerning business theories and when they write a story about the benefits of psychology and the positive impacts on business, one must pay attention. Now, I know that I have written a lot about the need for “soft” skills and how we have overdone the analytical side of business management. I am not a management theorist and don’t pretend to be one, but some things just make so much sense that we really don’t need to wrap an academic study around it. I try to write on things that track with nature and soul which in turn sort of validates them- I know, kind of a tortured philosophy. This particular piece appeared in the May 3rd to 9th edition of The Economist titled: Inside a Deal. It is on page 88…Go ahead, check it out. It is further confirmation that “soft” skills are needed in order to succeed well. The key work being: well. It turns ...

Last week I had the immense privilege of attending the Milken Institute’s Global Summit in LA. The event was well attended to the tune of about 3000 attendees and 400 panelists of which I was one. I have attended and participated in many of these types of summits but never have I experienced such diversity in the attendees. Given Michael Milken’s background in finance, it was not surprising to see lots of attendees from that sector. Nevertheless, the profile of all the others was rich with diversity to include academia, NGO’s, technology, education, energy, agriculture, media, medicine to name just a few. It was disheartening to feel the pressure of the all the World’s problems as they were presented during the conference. But it was also highly enlightening to see so many people trying to make a difference. The place was crawling with Nobel laureates such as Mohamed Yunus of Grammen Bank’s fame. Or Craig Venter, an innovator that wants to solve many problems via synthetic biology, a n...

A large part of Innovation thinking is to be open to inputs from the World around us and in a sense be hyper-engaged with the same in order to derive valuable insights. Didn’t someone say, “Things happen for a reason?” Isn't the reason to teach us? This point has been brought to me many times courtesy of life experiences that for most people are just life’s passing and go unnoticed and unexamined. The other day I had such an experience that taught me a good lesson and motivated me to write this entry. As I have noted before in this blog, it has been my philosophy to look for insights wherever one can find them. In fact I have made a practice of recording these insights on the go via personal recording devices, journals, photography, etc…In no other time in history, by the way, has this been easier to accomplish. If one is open to receiving, accepting and exploring, digital technology is making it easier by the day. Case in point is the mobile phone. If you permit me a di...

It wasn’t too long ago when we were patient with the response times and overall experience when accessing and using the Web. This is absolutely no longer the case – at least not with me. As broadband speeds increase, so does the customer expectation for speed and ease of use. For technology and service providers the challenge comes from the fact that every incremental increase in customer expectation demands a marginal increase in the performance of the next iteration of a web site, product or service. In essence, one is always behind the customer perception, as it were. In my view this is the way it should be. It challenges us to Innovative- always. That said, in doing so Web designers and service providers need to be aware of the “permanency” of evolving expectations and outright intolerance for certain web-site functionalities that detract from the overall experience. This insight was brought to me courtesy of my less-than spectacular-experience utilizing the Ticketmaster web-site t...

Ok, so now you have been in Innovation Management awhile my friend blurted out over dinner and wine…So, invent the killer product of the future, he posited. You know what the trends are and you now know how to build products and develop new business models... What is holding you back? My answer to this challenge is simply this. While I may have the desire, passion and intentions to build new products that address emerging trends, not everyone in the product planning cycle are of the same idea and neither are companies organized to truly utilize innovation management theories to their fullest. Most companies still have old product development tools based on gating systems and six sigma mandates that at times can kill product innovation. Innovation management, at least my version of it, is a super fast continuum with ideation at one end and product pilot testing at the other. The idea is to try new ideas and concepts and “fail them fast”, as it were, so as not to waste inordinate amoun...

Scientists say that we humans share approximately 98% of our DNA with Monkeys. If one analyzes every human feature one would also discover that the differences between us are very small and consists of hyper small variations on the same theme. We are very much alike; a little more length here, a little broader there, bigger eyes here, smaller eye lids there, a little darker, a little whiter, and on and on. Further, the differences in facial features are characterized by even smaller variations, really. And so it is in business. Excellence in service delivery is characterized by the very small things. I am of the opinion that if one really wants to make a difference in the innovation front one needs to make sure- first and foremost- that the basics are taking care of in the delivery of products and services for the simple reason that this is where the majority of service differentiators can happen. It is not enough to have an innovative service or product without innovative service deli...

I have always asserted that for the most part companies focus too much on certain leadership traits over others. You know, the hard skills over the soft skills, the deep analytical skills over intuitive skills. This is not to say that these skills are not valuable; they really are. But - I know, the use of " but" is passe and should not be used - the fact is that all organizations needs all skills at all levels. This is one the core learnings from Innovation Management. For a succesful Innovation practice to flourish, you need to create an intersection of diverse traits and skills. So, what prompted me to write this entry? The fact that I am sensing that there is a new awareness out there about these issues as I am reading many articles in the Harvard Business Review (HBR), for example, that seem to be searching for new answers regarding leadership, collaboration and innovation. Could it be that we are reevaluating how we define leadership and how we find new leaders? If HBR ...