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

It occurred to me the other day that our business institutions are being run via the famous triple C's; command, control and communications. This insight came to me after a conversations I had with a friend when he asked me the question: Is your company accommodating your creative energy? I was surprised by the question and more surprised by the answer, which could be an entire chapter in an Innovation book. While this command structure works well in the field of battle, it does not in an environment where people are asked to exercise their creative impulse. This old-new relic from our military complex does - I dare say- the opposite; it refrains humans from fully exploiting their creative wellspring. Companies are simply not structured to accommodate the ever expanding energy of creative individuals. I am not sure what structures are the best in this regard - there are many - but this is one of the very things that the Innovation movement is trying to address. I think Google has i...

My last Saturday AM was very atypical. The call came in at 6AM informing me of a devastating earthquake in Chile where most of my family resides. I have lived through many earthquakes and thus I am intimate with all the facts around them. I have studied them, analyzed them and like most Chileans, have learned to live with them and dare I say dismiss them. This call from a Chilean friend was different. “This is a big one”, she said with a disconcerting shake in her voice as she also announce its magnitude “an 8.8.” Upon hearing these facts I went into emergency response and frantically and simultaneously turned on the TV, mobile phone and my PC. I accessed Facebook and twitter and started to seek information via the web, text, TV, all mediums. I called on the fixed line to try to reach my parents, both in their mid 80’s. I redialed several times; it was still early I told myself, so the lines will probably not yet be saturated. On the third try I did reach them. All is good and the fami...