Lean Start-Up. Rapid Iteration. Fast Cycle Times. Moving faster and cheaper when creating new products and services ideas is the name of the innovation game. Here’s how to do it like never before. A few weeks ago, Jeff Bezos voiced a dirty little secret about disruptive innovation: it’s not just about creating groundbreaking new…
Disrupt or be Disrupted… Here are Five Business Model Strategies & Tools for Digital Innovation At some point every industry and every organization will face disruption. From retailers like Blockbuster and Borders Books to tech giants like Nokia and Blackberry, seemingly untouchable brands have been caught off guard by rapidly changing business landscapes. Your…
Promoting a culture of innovation focused on business growth starts with providing practical tools that give anyone the opportunity to innovate in whatever they do. (Article based on the book, The Invisible Advantage) It’s one thing to say you want a culture of innovation. It’s another to actually get everyone truly innovating. We hear it…
In large organizations, Innovation come from Intrapreneurs. Here are the 4 most common characteristics that entrepreneurs exhibit within companies. Intrapreneurs are these unique individuals or entrepreneurs working within your company who promote innovative products, ideas, systems or services – thus the ‘intra’. These employees could be sitting in any function within the organization and are…
Sustained competitive advantage comes from innovating how we innovate. That’s the essence of real innovation. In the past, new products and technologies consumed the vast majority of the innovation air-time. That’s no longer the case. The most innovative companies today realize that competitive differentiation comes as much from how they innovate as it does from…
It’s been a year since I wrote 6 Ways to Create a Culture of Innovation for FastCompany. Since then, the article has received an incredible amount of social media sharing, including over 11k shares on LinkedIn alone. Why such a big response? Simple answer: We know the soft stuff is the hardest stuff to manage. While there isn’t a…
Even before it goes on sale, Walter Isaacson’s The Innovators is a bestseller out of the gate. Here’s why the biggest business book of the year is indeed a compelling read – and how it falls short of truly innovating the topic of innovation. I’m like most techno-geeks. Anything with a battery turns me on.…
Mainstream business culture penalizes women for being women. But “feminine” skill sets are the not-so-secret ingredients for what it takes to innovate in today’s digital world. When it comes to business, women get screwed. Women make 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. Only 25 CEOs in the Fortune 500 are women, a mere…
What Types of Questions Push Thinking and Inspire Innovation? Pushing thinking to find breakthroughs and innovate is as much about asking the right questions as finding the right answers. CIO Insight recently published a great summary of 10 questions that can be used for leapfrogging mindsets to foster innovation: 1. Accentuate the Positive “What experiences…
Why do we avoid uncertainty and surprise? Most leaders avoid uncertainty. Most organizations hate surprises. It makes sense. Predictability and control are the unquestioned holy grails of management. But could we be overlooking an essential and critical ingredient of breakthrough leadership and innovation? For example, every management book on Amazon with the word “surprise” in…