Innovation

• Most Topular Stories

• August’s Top Ten Innovation and Marketing Articles

  Blogging Innovation

  Blogging Innovation

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:05 pm

• Need example of a personal story of enchantment

  Guy Kawasaki

  GuyKawasaki

  19 Aug 2010 | 10:19 am

  In the last few weeks two companies have released services that enable you to take tweets and turn them into a newspaper or magazine format: Paper.li and Flipboard. Alltop is a great source of information for both Paper.li and Flipboard newspapers. If you’d like to learn how to do this for Paper.li, click here, and for Flipboard, click here.

• 10 second creativity

  Innovation CHEF

  Chef

  16 Aug 2010 | 5:44 am

• The End of Management - Wall Street Journal

  The Phoenix Principle

  Adam Hartung

  31 Aug 2010 | 10:24 am

• The power of self-organised teams

  Brainstore

  Nadja

  22 Aug 2010 | 12:54 pm

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  Guy Kawasaki

• How to Make Paper.li and Flipboard Rock

  GuyKawasaki

  24 Aug 2010 | 6:47 pm

  In the last few weeks two companies have released services that enable you to take tweets and turn them into a newspaper or magazine format: Paper.li and Flipboard. Alltop is a great source of information for both Paper.li and Flipboard newspapers. If you’d like to learn how to do this for Paper.li, click here, and for Flipboard, click here.

• Need example of a personal story of enchantment

  GuyKawasaki

  19 Aug 2010 | 10:19 am

  I would like to include a few personal stories of enchantment in my next book. I am looking for examples of how people, products, services, organizations, ideas, or causes swept you off your feet. Specs: Written from your personal experience, not an external, academic view. 150-200 words Ideally, all the basics would be in your essay: who, what, when, why, and how. As an example, here is how something enchanted me: The second most enchanting moment of my life occurred in 1983 when Mike Boich showed me a Macintosh prototype. (The most enchanting moment was meeting my wife.) This life-changing…

• Best Twitter Client for IPhone and iPad

  GuyKawasaki

  16 Aug 2010 | 9:43 pm

  After searching for months, I’ve come to the conclusion that Twitbird is the best iPhone and iPad Twitter client. If you’d like to see why, check out my post at the American Express Open Forum.

• How to get a free copy of my first book, The Macintosh Way

  GuyKawasaki

  2 Aug 2010 | 10:01 am

  Information wants to be free, and I just freed some. I got the rights back for my first book, The Macintosh Way, and I’ve made it available for free here. Hope that you find it useful.

• How to Find Freedom

  GuyKawasaki

  28 Jul 2010 | 9:25 am

  Let me confess: I’m addicted to Twitter and email, and my addiction increases the more I have to do something important like write a book. Luckily, I stumbled across applications called Freedom and Anti-Social that really help. I explain how they works here at the American Express Open Forum. If you’re have a tough time prying yourself away from online fun, they could really help.

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  Principled Innovation

• 3 questions for #asae11

  jeffpi1@gmail.com or @pinnovation on twitter (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!)

  31 Aug 2010 | 2:11 pm

  As I did last year following #asae09 in Toronto, I am bypassing the #asae10 post-mortem in favor of looking ahead at the questions I hope we will be discussing actively by the time we reconvene in St. Louis next August for #asae11.  It should come as no surprise that these are big strategic questions, and I hope they spark many powerful conversations for organizations across our community in the months ahead. 1.  What is it going to take for associations to thrive over the next decade?–The next ten years will be decisive for many associations, if only because our entire society will…

• What I’ll be doing at ASAE10

  jeffpi1@gmail.com or @pinnovation on twitter (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!)

  8 Aug 2010 | 6:17 pm

  Wow, it’s been more than two months since my last blog post, so I’m hoping I still remember how to do this!  Seriously though, it’s been a very busy and challenging summer for me, and it has passed by so quickly, there are only ten days left before I leave for ASAE’s Annual Meeting (ASAE10) in Los Angeles.  So, before I run out of time, as I have done the last few years, I wanted to share/promote some of the activities in which I’ll be involved in L.A., for P.I. Blog readers who will be there in person, as well as those of you who will be following along…

• Social is a way of being

  jeffpi1@gmail.com or @pinnovation on twitter (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!)

  26 May 2010 | 3:11 am

  Associations do not become social simply by deploying social technologies.  Social is a strategic mindset that values imagination and innovation at the edge of the organization at least as much as (if not more than) any activity taking place at the core.  Social is an inclusive orientation to value creation that welcomes all forms of generative contribution from a variety of contributors.  Social is an interface with the world, an intentional way of connecting with and activating distributed networks through common purpose and shared passion. In short, social is a way of being for the 21st…

• Business model workshop registration open!

  jeffpi1@gmail.com or @pinnovation on twitter (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!)

  27 Apr 2010 | 8:01 pm

  I’m pleased to announce that public registration for The P.I. Business Model Innovation Workshop is now open!  When I first announced my plans to present the workshop three weeks ago, I wasn’t quite ready to accept registrations, and some other logistical pieces were not yet in place.  Now we’re ready to go, and I hope you will seriously consider joining me for what I promise will be a powerful learning opportunity, unlike anything you’ve experienced before in the association community. As a P.I. Blog reader, you will receive a $100 discount off the published…

• On April 22, let’s hack associations!

  jeffpi1@gmail.com or @pinnovation on twitter (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!)

  11 Apr 2010 | 5:34 am

  On April 22 at the True Reformer Building in Washington, DC, we’re going to hack associations.  What do I mean?  It’s actually very simple: 1.  You bring your great idea for how associations can do things differently–smarter, simpler, better. 2.  You collaborate with colleagues from across the community to develop your idea further and design ways it can used in associations everywhere. 3.  You present your idea to all unconference attendees and the very best ideas, as chosen by the group, will receive one of six $1,000 seed grants to create a prototype or design an…

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  In Pursuit of Elegance

• It's a Mad App World (A Modern Fable)

  31 Aug 2010 | 6:45 am

  The following cautionary tale of the times is based on a recent factual occurrence. Lessons learned, as relayed to me by the protagonist, are included. Names have been changed to protect confidences. ______ Once upon a time, a small business owner named Karinne wanted to create a mobile app based on her consulting and training tools. Her methods and tools had brought her great success. In fact, she had published a successful book about them. Her business was booming, and she wished to capitalize on the growing market for mobile apps. Karinne looked around for a skilled,…

• The 10 Best Travel Tips

  22 Aug 2010 | 9:14 pm

  A large part of my work as a business author is speaking and conducting workshops all over the world, which of course entails a good bit of travel. Like most author/speaker/consultant types, I step on a plane several times a month. Still, I’m a relative newbie, having just under four years of experience. While I’ve collected a few do’s, don’ts and lessons learned along the way, the best list of travel tips I know of is the one by Dan Pink, author of four bestselling books, including his latest hit Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates…

• How to Rekindle the Entrepreneurial Spirit

  16 Aug 2010 | 9:53 am

  Over the past year I’ve had the chance to work with a number of small to medium sized companies, mostly private. Coming from a background of working mostly with much larger, publicly-traded organizations, the change has been refreshing. Things happen quicker, ideas flow more freely, and the atmosphere is in general more invigorating. Still, I’ve detected a sentiment, a feeling, sometimes verbalized, but mostly unvoiced. As business begins to boom, or, more accurately, re-boom, and the danger of survival is replaced with success and more abundant resources, it goes something…

• Ideacide (or 14 Ways to Kill Creativity)

  11 Aug 2010 | 8:39 am

  Many years ago I played a dirty trick on a group of managers inside a particular business unit of a fairly large organization. Through my consulting work I had discovered that a group of about a dozen individuals of the command-and-control type were causing some fairly serious issues.In one part of the operation, I discovered that a number of ideas by customer service representatives had simply never seen the light of day—ideas that would have made customers’ lives easier. In another part of the operation, some extremely lucrative opportunities had been dismissed, each with a…

• 3 Ways to Escape the Competitive Herd

  5 Aug 2010 | 8:30 am

  Every once in a while, I read, hear or see something that stops me, grabs me and pulls me in, simply because it’s somehow different. And once in an even greater while, that something is so good I’m struck with creative envy, wishing I was the creator of that something. Such is the case with Youngme Moon’s (aptly titled) book Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd. Youngme Moon teaches one of the most popular courses at Harvard Business School, but Different is less a business book than it is a thoughtful meditation on what it means to be truly different,…

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  Blogging Innovation

• August’s Top Ten Innovation and Marketing Articles

  Blogging Innovation

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:05 pm

  by Braden Kelley This year I thought I would experiment with a Top Ten list at the beginning of each month, profiling the ten posts from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Blogging Innovation. So, without further ado, here are August’s ten most popular innovation or marketing posts: Are You Shifting Into High Gear with Social Media? – by Holly G. Green 5-step Process for Business Transformation and Organizational Stability – by Kamal Hassan 25 Definitions of Innovation – by Hutch Carpenter 20 Reasons Why the Best Ideas Come in the Shower – by…

• No Strategy – No Innovation

  Blogging Innovation

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:04 pm

  by Jeffrey Phillips You’d think with all the fawning press many companies and executives receive that defining a clear, concise corporate strategy would be a “no brainer”. After all, don’t we hire and pay executives exorbitant sums due to their vision and strategy? You’d think that with the hordes of “management consultants” available from a wide array of highly compensated consulting firms that well-conceived strategic plans would simply flow like water from these founts of knowledge. And let’s not forget the virtual library of books on…

• Why Businesses Fail

  Blogging Innovation

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:02 pm

  by Mike Myatt Why do business fail? Given the current state of the economy, I would say it’s a safe bet that many of you have pondered the answer to this question as we watch companies close their doors on a daily basis. The unfortunate reality is that well more than 50% of all new business ventures fail within the first three years, and especially during tough economic times, many mature, even once category dominant companies fail over time. In today’s post I’ll share my thoughts as to the real number one reason why businesses fail – It’s not what you think… I don’t believe…

• September 2010 Sponsor – Brightidea

  Blogging Innovation

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:01 pm

  Thank you to Brightidea for sponsoring Blogging Innovation for September 2010. Brightidea, the leader in cloud-based innovation management solutions, recently announced major customer campaigns that are changing the future of how companies and government innovate. The US Department of State recently awarded a major contract to Brighitdea, and the high-profile campaign by GE also utilizes Brightidea’s software to reach a wider network of innovators for their GE Ecomagination Challenge: Powering the Grid. Using Brightidea’s class-leading Innovation Pipeline Management platform to…

• Essential Skills for 21st Century Survival (Part 3)

  Blogging Innovation

  31 Aug 2010 | 9:03 pm

  Network Weaving by Venessa Miemis So people learned from the angels of God how to build bridges, and therefore, after fountains, the greatest blessing is to build a bridge and the greatest sin to interfere with one. – Ivo Andric Our first two topics in this twelve part series were Pattern Recognition and Environmental Scanning, both practices for enhancing the opportunity to create meaning from information and to assist in decision making. The next topic looks at how others can contribute to this process. Network Weaving The above quote was used by Lee Bryant during his recent presentation…

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  Innovation Weblog

• Do you encounter resistance to creativity at work? Try guerrilla creativity

  Have you ever been on a course, say project management, leadership or even assertiveness and then wondered why you had such a hard time dealing with colleagues or perhaps loved ones when you returned?

• Visual Meetings is a field guide to visual techniques for group creativity

  In his fascinating new book, Visual Meetings, David Sibbett makes a convincing case for why teams ought to use visual techniques for group facilitation.

• Twig: A promising idea capture tool for Mac OS X

  Eastgate, the developer of the powerful Tinderbox information management and idea capture program for the Mac, has released a preview version of a lighter-weight application called Twig.

• Stephen Shapiro explains why open innovation is the new paradigm of work

  Stephen Shapiro explains the thinking behind open creativity and why he wrote a book and created a card deck called Personality Poker.

• A more creative approach to educating future leaders

  In economically and socially advanced societies, education is the leading industry going forward. Yet it continues to operate as if it is still 1950. If education is the imperative in our societies, it needs to use new techniques, new methods, new tools, and creativity to make the educational experience more rewarding. It is time for education to catch up with society once again.

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  Knowledge@Wharton

• Financial Services on Aisle Nine: Wal-Mart Gives Banks a Run for Their Money

  1 Sep 2010 | 2:07 pm

  Despite being pilloried by the public lately, a banker's lot can't be all that bad. At least, that's what Wal-Mart executives must be thinking. Over recent months, there has been a flurry of announcements from the world's largest retailer about the expanding array of banking products sold at its U.S. stores. Company officials insist that their main aim is to reach the "unbanked" and "underbanked" with the type of low-cost services that cemented Wal-Mart's reputation as a retail giant. So do traditional retail banks on Main Street USA have reason to worry?

• Computer Compatriots: Taiwan and China Draw Economically Closer

  1 Sep 2010 | 2:07 pm

  Despite the diplomatic and military twists and turns between China and the island of Taiwan, the two countries are fast becoming virtually one in the vital field of information technology. The extent of this collaboration is stunning: Taiwanese factories on the mainland make more than 85% of the monitors for the world's desktop computers, for example, and more than 90% of all laptop computers. Knowledge@Wharton looks at the pace -- and the challenges -- of this rapidly evolving economic integration.

• Anatomy of a Merger: 'Hostile Deals Become Friendly in the End, Right?'

  1 Sep 2010 | 2:07 pm

  When Roche Holding acquired full ownership of Genentech last year, the $46.8 billion deal was the culmination of a more than 20-year relationship between the Swiss pharmaceutical giant and the Silicon Valley biotechnology company. In a recent presentation at Wharton San Francisco, Steve Krognes -- a former Roche executive who is now senior vice president and CFO of Genentech -- talked about the pharma company's decision to pursue the merger, efforts to raise capital amid the beginnings of the 2008 recession, and the aftermath of the deal.

• VC 'Super Angels': Filling a Funding Gap or Killing 'The Next Google'?

  1 Sep 2010 | 2:07 pm

  A new crop of small, nimble and tech-savvy venture capitalists are trying to bring back into vogue a more entrepreneurial, forward-thinking and risk tolerant model for investing in start-ups. Dubbed "super angels," these firms and individual investors fill the funding gap between angel investors and large VC firms. Although the sector boasts success stories, it also faces challenges -- including some industry observers who complain that super angels are cutting short the lives of companies that could be "the next Google" by selling them before they have had time to develop…

• 'A Clash of Expertise': Adding Human Rights to the World Bank's Agenda

  1 Sep 2010 | 2:07 pm

  Are human rights an intrinsic value, a set of universal freedoms to be protected as ends in themselves? Or are human rights a means to an end -- a fast track to economic development, peace and prosperity? A lawyer might argue the first, an economist the second. And if the argument took place at the World Bank, the economist would probably win. In a recent paper, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics Galit A. Sarfaty explains why conflicts in expert interpretations can stymie the progress of any idea within an organization.

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  Gregg Fraley

• Inc. Magazine Makes a Great Plan

  GREGG FRALEY

  28 Aug 2010 | 7:33 am

  Briefly noted: Inc. Magazine‘s July/August issue features a blueprint for revitalizing the American economy “Bring on the Entrepreneurs“.  Essentially the plan would have thousands of new companies and millions of new jobs created. Editor Jane Berenston organized a response to an op-ed column by Thomas L. Friedman in The New York Times that called for [...]

• Letting Go, Part II

  GREGG FRALEY

  6 Aug 2010 | 7:59 am

  This is part two in a series of posts about the Three Oaks Creativity Weekend. I’ve titled this series of posts “Letting Go” because that was the theme that emerged. Generally meetings, events, or conferences decide on a theme and then orchestrate events around it; we did the opposite.  Since it was Not a Conference, [...]

• Letting Go, a Creativity Weekend in Three Oaks, MI

  GREGG FRALEY

  5 Aug 2010 | 1:17 pm

  My wife Caroline and I hosted a private gathering last weekend, specifically to do sharing around the concept of creativity.  It was not a conference.  Only 20 people attended, and that was intentional. I’m going to post a few times about this unique “creativity weekend” so let me give you a bit  of background to [...]

• Six Ways To Think New: To Get “New” — You Must Be New

  GREGG FRALEY

  29 Jul 2010 | 12:14 pm

  This weekend I’m hosting a group of friends here in Three Oaks.  It’s an interesting group and I’m looking forward to a lot of “new” input. I know that by Monday I’ll have a list of new books to read, new ideas to develop, and newly refreshed friendships.  This is all good! A lot of [...]

• Eight Suggestions For Great Brainstorming/Ideation

  GREGG FRALEY

  23 Jul 2010 | 7:33 am

  Those of you who read this blog will know of the recent online debate I had with author Ashley Merryman. Essentially, I was not letting her get away with dismissing brainstorming. Ashley co-wrote a recent Newsweek article titled “Forget Brainstorming.” While I liked the article generally, I hated the title, and disagree and dispute the [...]

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  Brainstore

• The power of self-organised teams

  Nadja

  22 Aug 2010 | 12:54 pm

  In a recent BBC News article Technology reporter Jonathan Fildes talks about an extraordinary experiment conducted by Professor Sugata Mitra from India. 10 years ago, he started researching the way children teach themselves and each other with the use of computers and completely without teachers. The experiment started in a slum in India, where Mitra put a computer into the wall of his office and surveyed the children of the slum interacting with the machine. Today, he has introduced similar experiments in many countries, with great success. I very much loved the following part of the…

• How to succeed with innovation in your company: Three key ingredients

  Nadja

  16 Jun 2010 | 1:03 pm

  When talking about Innovation and the crucial factors for a company becoming more innovative, there are three key ingredients we have discovered need to be in balance: Obviously, you need a framework or process to make sure that great ideas can be captured and also actively developed within the organisation. There are a number of processes or frameworks, and to pick the right one depends on your current needs, size, culture and other factors, but it is clear that in order to create great content you need to have an underlying system that can be followed and understood by everyone in the…

• Disruptive Innovation

  Timm

  21 May 2010 | 6:22 am

  Did you ever ask yourself why key players in a market are – often fairly quickly – replaced by unexpected, sometimes even unknown competitors? How can it be that big companies, even whole industries, miss big trends, fail to invest in them, and go the way of the dinosaur? The answer is likely: Because their business model was disrupted. Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, distinguishes between incremental and disruptive innovation. Incremental innovation improves a product in an predictable, steady way: Every new version is a little bit better, a little…

• An immersion into the Future

  Nadja

  14 Apr 2010 | 4:30 am

  A few weeks ago, BrainStore organised a conference about the future for one of our clients. The goal was to give 120 people from this organisation the chance to reflect on the future, to get a sense of urgency and to trigger a desire for immediate action. Because, believe it or not, the Future is approaching with considerable speed, and as companies and organisations we need to ready ourselves for it. To achieve this goal, BrainStore created an exhibit about the future at the Idea Factory in Biel and invited the participants to go through this exhibit, to write down statements about the…

• The Right Community For The Right Idea!

  Nadja

  25 Mar 2010 | 1:05 am

  I just found this example of a simple and good idea in the BrainStore archives and wanted to share it with our blog readers. A few years ago, the British Tourist Authority in Zürich asked BrainStore to come up with ideas on how to attract more families to London or England in general. As usual, we set up a community to come to an Idea Event and to think about this task. When setting up the community, we decided to invite teens, who have a great deal of influence on their families, and the editors of school newspapers (today it would of course be school blogs), who are always interested in…

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  Project Rethink

• Safari & Quicktime are Not Web Standards

  Jeroen Wijering and Zachary Ozer over at Longtail video posted a very interesting article this morning about Apple’s recent soapbox, HTML5.  Let me preface by saying, I love my iPhone, iPod, iPad and iMac.  I’ve been a registered iPhone developer for 2 years, I have developed a few apps distributed through the app store, and I plan [...]

• Motivation

  Below is an animation adapted from a lecture given by Dan Pink. This presentation is compelling. The talk is 10 mins long, but I promise, if you have 10 mins to spare Dan will hold your attention to the end and leave you wanting more.  This is a great example of how things should be [...]

• Easily Embed HTML5 Video

  If you’ve ever watched video on the Internet, chances are you’ve seen JW Flash Player, created by Jeroen Wijering at http://www.longtailvideo.com/.  The JW Flash Player is the most popular open-source video player on the Internet today. Yesterday, Jeroen and his team at LongTail Video announced a public beta for the next evolution of their most popular [...]

• Relevant Real-Time

  Search is an interesting problem to explore.  Fifteen years ago, Clifford Stoll wrote an article for Newsweek entitled, “The Internet? Bah! Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn’t, and will never be, nirvana”.  Stoll’s article is often referenced as an example of getting it completely wrong. Today, even Stoll can look back and admit, “Wrong? Yep.“ It is [...]

• Photoshop World? There’s an app for that.

  I try to make every effort to stay on top of technology trends. I love learning new skills and strongly believe that it can be vital in understanding the breadth of a technology. To that end I began learning how to develop applications for the iPhone.  In a little “self cross-promotion”, I wanted to link you to my [...]

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  The Heart of Innovation

• One Stop Shopping for Great Innovation Quotes

  1 Sep 2010 | 11:06 am

  Seems like our past postings on quotes have been a big hit in the blogosphere (and maybe New Jersey). So, here ya go -- links to all the cool quotes posted on The Heart of Innovation in the past year. 1. 100 Awesome Quotes on What It Really Takes to Innovate 2. 50 Awesome Quotes on Risktaking 3. 15 Awesome Quotes on Creative Collaboration 4. Rethinking Failure 5. 20 Awesome Quotes on the Relationship Between Play, Humor, and Creativity 6. The Timeless Wisdom of Einstein 7. Famous Last Words

• Look to Nature for a Creative Breakthrough

  31 Aug 2010 | 12:15 am

  This is the first in a series of creative thinking techniques -- simple ways you can spark new insights, ideas, and ahas. The techniques are excerpted from my award-winning book, Awake at the Wheel. Leonardo DaVinci got his idea for the airplane by watching birds in flight. The creators of Kung Fu developed many of their techniques by watching animals fight. The pharmaceutical industry develops many of its "miracle cures" by studying the natural healing properties of herbs and plants. Bottom line, nature is a great source of breakthrough ideas. The secret for meeting your biggest challenge,…

• The Power of Intrinsic Motivation

  30 Aug 2010 | 10:11 pm

  Fabulous presentation by Dan Pink on the power of intrinsic motivation and the utter goofiness of "carrot and stick" methodologies to improve business performance. 18 minutes. Worth every second.

• Cultivate a Garden of Innovation!

  28 Aug 2010 | 1:10 pm

  Innovation, the endless effort to find a better way, cannot be achieved by robotically lining up best practices and imitating them. The real catalyzing agent for innovation is the ground from which these best practices spring -- the confluence of purpose, people, and processes better known as culture. From where will the next wave of groundbreaking innovation come? Not from organizations mechanically mimicking each other's best practices, but from organizations with the commitment to take their stand on ground that has been cultivated for breakthrough. If you check the contents of the most…

• 50 Ways to Foster a Culture of Innovation

  24 Aug 2010 | 4:31 pm

  As your organization continues rebounding from the financial meltdown, here are 50 ways to ensure that it becomes increasingly conducive to ongoing innovation. Commit to a few of these today and make some magic. Your next step? 1. Remember that innovation requires no fixed rules or templates -- only guiding principles. Creating a more innovative culture is an organic and creative act. 2. Wherever you can, whenever you can, always drive fear out of the workplace. Fear is "Public Enemy #1" of an innovative culture. 3. Have more fun. If you're not having fun (or at least enjoying the process)…

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  Grassroots Innovation

• The Next Norman Rockwell

  Greg

  28 Aug 2010 | 1:13 pm

  Michelle Sidles is the next American Norman Rockwell.I'm not kidding. She's that good.

• I Like to Ride My Bicycle

  Greg

  25 Aug 2010 | 4:01 pm

  I like to ride my bicycle.I like to ride my bicycle in road races, typically at the end of a swim and a bike.I like to ride my bicycle and go fast. The data says that people on bikes with good aerodynamics are able to go faster for the same power output.Getting a good fit, the general convention says, is crucial to feeling comfortable while aero.When you surf all the internet forums the purists would have you believe that the geometrical fit is so important, and so nuanced, that only the true of heart and brilliant of mind are able to successfully fit a bicycle. The rest of us need to go to…

• Just Say No

  Greg

  16 Aug 2010 | 5:32 pm

  The neat thing about getting older is that you can begin to see patterns.When someone wants you to do something, that you know from experience is stupid, you learn to say "No".This is because you have learned that saying "No" is far less painful than the experience of doing something stupid.

• The New Normal

  Greg

  11 Aug 2010 | 2:33 am

  We were all hopeful that after the disastrous economic pull back that there would be a speedy recovery.Well, it seems that this is not the case as Federal Reserve officials announced a debt buy back plan to help further stimulate the economy. Debt buy back plans are what companies do to lift their stock price when they don't know how else to lift their stock price.Debt buy back doesn't work.There are a couple of interesting points about the Fed announcement. First, it was a Fed announcement and not a White House announcement. It's almost as if the White House is looking to distance itself…

• Whale Facts

  Greg

  17 Jul 2010 | 3:47 am

  Things that quite possibly only interest me....I Just Want To Say One Word To You. Just One Word. Sunglasses.Most of the world's sunglasses are made by one company, Luxottica. They make a gross profit of $0.64 per dollar of revenue.1But Daddy, This School Has A Pool With A Swim Up BarOn average, spending on instruction increased 22 percent over the decade at private research universities, about the same as tuition, but 36 percent for student services and 36 percent for institutional support, a category that includes general administration, legal services and public relations, the study…

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  creativesage.com

• Impact of Ubiquitous Bandwidth and Connectivity: A Multi-Perspective Panel Discussion

  admin

  16 Aug 2010 | 7:57 pm

  Turning Vision into Value If you are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you’re visiting, please invite your friends and colleagues and join us for the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute’s Innovation Society 2010 Series… SVII “First Wednesday” Innovation Society Meeting Wednesday, September 1, 2010 6:00-9:30 p.m. Bay Cafe & Restaurant1875 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto (directions below) Program: Impact of Ubiquitous Bandwidth and Connectivity A Multi-Perspective Panel Discussion “Billions of connected individuals can now actively participate in…

• Off the Stage and into Your Life! How Using Theatrical Improv Skills Can Help Create a More Innovative Culture at Work

  admin

  31 Jul 2010 | 6:43 pm

  Turning Vision into Value If you are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you’re visiting, please invite your friends and colleagues and join us for the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute’s Innovation Society 2010 Series… SVII “First Wednesday” Innovation Society Meeting Wed, Aug 4, 2010 6:00-9:30 p.m. Bay Cafe & Restaurant1875 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto (directions below) Program: Improv: Off the Stage and into Your Life SVII’s August 4th Society dinner will feature Chris Miller, co-founder of LifePlays—a company “created to bring the…

• Technologist’s Perspective: Breaking the Software Glass Ceiling for Educators—Where is the “Innovative” Software Infrastructure for Education?

  admin

  6 Jul 2010 | 6:04 pm

  Turning Vision into Value If you are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you’re visiting, please invite your friends and colleagues and join us for the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute’s Innovation Society 2010 Series… SVII “First Wednesday” Innovation Society Meeting Topic: Technologist’s Perspective: Breaking the software glass ceiling for educators. Where is the “innovative” software infrastructure for education? July 7, 2010 6:00-9:30 p.m. Panel Presentation: The speaker panel, focused upon specific software implementations, not…

• Trim the Fat: Applying Lean Startup Concepts to Entrepreneurship, Life, and the Creative Process

  admin

  24 May 2010 | 11:44 pm

  Turning Vision into Value If you are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you’re visiting, please invite your friends and colleagues and join us for the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute’s Innovation Society 2010 Series… SVII “First Wednesday” Innovation Society Meeting June 2nd, 2010 6:00 – 9:30 pm Featuring a Panel Discussion on: Trim the Fat: Applying Lean Startup Concepts to Entrepreneurship, Life, and the Creative Process “Every entrepreneur must learn how to run a lean startup. It’s how you do more with less money.” -Babak Nivi The Lean…

• From the Entrepreneurial Trenches: The Search for Funding, Unicorns and other Imaginary Creatures

  admin

  2 May 2010 | 5:37 pm

  Turning Vision into Value If you are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you’re visiting, please invite your friends and colleagues and join us for the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute’s Innovation Society 2010 Series… SVII “First Wednesday” Innovation Society Meeting May 5th, 2010 6:00 – 9:30 p.m. Program: From the Entrepreneurial Trenches: The Search for Funding, Unicorns and other Imaginary Creatures Guest Speaker: Vitaly Golomb, Entrepreneur, Designer and Information Architect Most people choose the corporate route in their careers. Some…

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  Innovate on Purpose

• Book Review: Intangible Capital

  Jeffrey Phillips

  1 Sep 2010 | 7:24 am

  Yesterday I used a small portion of Mary Adam's Intangible Capital to expound on the fact that innovation does not begin with idea generation.  And now, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.Intangible Capital is a book that seeks to create a new way of thinking about our businesses and how we operate them.  Traditionally our businesses and how we organize them, even how we measure and report on them, have been based on labor and tangible capital (property, plant and equipment).  That's because traditionally these were the motive forces behind how firms…

• Innovation does not start with idea generation

  Jeffrey Phillips

  31 Aug 2010 | 11:53 am

  I've just finished reading a book called Intangible Capital (more on that in another post) by Mary Adams.  The book does a good job describing the value and importance of knowledge, intellectual property and other intangible assets, and why innovation is key to the creation of those assets.But that's not the subject of today's post.  Today's post deals with the fallacy that innovation "starts" with idea generation.  I'm picking on Mary's book because it was at hand and the latest to suggest that innovation starts with idea generation.  I know this because it says so on…

• Innovation on "sale"

  Jeffrey Phillips

  30 Aug 2010 | 7:31 am

  One of the interesting challenges about innovation is its connection to cost and to value.  All innovation efforts promise value tomorrow, in the form of great new products and services, at the cost of investment today.  Since the return isn't usually a certainty, the executives who sponsor innovation seek uncertain but larger returns in the future based on specific investments today.  The uncertainty around innovation causes many opportunities to be missed.  Wouldn't it be great if ideas were "on sale" or even free?  Then, there would be less resistance to…

• The Innovation gap between Executives and their teams

  Jeffrey Phillips

  26 Aug 2010 | 6:00 am

  It strikes me regularly that senior executives of many firms underestimate the insights and abilities of their companies.  I guess that many of us grow up with a backward-looking preference.  We prefer to remember how things were "when we were there" and expect those attributes and features to remain the same.  For most of us, the people we worked with and the companies we worked for are still locked in the past, unbending and unchanging.  I'm stealing a bit from Seth Godin's recent post about "senior management".  His point, and mine, aren't that senior managers are…

• Speed over constancy

  Jeffrey Phillips

  23 Aug 2010 | 6:08 am

  We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the way we think about our businesses.  In a previous post I argued that the efficient use of ideas would become a new mantra, similar to the efficient use of capital.  I think that's true because it appears we've extended the concept of financial engineering and the efficient use of capital about as far as it can go.  Additionally, we've reached the point where we aren't creating any new value with the financial assets at our disposal.  But that's not the only reason for the paradigm shift.  Along with the exhaustion of the…

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  Scott Berkun

• Being Geek: An interview with Michael Lopp

  Scott Berkun

  31 Aug 2010 | 3:38 pm

  I had the chance to interview Michael Lopp, of RandsinRepose fame, about his new book, Being Geek. The book, like much of his writing, takes an honest approach to thinking about careers and life in the tech world, and he knows what’s talking about, having done stints at Apple, Netscape, and Symantec. Unlike many bloggers, he’s dedicated to the craft of writing and it shows in his work. SB: Your latest book, Being Geek, is described as a career handbook, yet it’s way smarter and funnier than most books like this I’ve seen. What made you decide to write about career development,…

• The founding fathers and their faith

  Scott Berkun

  29 Aug 2010 | 8:04 pm

  Last week I finished reading Founding Faith, by Steven Waldman. The book explores the history of religion in America, focusing on what the founding fathers believed personally and expressed in their role in government. It was an excellent read and balanced in coverage – the author frequently explains how both modern liberals and conservatives get the history wrong. Here’s some of what I learned: When someone says “the founding fathers believed X” they’re probably wrong. Each founder had different views – they were rarely unanimous.  They had bitter…

• Quote of the week

  Scott Berkun

  27 Aug 2010 | 8:45 am

  Quote of the week: The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. - John F. Kennedy (#)

• Ten points on Freedom and the Mosque (w/Video)

  Scott Berkun

  26 Aug 2010 | 3:56 pm

  I’ve never done a “low quality webcam video speaking to camera” thing before, but felt compelled to do so on this issue. I’m surprised more people haven’t spoken up. If you get bored or hate videos, here’s a loose summary of the what I had to say: Feelings of anger, loss, sadness and fear about 9/11 and the resulting wars are real – and are worthy of acknowledgment, empathy and respect. One definition of wisdom is care in choosing how convert feelings into actions. A valid feeling can be used as motivation for actions which we regret or betray our…

• Why does transparency matter?

  Scott Berkun

  26 Aug 2010 | 2:35 pm

  In a series of posts, called readers choice, I write on whatever topics people submit and vote for. If you dig this idea, let me know in the comments, and submit your ideas and votes. This week it’s: Why does transparency matter? submitted by Nick Finck. Whenever I hear talk of transparency I think of overhead projectors. This dates me significantly, but it used to be professors wrote their lessons on sheets of cellophane called transparencies. These were thought to be clever since the clear sheets let the light through, making what you wrote on them visible. Transparency is good for…

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  BQF Innovation

• Three Imminent Innovation Events

  Paul Sloane

  27 Aug 2010 | 2:55 am

  There are three upcoming innovation events that you can take advantage of. 1.  Gaining Competitive Advantage through Innovation Workshop. To be held in London on Thursday Sept 16th.  This is a one day workshop in which you practise and learn creativity and innovation methods.  It will help you to develop new products and services. 2.  Innovation Unit Meeting on Open Innovation. A half day event in London on Tuesday 5th October.  The Guest Speaker is David Simoes-Brown of 100% Open.  This is an interactive meeting where we review and discuss best practice in Open Innovation and…

• Innovation tip – look for remote as well as local opportunities

  Paul Sloane

  17 Aug 2010 | 2:16 am

  Most businesses look for new opportunities in obvious places, adjacent to their current position. They typically ask two questions: 1. What new markets can we sell our existing products or services into? 2. What new products or services can we sell to our existing customers? These are perfectly valid questions. You should ask them and you explore the possibilities that the answers bring. But don’t stop there. If you do then may miss other and more exciting possibilities. Look for some distant relations as well as close cousins. Caterpillar was a well-established leader in heavy…

• Workshop on Open Innovation

  Paul Sloane

  10 Aug 2010 | 10:41 am

  The next meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit will take place on the morning of Tuesday 5th October in central London.  It will focus on Open Innovation and it will be interative and instructive.  It will be led by David Simoes-Brown of 100% Open, a consultancy that focuses on Open Innovation.  Topics include Open Innovation Accelerator Why open innovation can get you better ideas, faster, cheaper Opportunities in crowdsourcing, corporate collaborations and customer co-innovation Pitfalls in open innovation and how to avoid them Collaboration mindsets – how to develop Business Empathy…

• Assess your Innovation Capability with a Healthcheck

  Paul Sloane

  27 Jul 2010 | 7:42 am

  Paul Sloane Just how innovative is your organisation? What is holding you back from being truly agile? The BQF Innovation Healthcheck is a proven method of improving innovation. It examines key indicators, determines strengths and weaknesses and identifies ways of improving innovation throughout the organisation. The healthcheck is undertaken through a web-based survey followed by a one-day workshop on the your premises and is completely confidential. The benefits are as follows: • Clear identification of issues and obstacles to innovation • An action plan to resolve the issues • A…

• Book Review – The Open Innovation Revolution

  Paul Sloane

  23 Jul 2010 | 5:06 am

  Stefan Lindegaard is recognised as a leading writer and thinker on innovation. In this book he takes on the hot topic of Open Innovation (OI) which he defines as bridging internal and external resources to make innovation happen. The early chapters are excellent. He clearly explains the need for OI and how to approach it. He argues that it is more important to get the right people in place than the right process in place. He shows how to identify and develop the people who drive OI. His sections on why CEOs do not get OI and how to overcome the roadblocks to OI are particularly cogent. His…

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  Business Innovation Speaker and Consultant Stephen Shapiro

• Adult Games vs Kid Games

  Stephen Shapiro

  30 Aug 2010 | 9:05 am

  In my blog post, “How Can Goals Enhance Creativity” I said… “…As long as everyone in the organization believes they are playing a game which is designed to get them energized today, and it is not specifically about hitting the target, I can assure you that people will be more motivated.” Games can be a [...]

• One Simple Action Can Change Your Life and Your Business

  Stephen Shapiro

  23 Aug 2010 | 1:08 pm

  Recently, a number of people have asked me how I became an author and professional speaker.  I reflected upon it and realized that it all started with one simple action.  And maybe, to make major change happen, that’s all you need: one small move. The year was 1993.  I was a relatively junior person at [...]

• Pictures of My Baby, Delivered Today

  Stephen Shapiro

  20 Aug 2010 | 3:34 pm

  No, I did not give birth to a boy or a girl.  I gave birth to a book.  I’ll be handing out cigars later. But in the meantime, I wanted to share the photos of my new baby.  Here is the first copy of the Personality Poker book, hot off the press.  Previous photos were [...]

• Looking for Reviewers of the Personality Poker Book

  Stephen Shapiro

  19 Aug 2010 | 2:18 pm

  Today marks 10 weeks before the release of the Personality Poker book. And just a few hours ago I received 100 copies of the “galleys” (the uncorrected paperback proofs). Over the next few weeks, we will be compiling a list of those in the media, including bloggers, who we think would be interested in receiving [...]

• Everything Has a Personality

  Stephen Shapiro

  16 Aug 2010 | 4:00 am

  While developing Personality Poker, one thing I discovered is that lots of things have personalities: People, Political Parties, Products, Places, and Organizations (I could not find a “p” for this last one). When you look at everything through the lens of a personality, you begin to see why individuals gravitate towards (or away from) certain [...]

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  BusinessWeek.com -- Innovation

• Book Excerpt: Predictable Magic

  1 Sep 2010 | 1:23 pm

  In an excerpt from their new book, Deepa Prahalad and Ravi Sawhney write about how design can help consumers forge emotional connections to products and brands

• King Kong’s Perch Goes Green for $20M as Earth Roasts: Review

  29 Aug 2010 | 9:07 pm

  The first stop on my tour of New York’s Empire State Building was not the observatory rising high atop the 102nd floor, but a window factory on the fifth.

• Zaha Hadid to Design New Iraqi Central Bank After June Attack

  27 Aug 2010 | 9:44 am

  Architect Zaha Hadid has been appointed to design a new headquarters for the central bank in Baghdad, two months after an assault on the existing building left at least 15 people dead.

• Innovator: Jimmy Lai

  26 Aug 2010 | 2:00 pm

  Seen the animated clips of Tiger Woods or the Jet Blue guy? Lai's quick-draw news operation made them—and there's more where those came from

• The Retailer's Clever Little Helper

  26 Aug 2010 | 2:00 pm

  A wave of startups is using smartphones to bring e-commerce advantages to real-world stores

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  Working Knowledge ®

• Unilever, Cisco, Whirlpool: Communication in Open Innovation

  Andrea Meyer

  15 Aug 2010 | 11:36 am

  Point: Good communication skills drive open innovation and collaboration Story: At the World Research Group’s 2010 Open Innovation Summit, many presenters stressed the role of communication for both innovation leaders and in promoting open innovation initiatives.  Top-notch communication skills with senior executives, peers, partners help drive open innovation success. Stefan Lindegaard, author of the The Open Innovation Revolution, and Greg Fox, Senior Director & CMO – Strategic Alliances at Cisco, held an invitation-only Think Tank group at the Summit to identify and discuss…

• How to Find Opportunities in Fragmentation

  Andrea Meyer

  10 Aug 2010 | 1:31 pm

  Point: If you’re looking for a new business opportunity, look for individually-fragmented but collectively large areas of economic activity, such as where individuals or small business own a large segment of the market Story: A business model that connects small businesses and individuals to markets and automates tedious tasks was common to three of 11 new start-ups seeking  funding at Techstars Demo Day August 5, 2010. Here are their stories, followed by six action steps you can take to tap such markets. Rentmonitor.com helps small-scale landlords. These landlords collectively own 30…

• Innovation and Your Inner Animal

  Dana Meyer

  14 Jul 2010 | 6:15 am

  Point: Innovation may be less about technical specs and more about emotional connections. Story: When we think of innovation, we often think of intelligence, brilliance, and genius. Yet two speakers at the World Innovation Forum highlighted the large and less-rational depths of the human mind. Inside us all is an inner animal that significantly influences the path of innovation. First, Seth Godin (author of Purple Cow, Tribes and, most recently, Linchpin) referred to the “lizard brain” — the primitive beast that lurks deep inside our heads. Humans may have evolved a nice…

• How Xerox Monetizes Non-Core Innovation

  Andrea Meyer

  17 Jun 2010 | 8:54 am

  Point: Monetize non-core innovation rather than pruning it. Story: Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, discussed innovation at her company in an interview at the World Innovation Forum June 9, 2010. She described initiatives to improve the return on innovation at Xerox’s  research centers such as PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). PARC’s ground-breaking inventions like the graphical user interface, ethernet, and postscript as inventions  had a large impact on the world but didn’t contribute enough to Xerox’s bottom line.  Let’s look at why that happened and what Xerox…

• MinuteClinic’s Service Design Innovation

  Andrea Meyer

  8 Jun 2010 | 11:39 am

  Point: Take the customer’s perspective when designing a new service model. Story: Some of the best innovations are brilliant in their after-the-fact simplicity. Take MinuteClinic.  We all know “an ounce of prevention…” yet most of us still don’t go to the doctor for preventative care because of the cumbersome process of a office visit: scheduling an appointment, taking time off work, waiting in the doctor’s office for unknown amounts of time, sitting in the midst of other hacking/sneezing people, and being unsure how much the visit will cost.  Worse, the…

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  Creativity And Innovation Driving Business - Innovation Index

• Best Selling Books on Innovation & Leadership

  Sanjay Dalal

  31 Aug 2010 | 9:08 am

  Best Selling Books on Leadership and Innovation in Business, Ideas, Creativity, Innovative Companies and Top Innovators. Learn to lead and innovate... Leading at a Higher Level, Revised and Expa...by Ken BlanchardThe Truth About Managing Peopleby Stephen P. RobbinsGood to Great: Why Some Companies Make the ...by Jim Collins$17.44 The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building Peop...by Tony Dungy$14.61Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Moti...by Daniel H. Pink$15.75The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadersh...by Patrick Lencioni$13.91 A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will R...by Daniel H.

• Best Selling Books on Creativity & Innovation in Business

  Sanjay Dalal

  17 Aug 2010 | 9:05 pm

  Best Selling Books on Creativity and Innovation in Business, Ideas, Innovative Companies and Top Innovators. Learn to innovate... The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativit...by Tom Kelley$19.77Managing Creativity and Innovation (Harvard...$13.57Positive Turbulence: Developing Climates fo...by Stanley S. Gryskiewicz$35.28 Managing Innovation, Design and Creativityby Bettina von Stamm$72.82Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Produ...by Tim Hurson$18.45Design Driven Innovation: Changing the Rule...by Roberto Verganti$23.10 Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the ...by Judy Estrin$20.40The…

• My Political Views (or lack thereof ;-) )

  Sanjay Dalal

  8 Aug 2010 | 6:09 pm

  I, Sanjay Bharat Dalal, became a citizen of USA in 2008 to vote, and am a moderate (an independent democrat who is fairly ignorant about politics - hey, I am a newcomer trying to figure out who does what and what they stand for).I have no political aspirations, and am not connected nor affiliated with any political organization.I enjoy debating and talking about current issues with openness, and have fairly moderate views.I am a fan and supporter of Obama-Biden and voted for President Obama and Vice President Biden in the 2008 U.S. elections. I think Obama is possibly the hardest working…

• 7 Characteristics of an Entrepreneur

  Sanjay Dalal

  27 Jul 2010 | 2:18 pm

  EntrepreneurshipWhat makes you an entrepreneur? What keeps you going?Here are my thoughts on what makes me an entrepreneur...My 7 characteristics that define me as an entrepreneur:1. Vision - about a new idea, innovation or market that makes a positive difference2. Passion - limitless drive to pursue my ideas and dreams3. Belief - in my ability to convert my ideas into something meaningful4. Optimism - in the face of adversity that doors will open, and a never say die attitude5. Learning - from past mistakes & failures which are plenty, and my openness to new ideas6. Creativity - to try…

• Grow Your Business with Social Media

  Sanjay Dalal

  20 Jul 2010 | 11:43 am

  Call oGoing at 949-288-6880 and let us show you how you can Grow your Business & Make more Money with social media today!Leverage social media to jump start your business, get leads and expand your customer base!Call oGoing at 949-288-6880 and let us show you how you can Grow your Business & Make more Money with social media today!Sincere regards,Sanjay DalalCEO & FounderoGoing Inc. Semdia

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  ITIF Publication, Events and News Articles

• The Future of Privacy Online

  dcastro

  27 Sep 2010 | 9:00 am

  Enable Registration:  Enable Registration From blogs to Facebook profiles to Twitter messages, individuals are increasingly choosing to share information about themselves online.  More personal information online brings both risks and rewards.  How are companies using this digital information and how do consumers benefits from increased data sharing?  Perhaps more importantly, do consumers have enough control over their personal information or is there a need for government regulators to step in? Join the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the…

• Statement by ITIF Senior Research Fellow Richard Bennett on Latest FCC Actions on Open Internet

  snorton

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:00 pm

  “ITIF supports the FCC's decision to seek public comment on two specific questions that are critical to the future of the Internet: managed services and mobile broadband. These two difficult questions have eluded consensus so far, and no Open Internet order can survive court challenge and win broad support if the FCC doesn't get them right. Some pressure groups have hounded the FCC to make an election issue out of its Open Internet proceeding by handing down a rash decision. The Commission, under the able leadership of Chairman Genachowski, wisely concludes that the Internet is too…

• The Economist's Strange Attack on Industrial Policy

  sandes

  24 Aug 2010 | 9:00 pm

  A rebuttal to the Economist’s "Picking Winners, Saving Losers" article arguing that there is an appropriate role for governments in crafting innovation policy.

• Better Use of IT Could Minimize the Next Salmonella Egg-idemic

  dcastro

  24 Aug 2010 | 9:00 pm

  Big farms present big opportunities, but also big challenges. Answering these challenges will require smart policies and innovative technology. IT has an important role to play in protecting the safety of our food supply.

• Cloud Computing Requires National Policy Leadership

  sandes

  16 Aug 2010 | 9:00 pm

  Policymakers can help cloud computing flourish by creating policies that will support its development and avoiding policies that will hinder it.

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  National Center for Technology Innovation

• NASDE 2010 (Nashville, TN)

  Rach

  23 Aug 2010 | 7:07 am

  Event Date: October 16, 2010 to October 19, 2010. The National Association of State Directors of Special Education's (NASDSE) 73rd Annual Business Meeting and Conference will take place October 16-19, 2010 in Nashville, TN. The conference theme, Composition of Connectivity, will focus on how to embrace technology that can assist in performance of the routine tasks in jobs and help improve outcomes for students and teachers. The conference is [...]

• NCTI Impact Survey 2010

  Rach

  19 Aug 2010 | 6:17 am

  NCTI wants to hear from you! Tell us what you think about our issue papers, research, services, or email newsletter. We want to be sure that we are meeting your needs and expectations. Give us suggestions for improvement or tell us where we are doing well. Share your thoughts with us in this confidential survey.

• Empowering Transitions for Youth With Cognitive Disabilities

  admin

  17 Aug 2010 | 1:01 pm

  Get organized! Tom Keating discusses assistive technology and computing to set the stage for the purposes of Picture Planner™, software that allows persons with developmental and cognitive disabilities to conceptualize and manage their own planning and scheduling.

• FEMA Hosts 2010 Inclusive Emergency Management Training Conference

  Rach

  10 Aug 2010 | 7:51 am

  Event Date: September 22, 2010 to September 24, 2010. Getting Real -The 2010 Inclusive Emergency Management National Capacity Building Training Conference (Sept 22-24; Washington, DC) will prepare leaders for post-training responsibility to engage and educate others on how to effectively collaborate in emergency preparedness and disaster response and recovery with an an intensive cross-training and bridge-building itinerary in inclusive emergency preparedness practices.

• Using Apple Technology to Support Learning for Students with Sensory and Learning Disabilities

  Rach

  5 Aug 2010 | 6:42 am

  Many of the universal design features built into Apple hardware and software offer simple but powerful ways to support diverse learners’ needs, both in classrooms and at home. This white paper provides an overview of educational technology policy and practice with concrete examples of how teachers, students, and parents can use Apple technology to make [...]

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  Technology Review RSS Feeds

• Blog - The New Science of Network Archaeology

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:10 pm

  A new way of excavating the past structure of networks reveals important information about their evolution

• Transplanting Gut Microbes to Treat Disease

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:00 pm

  Scientists examine new ways to manipulate the microorganisms within us. Earlier this summer, scientists reported the success of an unusual medical transplant; a woman with a life-threatening Clostridium difficile infection was treated, and apparently cured, with an injection of some of her healthy husband's gut bacteria. Researchers are now exploring the effects of this type of transplant in greater detail. They hope to eventually treat a wide range of ailments--from bowel diseases to obesity, diabetes to depression--by manipulating the bacteria that live in the human gut.

• Counting Down to Commercial Space Launches

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:00 pm

  The next few years will see at least two new commercial spacecraft put into orbit. A small fleet of privately developed spacecraft will head into orbit in the next few years--assuming that current levels of public and private funding can be sustained. If it happens, this will mark a new chapter in space exploration and research, as NASA comes to rely more on private companies for the technology to put manned and unmanned vehicles in space.

• Robotic Storm Tracker Gets a Big Test with Earl

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:00 pm

  The largest-ever storm monitoring mission is now gathering scientific data that was previously impossible to get. As Hurricane Earl barrels toward the eastern seaboard of the United States, coastal residents don't know if they should evacuate in case the storm makes landfall. They rely on forecasters analyzing computer models, but those predictions differ. A new hurricane-monitoring mission that's now underway hopes to reduce this uncertainty by gathering atmospheric and environmental storm data never before obtained.

• Blog - The Extraordinary Tale of Red Rain, Comets and Extraterrestrials

  31 Aug 2010 | 9:10 pm

  For years, claims have circulated that red rain which fell in India in 2001, contained cells unlike any found on Earth. Now new evidence that these cells can reproduce is about to set the debate alive Panspermia is the idea that life exists throughout the universe in comets, asteroids and interstellar dust clouds and that life of Earth was seeded from one or more of these sources. Panspermia holds that we are all extraterrestrials.

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  Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog

• Really, You Do Control the Message

  Futurelab

  1 Sep 2010 | 2:49 pm

  Earlier today, Giuseppe Pacheco Tweeted "You No Longer Control Your Company’s Brand" with a link to You No Longer Control Your Company's Brand | Spin Sucks. BTW, I responded to Giuseppe right away with a link to one of my earlier posts about this topic and I follow him, so I usually like his links. read more

• Accenture’s Report: High Performance in Insurance with Social Media.

  Futurelab

  1 Sep 2010 | 2:01 pm

  Guest Post by: Tim Fowler As I have a keen interest in social media for financial services I’ve been looking at the Accenture’s paper on “Achieving high performance in insurance through social media”. read more

• What Color Makes the Most Green?

  Futurelab

  1 Sep 2010 | 1:01 pm

  Could wearing a particular color influence the results obtained by a salesperson? If that salesperson is selling to a buyer of the opposite gender, the answer may be, “Yes!” read more

• #ChangeMarketing: Shift Perspectives #2 Is Out

  Futurelab

  31 Aug 2010 | 6:24 am

  Changing  the face of marketing is something that takes vision and persistence. With the publication of Shift Perspectives #2, Bogdan Meica & Stefan Moghina are proving once again to have both. This time focusing on the topic of innovation, our two Romanian friends have brought together the likes of Seth Godin, Mitch Joel, Gerald Nanninga and many of the people you find on this blog in one publication that is sure to make you think. read more

• Everything Old Is New Again

  Futurelab

  31 Aug 2010 | 4:50 am

  For years, people built brands (really their businesses, we didn't know about brands then) by learning how to deliver a consistent experience across everything they did. The product, their service, everything was teed into their business and they're profitability. They got instant feedback from the people who were their customers and word spread, both good & bad, based on the experience that was delivered. If you think about it, it was really all viral and social marketing back then, we just didn't have the technology at we talk about today. read more

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  Blue Ocean Strategy | Gabor George Burt on Creating Blue Ocean Strategy

• Wait a minute Mr. Postman

  Gabor George Burt

  1 Sep 2010 | 1:15 am

  All companies and industries face difficult or life-threatening challenges at one point or another, and it is their adaptability which allow them to reinvent themselves and seek new Blue Ocean market spaces.  But those companies and industries that fail entirely to innovate risk becoming a Lava Casualty.  Take, for example, the United States Postal Service, awakening to the painful realization that digital communications are fast eliminating the need for mail delivery.Via Washington Post: The Postal Service, too, is looking at the future as a variant of the present. USPS, convinced of the…

• 1 Sep 2010 | 12:30 am

  Gabor George Burt

  1 Sep 2010 | 12:30 am

   

• Blue Ocean Strategy Path 6: Look across time

  Gabor George Burt

  30 Aug 2010 | 1:50 am

    Continuing in our series which takes a closer look at each of the paths in Blue Ocean Strategy’s Six Paths Framework, our focus advances to the sixth and final path — looking across time.  This path, along with each previously highlighted path, is made accessible through the Blue Ocean Strategy Basics archive.  For our highlight of the sixth path, we turn to pages 75 - 78 of the book Blue Ocean Strategy (co-authored by Professor W. Chan Kim and Professor Renée Mauborgne):All industries are subject to external trends that affect their businesses over time. Think of the…

• Creativity Crisis

  Gabor George Burt

  26 Aug 2010 | 2:01 am

  What if we could re-ignite our childhood creativity, and de-construct our realm of acquired assumptions in the process?  It would not only be disarmingly fun, but deeply meaningful in guiding our strategic thinking.In fact, there seems to be a growing recognition that creativity, or resourcefulness, is a vital component for dealing with unexpected, unprecedented and rapidly changing circumstances.Via Newsweek: It’s too early to determine conclusively why U.S. creativity scores are declining. One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames…

• Dialing-up explosive growth with Blue Ocean Strategy

  Gabor George Burt

  25 Aug 2010 | 2:48 am

  When we last reported on China Mobile, it was looking to Blue Ocean Strategy for growth and inspiration.  At the time, it had a mere 330 million subscribers.  Today, that number has exploded to more than 550 million as a result of employing a robust Blue Ocean Strategy for growth.  How will this strategy continue into the future? Via Converge Digest:For future growth, China Mobile is pursuing a "Blue Ocean" strategy. Growth areas include New Customers in rural, migrant worker and family groups; New Voice usage by refining market segments; New Business and New Services by…

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  Creativity Central

• Are you in denial? A creative guide to the big D.

  Creativity Central

  29 Aug 2010 | 11:01 am

    “Nothing is easier than self-deception.  For what each man wishes, that he also wishes to be true.”  Demosthenes I am going to say, unequivocally --  that you’re already in denial.  It is one of those curious mental processes that is like a drug -- it is soothing, it’s convenient and in the short term, it often works. Richard Tedlow, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, has cast his discerning eye to a subject that is usually swept under the rug as mere psychology in his book Denial.  “If you’re…

• Ideo, Tom Kelly and the Perfect Brainstorm

  Creativity Central

  30 Jul 2010 | 12:48 pm

  Last week's spirited debate on Newsweek’s side-bar article “Forget Brainstorming”  was as much about semantics as it was science. The mere fact that brainstorming is making news after a half a century is a remarkable achievement. There is no question that like the child’s game of telephone, the classic technique has, in many cases, devolved from Alex Osborn’s vision into “herding a bunch of people in room, some dry markers and a white board. Most creative facilitators I know don’t even like the word. Generally, they use terms like idea generation…

• Time is running out to join the BIF-6 Collaborative Innovation Summit

  Creativity Central

  21 Jul 2010 | 1:56 pm

  Are you looking for a shot of creative adrenaline?  Do you want to discover what some of the most innovative minds in the country are thinking and doing?  Do you want to attend one of  the premier innovation events of the year? Then make your reservation now to attend BIF-6 (Business Innovation Factory Collaborative Summit). There are only 20 seats left for this event.  September 16-16 in Providence, Rhode Island. Now in its sixth year, the BIF Collaborative Innovation Summit is much more a conversation than a conference. Over two days, more than two dozen people will take…

• The death of brainstorming. Newsweek got it wrong.

  Creativity Central

  20 Jul 2010 | 8:57 am

  Last week’s Newsweek (July 19) had a very compelling cover -- Creativity in America with a graphic of red, white and blue crayons forming the image of the U.S. flag.  The article by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman was called “The Creativity Crisis” with the provocative lead in was “For the first time, research shows that American Creativity is declining, what went wrong -- and how we can fix it. The key study that frames the article is by Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William and Mary. Kim analyzed 300,000 Torrance Scores (Torrance was a professor who…

• Death by committee. Rethinking the art of getting things done.

  Creativity Central

  8 Jul 2010 | 2:14 pm

   "A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours" - Milton Berle  Who would have thought that Uncle Miltie would be the voice of common sense when it came to that hallowed gathering of people called the committee.  Lewis Thomas, the late great physician, poet, administrator (Dean of Yale Medical School and New York University School of Medicine and President of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute) and sublime essayist -- wrote a telling and insightful essay called On Committees.  “The marks of selfness are laid out in our behavior irreversibly,…

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  DON! The Idea Guy

• YES is best but a NO is good too

  Don The Idea Guy

  23 Aug 2010 | 10:38 pm

  We all want to have every customer to listen intently to our pitch and rip the pen from our hands because they can't sign the contract fast enough, but those situation are fewer and farther between than we'd like to admit. Far more likely is that polite pat on the head and a smile that they use to send you back to the office as they say "Let me think about it and get back to you."

• The Opportunity Knocks Form

  Don The Idea Guy

  7 Aug 2010 | 9:12 pm

  I believe most prospects are under the impression that if they say "no" to an offer, that you'll just go back to the office, file your proposal in a drawer and go home -- they don’t seem to realize that even if THEY said "no," someone will eventually say "yes." To make them confront this reality, I created a piece of paperwork I call The Opportunity Knocks Form.

• Making Media Obsolete

  Don The Idea Guy

  15 Jul 2010 | 8:19 pm

  In my role as an Internet Sales Manager for a broadcast company, I often tell clients during consults that if they execute an effective new media campaign, it is possible for them to grow their own audience comprised of so many qualified individuals that they will outgrow the benefit of using traditional media to broadcast [...]

• Free Ace Of Sales eBook

  Don The Idea Guy

  13 Jul 2010 | 8:32 am

  I’ve got a brand new ebook available at no cost — just for YOU! Jeffrey Gitomer (www.gitomer.com) recently unveiled a revolutionary sales and customer relationship management tool that makes selling easy (and FUN!) and you can get my new ebook for free, just for taking it for a no-risk/no-cost 30-day test drive.  Ace Of Sales (www.aceofsales.com) hit the [...]

• Living Up to Leaving a Lasting Legacy

  Don The Idea Guy

  7 Jul 2010 | 8:48 pm

  It’s always pretty incredible when a long-term goal comes to fruition. Even more so when the end-game holds special meaning — not something like buying your dream car or taking your ideal vacation — but something with almost historical significance. That’s how I felt today after receiving word I was among a handful of  people chosen to become [...]

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  Idea Sandbox » SandBlog

• Begin At The End, For Better Strategy

  Paul

  2 Sep 2010 | 6:23 am

  One of the best starting points for a strategy session is at the end of it. Starting by clearly expressing what the end results should be, serves as a clear target for participants to aim for. I’m talking about more than the objective, but what the experience will be for customers and employees. The sketch below was in my planning notes for a series of sessions I led for Starbucks Coffee some years ago. We were building their annual marketing promotional calendar and each promotional season needed to be thought through. I needed the team to think through the eyes of the customer. How…

• Three Simple Decision Making Tools

  Paul

  1 Sep 2010 | 7:27 am

  Sand For Your Inbox – Aug/Sept 2010 We make decisions all the time. Big ones, small ones, easy and tough. Making the right choice can be obvious, and sometimes it requires time invested in thought. Luckily we have simple tools to help. (1) Pro & Con First, the basic Pro and Con list. A list of the good and bad aspects of a particular choice. If listing alone doesn’t help you make the decision, consider a Pro and Con list with scores. (2) Scored Pro & Con You can add a numerical weight of importance to your pro/con list. For example, a pro with a weight of 5 is more…

• Nothing Worse Than The Wrong Problem Solved Properly

  Paul

  26 Aug 2010 | 9:24 am

  “There’s nothing worse than bad coffee brewed properly.” That’s a quote by Tim Kern. He was a coffee guru at Starbucks Coffee. A long-time employee who was caught a the lay-off sweep a couple of years ago. The artwork is from a notebook Starbucks handed out to participants in a leadership conference. The notebook was sprinkled with quotes provided by partners (employees). Tim’s point… Garbage in equals garbage out. You can have the highest quality, best machine in the world, but if you fill it with bad coffee – you’re going to get a bad product.

• SCAMPERing For Innovation

  Paul

  23 Aug 2010 | 6:23 am

  A great quote found Roger von Oech’s book, ““A Whack on the Side of the Head” reads as follows… “Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone elseand thinking something different. The quote is attributed to the Nobel prize winning physician Albert Szent-Györgyi. You’ve probably heard the expression, “There is no such thing as a new idea.” Discovery suggests, rather, that there are new ways to look at things. But, how do you look at something different? One method I recommend is to “SCAMPER.” Yes, hopping…

• Seeding Clouds To Produce Brain Storms

  Paul

  20 Aug 2010 | 6:23 am

  For the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, China wanted to ensure rain storms took place where and when they want them to… That did NOT include the opening ceremony. So, the Weather Modification Department in China seeded approaching clouds with activators to induce rain storms outside the National Stadium. Over the past 12 years of testing they’ve increased rain storms by 24%. Not bad. How cool would it be if you could do with brain storms, what China did with rain storms? What if you could employ activators when problems are approaching and seed brain storms to produce 24% more…

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  Innoblog

• Unearthing Invisible Norms

  31 Aug 2010 | 5:00 pm

  Look around your office. How many of your colleagues are sitting at a desk with a telephone? Why on earth are they still doing that? The last stage in the development of a business model, our CEO Mark Johnson writes in his recent book Seizing the White Space, is the evolution of a company’s business rules, success metrics, and behavioral norms, which, he says, “connect the elements of a business model and keep the system in proper balance.” In many industries, a company’s rules (“employees must wear the company polo w/ black slacks during working hours”)…

• An Innovation Lesson from Dr. Seuss

  30 Aug 2010 | 5:00 pm

  Dartmouth College graduates are generally big supporters of our most famous alumni — Theodor Geisel (Class of 1925) known better as Dr. Seuss. On Sunday evening, my son pleasantly surprised me by picking one of my favorite Dr. Seuss stories, The Sneetches, from the shelf for his bed time reading. Reading the story helped me visualize why a company I recently visited was approaching innovation the wrong way. For those of you who don't remember the story, the sneetches (yellow characters that vaguely resemble ostriches) start the book as a divided crowd. One group of sneetches has stars…

• Navigating the Market Development Trap

  26 Aug 2010 | 5:00 pm

  This blog post was featured in the Harvard Business Review. Back in 2006 and 2007 my colleague Scott Anthony argued that Nintendo’s Wii would be a disruptive innovation that could catch Sony and Microsoft off-guard. And it did: Wii sales figures soared in the following years. In 2008 and 2009, for instance, Nintendo sold more consoles in North America than Microsoft and Sony did with their respective consoles combined. The core of the argument was that Nintendo’s strategy of “competing against non-consumption” would allow it to fly under the radar of Microsoft and…

• Does Your Innovation Pass The Deprivation Test?

  25 Aug 2010 | 5:00 pm

  It was 5 pm on August 9. I had just settled down for the three hour journey from Singapore to Manila. The seat next to me was empty, so after surreptitiously checking email one last time before takeoff, I switched my iPhone to airplane mode, and left it face down on the seat. After I got through customs, it hit me. I hadn't picked my phone back up (I use my U.S.-based BlackBerry when out of Singapore to avoid the ridiculous roaming bills you get with iPhones). Singapore Airlines of course handled the situation beautifully — letting me go back on the plane to look for my phone. But it…

• It’s Time for a New Approach in Online Recommendations

  23 Aug 2010 | 5:00 pm

  I read with interest a recent Wired Magazine article about Hunch.com – an online decision-support tool that’s similar to Ask.com and Yahoo Answers but with the ability to customize recommendations based on users’ taste profiles and their answers to a set of probing questions related to the topic of interest. The company claims that an average user voluntarily answers 152 questions, allowing Hunch.com to develop intelligent hunches. Intrigued, I logged on to Hunch.com to see what’s so special about this Web site that propels Internet users to divulge such a huge amount…

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  Big Think

• USGS/GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for 8/25-31/2010

  Erik Klemetti

  2 Sep 2010 | 5:38 am

  A shiny new report of the week's volcanic activity, brought to us by the Smithsonian, USGS and the Global Volcanism Program ... and of course, Sally Kuhn Sennert. Some highlights from this week's report (not including Galeras and Sinabung):   I'm always astonished when yet another Kuril Island ...Read More

• Former CBS News Political Editor on Politics, TV, and Education in the Glenn Beck Era

  Matthew C. Nisbet

  2 Sep 2010 | 3:36 am

  Does politics today revolve around the dynamics of cable news?  What might be the future of traditional network news and how should we prepare students for careers in journalism, media, and strategy?  In an interview today at AoE, I turn to a colleague who offers special insight into these questions ...Read More

• Why Would Anyone Object to DNA Evidence?

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:00 pm

  Sometimes a prosecutor doesn't want to admit that they're wrong. Other times they don't want to face the victim's family after a conviction is overturned.Read More

• The Dangerous Unreliability of Eyewitnesses

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:00 pm

  Eyewitness testimony is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions, says Scheck. Psychologists and researchers have demonstrated a variety of ways that witnesses regularly misidentify suspects.Read More

• Big Think Interview With Barry Scheck

  1 Sep 2010 | 9:00 pm

  A conversation with the attorney and founder of the Innocence Project.Read More

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  Innovating To Win

• Five Reasons You Don’t Have the Time to Delay Innovation

  James Todhunter

  1 Sep 2010 | 12:27 pm

  “We just don’t have the time.” How often have you heard this familiar refrain? Just yesterday in a conversation with a leading company in the petro space, I heard a manager say, “We have a lot of stuff going on...

• Why Companies Need Pervasive Innovation

  James Todhunter

  30 Aug 2010 | 7:25 pm

  It’s hard to keep up with all the articles on innovation these days. There are so many outlets now where people are volunteering their experience and advice. A lot of the advice is quiet good. But, every now and then...

• In Defense of Improvement

  James Todhunter

  26 Aug 2010 | 7:30 am

  A colleague pointed out a post by Patrick Lefler that appeared on Chuck Frey’s Innovation Tools site this week. In this article, Patrick proclaims that improvement is not innovation. Of course, in the purest sense, the author is correct. While...

• Prepare Your Innovation Elevator Pitch

  James Todhunter

  11 Aug 2010 | 8:34 am

  Yesterday, an article appeared on Blogging Innovation by Roy Luebke titled “What to Tell the CEO About Innovation.” Roy goes on to posit what he would say to a CEO about innovation if given just a few moments of the...

• Innovation Roadblocks

  James Todhunter

  9 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am

  I was talking to a senior level contributor in a company well known for its innovation capabilities. He’s responsible for looking at ways to identify where knowledge exists within the human capital of the organization and figuring out ways to...

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  Innovationedge

• Team culture

  Cheryl Perkins

  26 Aug 2010 | 6:30 am

  I came across a Harvard Business Review article this week about how large corporations can better foster innovation by helping their dedicated innovation team members partner with other performance and core process teams, rather than struggle with conflict. (Culture is one of the key ingredients of a healthy company of any size!) I was drawn to a particular example in my own back yard of how GE Healthcare’s R&D center in Milwaukee helped its innovation team in India innovate a portable ECG machine last year. Innovation teams in your core business can optimize knowledge as long as…

• Are you listening, or shouting?

  Cheryl Perkins

  20 Aug 2010 | 2:57 pm

  Is your marketing department engaging in effective social media strategies? A report out earlier this week suggests that one in three corporations is blogging to fill a niche that other forms of social media like Twitter and Facebook cannot. Some of the most popular bloggers who have thousands of readers will tell you that they spend most of their time listening rather than writing and posting. That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?  My own philosophy about blogging is to make your blog posts less about you and what your company is doing and focus on what others in your industry are…

• Innovation Example: Finding Synergy Between Functional and Decorative Elements

  Jeff Lindsay

  20 Aug 2010 | 7:27 am

  Toppan Printing in Japan has developed an innovative smart label that combines holographic security with RFID technology. The cool thing is that the metallic antenna needed for transmitting and receiving radio signals–normally a metallized spiral or other shape that tends to be unattractive–has become part of the aluminum metal of the metallic holographic label. This combination of two technologies with a single element uniting both in an attractive, appealing way is a good example of simplification through unification and finding synergy between technologies. Toppan calls it the…

• PDMA Visions: July 2010

  Abby Gutowski

  20 Aug 2010 | 6:37 am

  Cheryl’s article, “Companies expand commitment to innovation; planning becomes a priority,” was featured on pages 32-35 of the July 2010 edition of PDMA Visions. The article provides highlights from the 9th annual PDMA/MRT CoDev conference that was held in Scottsdale, Ariz., in January. Click here to view Cheryl’s full article.

• Eyes to the future

  Cheryl Perkins

  9 Aug 2010 | 4:06 am

  We know that green and clean technology and the “Click Stream Customer” are two of many trends that will impact the way we do business in the future. Trend watching has become a business in itself.  Futurist James Canton is one of many business futurists who make a living by interpreting the signs of what will be in 5 or 10 years. But what about translating those trends into a solid business strategy?  Interpreting and then planning for the future is crucial to your innovation strategy.  It’s one thing to have information on climate shifts or economic conditions that…

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  innovation playground Idris Mootee

• Is "Design Thinking" Helpful For Business Or It is Exporting The Dogmas Of Design To Business Strategy?

  Idris

  29 Aug 2010 | 12:09 pm

  Is "design thinking" helpful or It is exporting the dogmas of design to business strategy? Photos here are the Idea Couture D-school + B-school bears, we are having an art bear competition with the goal to customize 50 bears to be used for display in our new San Francisco office. I hope the bear collection can reflect on our diverse multi-disciplinary team, IC is a place where MBA meets MFA. Is "design thinking" a hype? This deserves a broad and deep debate. I have no intention to bring this to a quick conclusion within a few hundred words. But it is worth discussing and…

• You're Smart Doesn't Mean You're A Good Problem Solver. Putting More Smart People On A Problem Might Not Be The Answer.

  Idris

  25 Aug 2010 | 7:03 pm

  Early breakfast in a Boston hotel and ready for an executive workshop. There are so many decision to be made in one day and just over breakfast we're made several important decisions on some strategic issues. I realize 70% of my time on a day-to-day basis are spent on problem solving - organizational, strategic, customers, people and resources etc. It is pretty much the biggest part of any managerial job. Problem solving skills development is therefore critical for young managers. You’re well educated, highly intelligent and have a well-respected job in your chosen career, it usually…

• It Is Time That Google Needs A Reset. Now Facebook Places. Next Facebook Faces. Then Facebook Realtime Mobile Directory?

  Idris

  22 Aug 2010 | 7:23 pm

  Here's Simon and Ashley as part of a team working on a social strategy for a very cool company. Part of the mission is to look at their competition and coopetition. In the world of business strategy and competition, friends can become enemies overnight. Google is definitely not happy with the idea that Facebook is sitting with 500 million users with 50% very active. What can they do? Back in 2002, Google was competing with Overture and other search engine for shares. Overture was the search leader and was mining 3.2 billion pages, roughly 70 mm more pages than Google. Shortly Google…

• What Game Theory Can Teach You About Online Dating? There Are Plenty Of Room For Innovation And Money To Be Made.

  Idris

  18 Aug 2010 | 5:39 pm

  A few days on the beach is too much for me.  But perfect place to write my blog posts. Watching these love birds on the beach, I started to think about game theory and love. What advice an economist can provide for online dating service by applying game theories? Finding a spouse is a game, a serious and sometimes high risks (high reward I hope) game. We are looking at different types of network behavior (the high demand princess, the career type, the girl next door and the appearance-over-substance-and-insecure type etc. We all kind of know how the game works, and some people are…

• Three Book Reviews For Your Summer Reading: Innovate The Future, Seizing The White Space; and The 24-Hour Customer.

  Idris

  8 Aug 2010 | 11:19 am

  I’ve a stack of books sitting on my coffee table waiting for me to write a review. I am reading less and less lately, from a historically high of 4 books a month to now 15 books a year. But I am buying more art books. And I review 2 dozen of books a year. My magazine subscriptions have been cut down from 40+ magazines to less than 10. Many including Wired and Forbes have dropped off from my list and I stop many of the journals, many are just repeating old things. It is like digging out bones from one graveyard and put them in another one.  I’ve picked three books to review and share…

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  innovation.net

• Book Review: The Open Innovation Revolution by Stefan Lindegaard

  Mike

  19 Aug 2010 | 10:27 am

  I've read Stefan's new book The Open Innovation Revolution and found it to be an easy read, written obviously by someone who is passionate about the topic. It is a great primer for companies, and especially mid-level managers new to...

• Getting too personal?

  Mike

  4 Aug 2010 | 3:06 pm

  Very intriguing articlein WSJ today "On the Web's Cutting Edge, Anonymity in Name Only". Ths article talks about the emerging area of predictive analytics and how easily it is becoming to aggregate public information about you and make it available...

• Reinventing 'commodity' categories -- even the bowling ball

  Mike

  29 Jul 2010 | 5:47 pm

  I recently was introduced to some of the underlying innovations and technologies driving advances in the bowling industry. Ebonite based in a small town in KY here in the US is continuing to apply R&D in new ways. Encouraging, though...

• Pepsico10 Innovation Challenge

  Mike

  28 Jul 2010 | 1:23 pm

  I've been highlighting recently how open innovation and venture capital are (and need to be) on a path of convergence. Here's another twist on the trend from Pepsi. The Pepsico10 Challenge is a partnership between Pepsi, Highland Capital Partners and...

• New Exits for Venture Capital

  Mike

  24 Jul 2010 | 4:18 pm

  I've written a few times recently about the lack of VC interest in open innovation and how that might be changing. You would think there would already be strong interest by VC's in leveraging the ability to gauge corporate interest...

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  Creativity & Innovation

• Stata Center Gets Respect

  keithsawyer

  17 Aug 2010 | 1:28 pm

  One of my very first blog posts, back in June of 2007, was about MIT’s Stata Center, a striking building designed by architect Frank Gehry. People either loved it or they hated it; that blog post was titled “the building that threw up on itself.” Now an architecture critic, James S. Russell, has written a glowing review in Bloomberg News, saying that the critics were wrong. He went back to interview the scientists and administrators who had been working in the building all these years, and “all deemed the building a success.”  Here’s what else Russell…

• Competition Makes Groups More Creative

  keithsawyer

  17 Aug 2010 | 1:09 pm

  I just read a study by my Washington University colleague, Markus Baer, and three other authors* in the latest issue of the Academy of Management Journal. They start out by citing a history of prior studies showing that when you have different groups compete to reach a goal, the effectiveness of the groups goes up. That’s because the external threat gives a group more coherence, and a greater sense of a shared goal–two of the important properties of what I call “group flow” in my book Group Genius. But no studies have ever specifically focused on group creativity as…

• Groups are Better than Individuals

  keithsawyer

  9 Aug 2010 | 12:01 pm

  If you’ve read my 2007 book Group Genius, you know about the research showing that brainstorming groups perform worse than a comparable number of solitary individuals, working alone. Groups typically generate half as many ideas as the pooled ideas of the solitary individuals. But most of what groups are asked to do in the real world is a lot different than simply generating lists of ideas. There are many studies showing that on more complex tasks, involving knowledge of conceptual systems, groups perform better than individuals. One study* I just read today compared solitary workers to…

• Human Predictability

  keithsawyer

  9 Aug 2010 | 6:31 am

  I’ve written a lot about the improvisational and creative nature of everyday life, for example in my 2001 book Creating Conversations: Improvisation in Everyday Discourse. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could get some statistical data showing exactly how spontaneous and unpredictable the average person is during the average day? I just learned about this study*, published in February 2010 in Science, that uses cell phone usage data to measure how predictable our daily movements are. The cell phone companies have to know which cell phone tower you’re connected to when you…

• New Edition of Creativity Book

  keithsawyer

  14 Jul 2010 | 2:58 pm

  This summer, I’m finishing the second edition of my creativity textbook, Explaining Creativity. The first edition, published in 2006, had 16 chapters from a variety of scientific perspectives–psychology, of course, but also anthropology, history, and sociology. I’m writing new chapters on the following topics: Creativity and education Assessment of creativity Neuroscience of creativity (brain imaging studies) Two chapters on the creative cognition approach Also, I’m completely rewriting all of the other chapters to incorporate the latest research. So for those of you…

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  Phil McKinney - Sharing his experiences on innovation, creativity and ingenuity

• What Will Be The Gadgets You Are Carrying in 2015?

  philmckinney

  26 Aug 2010 | 8:12 am

  Voting Deadline: Midnight, Friday August 27th Its that time of year again where SXSW posts the ideas for this years speaker/panel topics and asks for people to vote.  The panel that have been proposed for me to talk to is: Hacking The Future Can you predict what the future will look like in 5 to 10 years? Hacking the future requires the ability to dream, to visualize and the ability to connect the impossible with the possible. In this session, Phil McKinney will make some bold predictions for the future – backed up with a number of breakthrough prototypes. This session is a…

• 3 Interesting Innovation Competitions

  philmckinney

  20 Aug 2010 | 7:36 am

  In a recent set of tweets, I commented on the growing number of innovation competitions.  A number of you responded by sending me a list of competitions that you found interesting.  If you have more competitions, post them as comments below or send them via email.  Given the challenges that are facing us as a society, getting the collective intelligence, creativity and sheer human ingenuity engaged is critical.  Do you think innovation competitions are the best way to attach problems??  If not via competitions, then how would you engage the most creative members of society? Here is an…

• 11 Simple Rules For Getting Along With Others

  philmckinney

  4 Aug 2010 | 8:57 am

  One of the challenges for creating a culture of innovation within an organization is the ability to get along with others.  Innovation is about constant change which is uncomfortable and stressful.  The result is that some individuals/groups will not respond and actually become quite negative (corporate anti-bodies) to the innovation effort.  What are you to do?  How do you build a bridge to these individuals/groups?  How do you get along with people who react so negativly to your ideas? I was recently reading some of Bill and Dave’s correspondence in the official HP archive and…

• What Do (Should) I Sound Like?

  philmckinney

  20 Jul 2010 | 8:55 am

  Sounds like a silly question, doesn’t it?  It’s not.  We are bombarded with visual logo’s that help sell a brand – why not audio?  In the last few years, audio logo’s (sound branding) have become THE thing to have in the brand arsenal with the objective of becoming the “hook” to get people to pay attention.  One example of an audio logo is the Intel “bong” (audio). Through some connections, I was introduced to Audiodraft.  They have created a site and business model that crowdsources producers/musicians to create professional audio…

• Moderating The Plato@50 Innovations In Hardware Session at Computer History Museum (CHM)

  philmckinney

  24 Jun 2010 | 2:57 pm

  I was recently requested by the Computer History Museum to moderate a session on Plato Hardware that was part of a two day event celebrating the 50 year aniversary of Plato.  If you asking “what is Plato?” then you are missing a key … Around 1959 Chalmers Sherwin, a physicist at the University of Illinois, suggested a computerised learning system to William Everett, the engineering college dean, who, in turn, recommended that Daniel Alpert, another physicist, convene a meeting about the matter with engineers, administrators, mathematicians, and psychologists. After weeks…

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  Outside Innovation

• Stop Over-E-Indulging!

  Patty Seybold

  2 Sep 2010 | 7:46 am

  Matt Richtel is a technology reporter for the New York Times whose "Driven to Distraction" series won him a Pulitzer Prize. He was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR Fresh Air on August 24th. The interview changed my Blackberry behavior. I have started leaving it behind. The interview is worth a listen. Here’s a snippet from the transcript: Matt said: "When you're constantly interrupted by email, you are experiencing stress. Stress equals stress hormones. Stress hormones take their toll on the brain. Specifically, cortisol gets released, and that can have an effect on…

• Security Alert: Don’t Use that Thumb Drive!

  Patty Seybold

  1 Sep 2010 | 11:22 am

  The word is out that one of the biggest military security breaches was promulgated by malware on a USB "thumb" drive in Iraq. And a more recent U.S. Dept. of Justice security breach was promulgated by leaving innocent-looking USB thumb drives in places (next to a Fax machine, in the men's room, on someone's desk) where people would pick them up and plug them in. (Don't do it!) Privacy Concerns, Identity Theft, and Digital Breadcrumbs Meanwhile, consumers are complaining about Google video and Facebook privacy intrusions while madly posting everywhere, including where…

• Cloud Computing/Mobile Computing/Network Bandwidth, Green Data Centers and Telehousing

  Patty Seybold

  1 Sep 2010 | 8:13 am

  The stampede towards cloud computing/SaaS is happening fast. Nobody in their right minds buys computer servers anymore. You just rent them in the cloud. Enterprise IT buyers are hurrying to virtualize their data centers, reduce their energy consumption, and deploy virtual desktops, while scrambling to deal with security issues on the plethora of mobile devices their employees insist on using. Small businesses don't have computers (except laptops) anymore. Many small businesses don't even have phone systems anymore. We all use VoIP, cell phones, and free apps in the cloud. Everyone…

• How NOT to Provide Documentation

  Patty Seybold

  31 Aug 2010 | 10:09 am

  Most of the world has become Apple fans, even those who don't use Apple products. I thought about that last night, as I unpacked and provisioned my new Blackberry sent overnight from Verizon Wireless when my old phone died. (No, I can't get decent AT&T service, so I can't use an iPhone, the Android isn't available in a dual-mode GSM version from Verizon, and I am a Crackberry addict). As I pulled all the doodads out of the Blackberry box, and dived into the manual in order to just learn how to put the battery in, get the device activated, and begin to figure out how to…

• Give Customer Experience Leaders Authority as well as Responsibility

  Patty Seybold

  31 Aug 2010 | 7:18 am

  By Ronni MarshakSVP and Sr. Consultant/Analyst, Patricia Seybold Group In Part 3 of the Customers.com Handbook, What Roles You'll Need to Implement Your Customers.com Strategy, Patty stresses the importance of making sure that the role (or roles) that lead the customer experience charge has clout in your organization. Her suggestions for a new customer-centric organizational structure include: 1. Put Your Top Execs in Charge of Customer Experience Governance 2. Give Customer Segment Owners P&L Responsibility 3. Nurture Customer Communities by Customer Segment 4. Drive Company-wide…

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  Think Differently!!

• Look at Him, Now Look at Me! How Old Spice went viral ...

  Dr. Lauchlan A. K. Mackinnon

  11 Aug 2010 | 2:56 pm

  I'm sure by now you've seen the Old Spice commercials that have gone viral on the internet. If not, here is the one that went crazy after it was shown at the Superbowl: This thing just went mad, and has had over 17 million views on YouTube alone. The Old Spice Facebook Page has over 780,000 fans. The advertisement was regarded as something spectacular in the advertising industry, where the advertisement took the top "grand prix" prize in the Cannes International Advertising Awards out of 3,191 high quality entries. The actor, Isaiah Mustafa, a former American Football player, has become…

• The Mystery of Mastermind Groups!

  Dr. Lauchlan A. K. Mackinnon

  8 Aug 2010 | 10:59 pm

  Mastermind groups are fantastic. I'm in two of them, and the opportunity to hang out with a fantastic group of bright, intelligent established or up and coming people from all around the world and bounce ideas off of them and help each other on a weekly or fortnightly basis is just invaluable. And it constantly amazes me when I find my way to spend some time with and study with any of the really established big name gurus, sooner or later they slip something in to the conversation about a meeting with their mastermind group, or the pivotal role that a mastermind group played in helping them…

• And Now For The Good News

  Dr. Lauchlan A. K. Mackinnon

  3 Jul 2010 | 4:37 pm

  Have you ever felt that television news is becoming more negative? I started to feel that way several years ago, and pretty much stopped watching the news. TV networks 'love' the bad news News stations love drama. They love to be reporting on some large and horrible event that happened, because it lends engages powerful viewer emotions and makes the channel look important as they report it. The bigger the bad event, the better for a news channel. People watch to find out what's going on. The biggest natural and human-induced disasters are ratings bonanza days for news media. Years ago,…

• 'Minority Report' Style User Interfaces on Every Computer - Within 5 Years?

  Dr. Lauchlan A. K. Mackinnon

  11 Jun 2010 | 1:44 am

  Earlier, I predicted that the Apple iMac desktop computer will have a user interface that allows touch control of content - like the iPad - that takes advantage of amazing developments in touch interface technologies.  John Underkoffler, the developer of the science fiction User Interface that Tom Cruise's character dazzled us with in the movie Minority Report as he moved images around with his hands, goes one step further, and tells us we won't even need to touch our computers. He believes that within 5 years every computer will have an interface like the Minority Report interface…

• Guidance For a Balanced Mind - From The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

  Dr. Lauchlan A. K. Mackinnon

  28 May 2010 | 4:06 pm

  The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali was written about 2,500 years ago as a guide for people practicing Yoga as a path to enlightenment, and it has become the major guide for the serious student of Yoga as a spiritual practice. In sutra 1.33, Patanjali provided advice for practicing Yogis for how develop a balanced mind throughout the challenges that life brings. This sutra, translated in to English, reads as (my translation): "The mind becomes settled, and confusion about life dissipates, when we rejoice in the happiness of others,  find compassion for the troubles of others,  are glad…

• 

  Think For A Change

• The Innovation Manager's Playbook - The Defensive Plays

  Paul Williams

  30 Aug 2010 | 5:01 am

  With the upcoming release of The Innovation Manager's Playbook, we will explore some of the more popular "plays" in each of the three main categories (Defense, Offense and Special Teams). To recap, The Innovation Manager's Playbook is collection of tools, techniques, templates, processes and systems ("plays") designed to more effectively and efficiently lead and manage your innovation management portfolio.  In this look at the "playbook" we will focus on the Defense... Mao Zedong, former leader of the People’s Republic of China, opined that “the only real defense is active…

• Scenario Planning and Innovation...

  Paul Williams

  17 Aug 2010 | 8:39 am

  "Thinking through scenario stories, and talking in depth about their implications, brings each person's unspoken assumptions about the future to the surface. Scenarios are thus the most powerful vehicles I know for challenging our "mental models" about the world and lifting the "blinders" that limit our creativity and resourcefulness." - Peter Schwartz Strategic planning determines where an organization is going over the next several years, how it’s going to get there and how it’ll know if it got there or not. This is a key management exercise, regardless of whether or not it is driven by…

• Coming Soon...The Innovation Manager's Playbook!!!

  Paul Williams

  9 Aug 2010 | 4:35 am

  "TELL ME AND I WILL FORGET. SHOW ME AND I MAY REMEMBER. INVOLVE ME AND I WILL UNDERSTAND." - Ancient Chinese Proverb I know things have been awfully quiet around here lately...sorry about that.  But I do have a good reason...really!  You see, I've been working on another book...The Innovation Manager's Playbook!  In fact, most recently, I have been working with a local graphic designer on the cover art and wanted to share that with you at the same time I announced that another book was on the way. So what's the premise of this next book you ask? Sports teams have playbooks to…

• HELP WANTED: Innovation Manager

  Paul Williams

  27 Jul 2010 | 5:56 am

  "A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice." - James Callaghan Let me start by apologizing to all those who clicked on the title expecting to see an actual job solicitation.  Not the case...sorry.  Instead, this post is going to focus on the broader question of what attributes make up an effective Innovation Manager and why so few organizations actually hire those people with the best blend of the aforementioned attributes. The term, innovation, is one that is open to much debate, discussion and interpretation.  What may be innovation to one organization might be…

• Sometimes Innovation Is Right In Front Of You...

  Paul Williams

  20 Jul 2010 | 11:44 am

  There was a famous, commonly held mantra within Hewlett-Packard that went something like, "If only HP knew what HP knows!"  It also became one of the favorite "gotcha" lines of every Knowledge Management software vendor over the past decade.  What do we actually already know that we are looking to a consultant, at considerable cost, to "discover?"  The concept here is that, as organizations grow, they hire people who bring with them a considerable amount of extra knowledge.  For example, a former manager of a web design firm turned project manager brings with her more than just a…

• 

  Securing Innovation

• Technology Review TR35 Young Innovators

  IP

  30 Aug 2010 | 9:33 am

  Since 1999, the editors of Technology Review have honored the young innovators whose inventions and research were found to be most exciting; today that collection is the TR35, a list of technologists and scientists, all under the age of 35. Their work--spanning medicine, computing, communications, electronics, nanotechnology, and more--is changing our world.     One on this year's list caught our attention. Conor Madigan, PhD, Cofounder and CEO of Kateeva  a company that, according to a recent article in Technology Review, has devised "a method for depositing the…

• World's Smallest Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

  IP

  24 Aug 2010 | 8:36 pm

  Ashish Bhat, age 26, of Ideaforge, has been recognized as one of the outstanding innovators under the age of 35 on Technology Review's TR35 list for development of the world’s smallest and lightest autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle. Think of a simple device that can be used for anti-terrorist operations, counter-insurgency in forested areas, hostage situations, border infiltration monitoring, local law enforcement operations, search and rescue operations, disaster management, aerial photography and more! Ashish Bhat, one of the founders of the Mumbai-based ideaForge Technology, has…

• Jack Nicholson's Hydrogen Car

  IP

  23 Aug 2010 | 10:16 am

  A car that emits only water vapor may sound like something from the future, but it's here today in the eye-catching design of the FCX Clarity Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle. The FCX Clarity FCEV is already in the hands of select Southern California drivers. Curious about how the FCX Clarity FCEV works? Vehicles that use hydrogen fuel cell technology instead of gasoline are about the cleanest around because they emit only water vapor into the air. They also use hydrogen from domestic energy sources, reducing our dependence on oil. And driving fuel cell vehicles significantly reduces the amount of…

• Patents & Trademarks on iPhone and iPad

  IP

  12 Aug 2010 | 10:52 am

  Yes, there's an app for that. It was inevitable that these popular iPhone smartphones and iPad touchscreen tablets would be used to search patents and trademarks. Patent and trademark apps have already started appearing in the iTunes store, some for free, with names like Apptorney IP, Patent Finder, and Patent Genius,    see more Lolcats and funny pictures  Now, an innovative law firm that specializes in the practice of intellectual property law, including patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, computer, franchise and unfair competition law, has launched the latest app for…

• Blawg Review #276

  IP

  9 Aug 2010 | 10:37 am

  Every Monday, lawyers get together for Blawg Review and share some of the best law blog posts of the previous week or so. Colin Samuels, Blawg Review Sherpa Emeritus, describes it best. "Where once we were isolated legal students, practitioners, and academics who could share our thoughts only with those in proximity, blogging and social media have turned us all into a kind of "other memory" for one another. The knowledge, experience, and insight we are able to access here, within our ever-expanding networks of colleagues and friends, colleagues-of-colleagues,…

• 

  Stefan Lindegaard

• Interactions: A Great Source of Inspiration for Thought Leaders

  Stefan Lindegaard

  25 Aug 2010 | 2:06 pm

  Your blog is up and running and you are so ready to share your thoughts and ideas with others. The first blog posts come out nicely as you can simply tap into your notes and mental drawer and write about issues that you have been wondering about for a long time. Who said writing is difficult? That is until you have emptied your brain and gone through all of your notes. Now you suddenly have difficulties finding inspiration for writing more blog posts. What should you do? You should find ways in which you can tap into and interact with your chosen community. Think LinkedIn. Join groups that…

• The Power of Storytelling, Other Lessons from Lance Armstrong

  Stefan Lindegaard

  23 Aug 2010 | 6:56 pm

  I have no doubt that Lance Armstrong used doping to win many of his races, but besides the many questions on that matter, we can also look at Armstrong in the view of thought leadership and ask ourselves what lessons we can learn. One is quite clear to me. It seems as if you can build and maintain a strong personal brand even if you are accused of lying and breaking the law as long as you have a great compelling story to tell. Yes, Armstrong might be quite unique in this sense, but it nevertheless shows us the importance of having a mission and great story to tell. Too often, we see aspiring…

• Corporate Thought Leadership: A Cisco Example

  Stefan Lindegaard

  19 Aug 2010 | 9:05 am

  I am a strong advocate for more focus on corporate leadership positions and thus I was glad to read two interesting articles today. In Org Chart Innovation, Leigh Buchanan suggests some new titles that companies should add to their org chart. One is thought leader and this is what Buchanan wrote: “Thought Leader. Industries and societies have thought leaders; so why not companies? Maybe it’s a title for the founder who hands off operation of the business to a professional CEO so he can blue-sky the future. Maybe it’s the scary-brilliant vice president or technician whose brain…

• Great Reads on Failure: Help Build a Collection of Insights

  Stefan Lindegaard

  19 Aug 2010 | 4:34 am

  As I continue to look into the ideas of smartfailing and failsourcing, I want to build a collection of articles with insights on how we can become better at learning through failure. As a start, I have posted the below 8 articles. It would be great if you can add more articles by posting a comment. I will then update this post frequently. When Failure is Intolerable by Scott Anthony Welcome Failure by Paul Sloane Lessons from Google Wave and Microsoft Kin by Scott Berkun Learning from Failure: What Scientists Know about Innovation by Kris Halvorsen The Failure of Failure by Michael Schrage…

• Smartfailing – a concept for learning through failure

  Stefan Lindegaard

  14 Aug 2010 | 5:50 am

  We need to become better at learning through failure, but the word failure itself is so negatively loaded. How can we create a new concept and vocabulary on the intersection of failure and learning? This is my input based on my early thoughts and great input from Twitter conversations (#failsourcing): Smartfailing – a new concept for learning through failure Failsourcing – the process in which you learn from your own and others failures Fail Capital – the learning you extract from failsourcing Return on Failure – the ratio of the actions you take and investments you make once you…

• 

  Innovation in Practice

• The LAB: Innovating Website Design with Attribute Dependency (August 2010)

  Drew Boyd

  30 Aug 2010 | 12:00 am

  Imagine a website that changes depending on the visitor.  Researchers at M.I.T. describe such a website that learns a person's thinking style based on preliminary clicks so it can present information in an optimal way.  Purchase intentions increased 20%!This is an example of the Attribute Dependency tool of the corporate innovation method, S.I.T..   It's great for creating "smart" products and services - those that adapt to user preferences or environmental conditions.  For this month's LAB, let's apply Attribute Dependency to other aspects of websites to create new, innovative designs…

• 2010 Outstanding Corporate Innovator

  Drew Boyd

  23 Aug 2010 | 12:00 am

  Congratulations to Kennametal, Inc. as the winner of the 2010 Outstanding Corporate Innovator (OCI) award. The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), a global network of product innovation professionals, announced Kennametal  will receive the OCI Award at PDMA’s 34th Annual Global Conference on Product Innovation Management, October 16 – 20, 2010 at Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, Florida.From the press release:“Kennametal has demonstrated an impressive corporate commitment to innovation which has resulted in a successful track record of significant new product launches…

• Simulating Innovation

  Drew Boyd

  16 Aug 2010 | 12:00 am

  People can improve their innovation skills by mentally simulating the use of innovation tools.  Chip and Dan Heath in their book, Made to Stick, talk of the importance of mental simulation with problem solving as well as skill-building.  "A review of thirty five studies featuring 3,214 participants showed that mental practice alone - sitting quietly, without moving, and picturing yourself performing a task successfully from start to finish - improves performance significantly.  The result were borne out over a large number of tasks.  Overall, mental practice alone produced about two…

• Green Field Innovation

  Drew Boyd

  9 Aug 2010 | 12:00 am

  How should firms identify innovation opportunities and predict market potential at very early stages and in new areas (“green fields”) and ambiguous environments?  Here are three approaches:1.  Find Innovation Adjacencies:  Adjacent markets are an attractive way to grow.  Adjacent markets are not too far away from your core business in terms of channels, technology, price point, brand, etc..  To find them, I recommend The Big Picture framework developed by Professor Christie Nordhielm at The University of Michigan.  The Big Picture outlines four quadrants that completely define any…

• The LAB: Innovating a Service Delivery Model with S.I.T. (July 2010)

  Drew Boyd

  31 Jul 2010 | 6:29 am

  A common question about structured innovation is can it be used on services.  The answer is yes.  A service is the same as a product in many ways, and the approach to using an innovation method like S.I.T. is the same.  Let's consider a service example for this month's LAB.  Imagine your company was a leading uniform and apparel rental service.  You own a fleet of trucks and drivers as well as uniform design and fitting services.  Your company delivers custom fitted uniforms to the client's location, picks up worn uniforms for cleaning, inspection, and repair, and returns them on…

• 

  INDIA INVENTS

• The Importance of Frugal Engineering

  Dr.A.S.Rao

  2 Sep 2010 | 3:49 am

  The term frugal engineering was coined in 2006 by Renault Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn to describe the competency of Indian engineers in developing products like Tata Motors’ Nano, the pint-sized, low-cost automobile. Vikas Sehgal, Kevin Dehoff, and Ganesh Panneer of Booz & Company develop this concept further in this article.Read : The Importance of Frugal Engineering

• BioGenesis-The Euro Indo Health cluster

  Dr.A.S.Rao

  1 Sep 2010 | 11:56 pm

  Biocluster is to boost the development of the Life Sciences industry and to facilitate businesses between Universities, Hospitals, Pharmaceutical Companies and other related entities by bringing them in a close proximity.This Biocluster is a Hyderabad-European venture and is launched with the name of “BioGenesis – The Indo-European Health Cluster”. The objectives of BioGenesis health cluster are: To integrate and develop synergies between firms, laboratories, and training facilities setting up a network between interested organizations and develop partnership projects. To develop…

• GE Ecoimagination Challenge

  Dr.A.S.Rao

  1 Sep 2010 | 10:45 pm

  GE Ecomagination Challenge, invites all innovators above age of 18 to share their best ideas on how to build the next-generation power grid. There are three categories for submission: Challenge 1: Create - Renewable Energy Challenge 2: Connect - Grid Efficiency Challenge 3: Use - EcoHomes/EcoBuilding. The entry receiving the most user-submitted votes, will receive, subject to GE’s review for appropriate content, a cash award of $50,000. GE will also present each of five innovation challenge award recipients with $100,000 in cash, for a total of $500,000, to acknowledge these entries as…

• Innovator of electronic products is looking for business partner

  Dr.A.S.Rao

  1 Sep 2010 | 5:26 am

  Innovator Prem Singh,  President award winner, has come out with several innovations like remote operated switch. See them at: http://www.ipindiarobotic.com/product.html Interested in partnering? Contact prem@ipindiarobotic.com

• Techfest 2010-11

  Dr.A.S.Rao

  31 Aug 2010 | 3:08 am

  Techfest , organizing science & technology festival at IIT Mumbai has selected following themes for `Technopreneurship'  competition:Clean Technology: In this category, plans focusing on making existing processes in the industry clean or innovating a new Clean technology/product all together will be entertained. Cost effectiveness: This is the most important factor which a new product should consist of. The participants need to explain how their product or innovation can reduce the costs for the society. Defy Convention: This category invites entries which by virtue of their…

• 

  Lateral Action

• Are You Ambitious Enough?

  Mark

  2 Sep 2010 | 6:52 am

  Image courtesy of The 99 Percent Are you ambitious? Or do you think ambition is a dirty word? Is it possible to have big ambitions without turning into an egomaniac? Are you hiding your light under a bushel? If so – what difference would it make to your career if you gave yourself permission to pursue your ambitions? These are the questions I address in my latest article for The 99 Percent: Are You Ambitious Enough? If you have anything to say in response, I hope you’ll pop over to The 99 Percent and leave a comment.

• Brainstorming: Breaking Through the Wall of Mediocrity

  Mark Dykeman

  30 Aug 2010 | 6:23 am

  Image by Stephen Boisvert Brainstorming is the best technique for generating great ideas. Brainstorming is the worst technique for generating great ideas. Both sentences can be accurate depending on the methods used to conduct a brainstorming session. However, there’s one technique (perhaps mindset is the better word) that can improve your results. It’s something that Tim Hurson of thinkx calls the ‘third third’. Brainstorming Has a Bad Reputation We’ve already had a good discussion about brainstorming here on Lateral Action, with lots of smart ideas suggested by our…

• The Entrepreneur’s Secret to Lasting Happiness

  Peter Shallard

  26 Aug 2010 | 11:39 am

  Image by wsilver We entrepreneurs are a pragmatic bunch. Meaning, we love to solve problems. Entrepreneurs almost always have a deep, unconscious need to find elegant, easy and fast solutions. Not just for their own issues, but for other people’s too. As an entrepreneur, you feel the itch. When something isn’t right, you’re the first one to notice and feel the insatiable need to scratch it. ‘Scratching itches’ got you where you are today and that is pretty damn cool. You suffer from the obsessive compulsive problem solving disorder of all successful business owners. As far…

• The Most Urgent Task on Your Schedule Today

  Mark

  23 Aug 2010 | 1:14 pm

  What’s the most important big task on your schedule today? And the most urgent? Are they the same thing? If so, then you’ll have no problem deciding what to do first. But if not, then you’re faced with a dilemma: Should you do the more-important-but-less-urgent task first, at the risk of missing your deadline? Or should you do the urgent thing first, at the risk of sidelining your most important work? In the moment, most of us will tend to do the urgent task first, no matter that it’s less important than the other one. And in the moment, there’s probably no great…

• The Creative Pathfinder – Your FREE Guide to Success as a Creative Professional

  Mark

  17 Aug 2010 | 4:08 am

  I’m pleased to announce the launch of a major new Lateral Action course: The Creative Pathfinder – Your Guide to Success as a Creative Professional. And this one is completely free. It’s designed to equip you with the creative and professional skills you need to succeed in your chosen career path – whether you’re an employee, freelancer or creative entrepreneur. The course is a distillation of what I’ve learned from 14 years of coaching professional artists, creatives and other creative people, plus my own experience of earning a living as a creative…

• 

  neuronspark

• Location-Based Apps

  paul

  20 Aug 2010 | 7:06 am

  Jeff Montgomery, CRO, Placecast, Susan Kuo, VP, Sales, Booyah, Paul Reich, Sales, Yelp, Josh Rochlin, CEO, Xtify together at DigiDay Apps in NYC

• Getting Your App Discovered

  paul

  19 Aug 2010 | 1:27 pm

  At DigiDay Apps in NYC, Jordan Greene, Mella Media,. Jon Vlassapulos, CEO, skyrockit. Dana Farbo, President, acrossair. Adam Towvim, Senior Director of Business Development, Jumptap. Jeff Sass, VP, Business Development, Myxer

• Myxer App Store

  paul

  18 Aug 2010 | 9:57 am

  Jeff Sass, VP, Biz Dev at Myxer from DigiDay Apps in NYC

• GetJar App Store

  paul

  18 Aug 2010 | 7:52 am

  Patrick Mork Marketing guy for the multi-platform app store GetJar speaking at DigiDay Apps in NYC

• The Trouble with Troubleshooting

  paul

  12 Aug 2010 | 12:18 pm

  David C Martin, Managing Principal, Self Service Solutions EMEA Professional Services at Avaya gave the talk The Trouble with Troubleshooting at SpeechTEK NYC

• 

  InnovationLabs

• Concept Cards™ – Innovation Tool for Developing Insights

  mkaufman

  14 Aug 2010 | 12:05 am

  In a recent newsletter I wrote about one of the tools we use in innovation consulting engagements to help client teams develop insights. The following short video will introduce you to Concept Cards™ – single frame documents that make complex concepts accessible and usable in the planning process. Imagine having a hundred or several hundred [...]

• Business Model Innovation Step 3: The Customer Experience

  lmorris

  6 Aug 2010 | 5:21 pm

  I’ve been writing about our process for helping our clients design new business models.  This is the third installment. The design of a successful new business model is always based on one key factor:  the customer’s experience. Did you ever wonder why customers might not like you?  The photo above captures our ongoing confusion in [...]

• Innovation in Social Action

  lmorris

  9 Jul 2010 | 5:43 pm

  What happens when 1000 innovators and community leaders get together?  Great things can! For the last few years, InnovationLabs has partnered with CFED, an organization that has for more than 30 years dedicated itself to expanding economic opportunity for all Americans.  We’ve shared lessons and methods in innovation with CFED and its broader community, and [...]

• Innovation, Trade, and Optimism

  lmorris

  19 May 2010 | 1:14 pm

  There was a very fine blog post on a New York Times Science page by John Tierney on Monday, May 17 concerning a new book called The Rational Optimist by Dr. Matt Ridley.  (If you click the link to the New York Times, I apologize on behalf of the Time for the annoying ad you [...]

• Core Competence or Bold Change?

  lmorris

  14 May 2010 | 11:07 am

  Time magazine ran a one page article last month (April 19, 2010, page 44 of the European edition) on the struggles of telecom equipment manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent. The entire piece is an interview with the CEO, Ben Verwaayen, and it’s just 8 paragraphs long.  I bring it up because it illustrates just how difficult it is [...]

• 

  The Kick Board (Kevin Dostalek's Blog)

• Programmatically Setting Navigation Order in a MOSS Publishing Site

  NEO\kdostalek

  1 Sep 2010 | 8:30 am

  ​I just spent a bunch of time working around a SharePoint bug related to manipulating the order that navigation items appear in a MOSS Publishing site on the TopNavigationBar.  Here I will spell out what you need to get to get various pieces of this to work- but first, let's define what we are trying to accomplish. Say you have a site that has been created in some way.  It doesn't really matter if it was declaritively deployed from a Site Definition, restored from a backup, generated by a SharePoint Deployment Wizard CMP, or built up manually from code.  The thing is once it's done being…

• Resources from my DevLink 2010 Session

  NEO\kdostalek

  7 Aug 2010 | 8:00 am

  Wrapped up another DevLink today with my session this morning: Building a SharePoint 2010 Development Environment.  It was a full room and a great audience.  Thanks very much to all who made it in for the Saturday morning session (I know how rough that can be after Friday night shenanigans :) Anyway, I've posted below a hires picture version of the mindmap used in the presentation as well as a PDF version of the basic installation walkthrough.  Below that is a list of all the places we talked about on the internet so that you have all the links in once place.  I'd love to hear any…

• Running CKS:EBE 3.0 on SharePoint Foundation 2010

  NEO\kdostalek

  24 Jul 2010 | 1:00 pm

  So for those of you following me on Twitter or Facebook, you might know that this blog is now running on SharePoint Foundation 2010 and the newly released Community Kit for SharePoint Extended Blog Edition Version 3.0.  It was rumored that this may work, but also a little bit cryptic in the release notes, only saying: *Preliminary SharePoint 2010 Beta 3 compatible (with web.config edits)   No mention what these web.config edits may be however, and when I tried reaching out to some of the folks on the dev team I didn't actually get an answer, but I did hear from Matthew McDermot that it did…

• IndyTechFest Presentation and Sample Code

  Dostalek, Kevin

  14 Jun 2010 | 6:56 am

    Seems like I keep getting behind on posting these (at least every other one-- then I catch up by posting two :)  Anyway a few weeks back I did a presentation here in Indianapolis for the Indy TechFest.  I had a great audience both in size, over 50, and in makeup-- almost everyone there was a developer, which is a first for me when giving this DEV presentation.  This time around I did my "Leveraging SharePoint 2010 as a Social Computing Development Platform" session, and it was the first time that I presented it on the RTM bits (and it all worked! yey!).   As usual, I didn't…

• SPS DC Reflections

  Dostalek, Kevin

  19 May 2010 | 5:20 am

  This past weekend I had the privilege of participating in the largest SharePoint Saturday event to date!  The event took place in Annandale, VA which is just south of our nation's capital (hence the event name - SPSDC).  There were over 900 attendees and 90 speakers not to mention numerous sponsors, volunteers, and of course organizers.  The event was pulled off very smoothly with no real noticeable mishaps which for this size of event is quite impressive especially when you consider that it was not planned out by folks that do event planning for a living!  Kudos to the organizing…

• 

  The Future is Bright

• Life Life Exotic by Chef Aliya Leekong

  K.Summers

  23 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am

  http://www.aliyaleekong.com/ For my foodies. I, myself, have been learning how to cook. However, my Marcus Samuelsson book is not very user friendly for an inspired novice. Aliya (on the other hand) is beautiful and makes DIY dishes. She is very passionate about cooking, and even more so about the cultural importance that cooking has on all of our lives. Stimulate your senses and visit her blog. Know her name, love her star. A few words from Aliya: For me, the restaurant, travel, and lifestyle aspects I describe create the story line – the why and how for the dishes I develop. They will…

• “Welcome To The Imperial” – Lemon Andersen x Rik Cordero #theimperial

  K.Summers

  23 Aug 2010 | 6:30 am

  I love this because it is NYC RIGHT NOW. The video is something I hope to show my kids one day. Maybe another city can do their version? A crowd sourced creative collaboration series by Lemon Andersen and Rik Cordero What should we do next? We’ll listen. Visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Imp… Welcome To The Imperial” is a 1-minute viral video from Brooklyn born spoken word poet and actor, Lemon Andersen and Queens-bred filmmaker, Rik Cordero to the millions of New York City basketball fans. It features a mixture of Rik’s eye for iconic New York City sights and…

• Get a passport. It only costs $135 – $165. Word to @realwizkhalifa and @currensy_spitta #passportproject

  K.Summers

  21 Aug 2010 | 7:18 am

  Jets  x Taylor Gang- Can you partner with the movement? Sincerely, Kenji Summers

• Gilbere Forte – 87 Dreams #mustlisten

  K.Summers

  20 Aug 2010 | 7:27 am

  Gilbere Forte is on another level. WOW. This guy’s music has blown me away. Listen to his music at Band Camp.

• A Visual Look At My Trip To Toronto #1loveto

  K.Summers

  18 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am

• 

  InnExperience

• Leh-Pak: Making a difference one person at a time

  Sunil Malhotra

  23 Aug 2010 | 2:46 am

  It is always heartening to see Internet communities swing into action for a cause and make such a huge difference in connecting views, people and issues.   In keeping with the spirit of giving, here’s my open letter on behalf of the flood affected people of Leh and Pakistan. “Dear CEO, President, PM, CM, etc. Get involved personally. Tell your people the magnitude of the recent fury of nature in Leh and Pakistan. Tell everybody in your network to help in any way possible. They will listen to “YOU”. They are used to listening to you and following your directions.

• Innovation – SMS voting for Nature’s Reality Shows

  Sunil Malhotra

  20 Aug 2010 | 6:18 am

  Reality Shows: Attractive NEW business opportunity for Television News channels. According to a survey on early 2009, Reality Shows attracted 45 million sms votes. (April 21, 2009 — See Graphic) The PM’s Relief Fund has promised Rs. 125 crores for Leh. The floods in Pakistan are begging for aid fuzzily estimated to be of the order of USD 1 billion. I, like many others, would like to do my bit. Nature’s reality shows are far more ruthless than “The moment of truth” on TV. As a matter of fact, her reality shows are the moment of truth for those in the line of…

• Condoms & Chapter 11: The story of protection

  Sunil Malhotra

  14 Aug 2010 | 5:09 am

  Image via Wikipedia I swear this is a true story. I was at a lawyer friend’s when Swami Nithyananda sauntered in, robe and all. He wanted to understand whether he could file for Chapter 11. After all it provided blanket (pun unintended) bankruptcy protection and you could stretch it to spiritual bankruptcy surely. “I have been victimised. I was merely exchanging a freely tradeable commodity since the kamasutra days, viz. body fluids. My customers paid for quality of my ‘service’. Now my business is bust and I need protection.” He went on to read out the…

• Innovation 101 – Rethinking Poverty: Affluence is not a prerequisite for creativity

  Sunil Malhotra

  1 Jul 2010 | 3:29 am

  “The minds on the margin are not marginal minds”. The most powerful statement I have heard in a long time. I urge everyone to watch this no-holds-barred TED video (opens in a new window) where Professor Anil Gupta, founder of the Honeybee Network makes point after point about grassroots innovation and how our great need for one-size-fits-all business models fall miserably short of what is needed. Professor Anil Gupta, Founder - Honeybee Network In his own words, here is how he started Honeybee And one day — I don’t know what happened — while coming back from…

• Incredible mobile VAS – 75paise per voice sms

  Sunil Malhotra

  17 Jun 2010 | 12:44 am

  Following up on my previous post about Negative Value Innovation, here is a graphical description of someone trying to use the so-called Value Added Service of leaving a voice SMS when a called party is unavailable. Imagine the possible scenarios when the VAS takes you by surprise and asks for you to dial the TEN-DIGIT-NUMBER, Either … I. hang up, then … Step 1. Get hold of a pen and a piece of paper, Step 2. Go through phone book, Step 3. Note down the TEN-DIGIT-NUMBER, (remember you located the person by his/her name when you called the first time. Now you need the TEN-DIGIT-NUMBER!)…

• 

  Fast Company

• The Downside of Clean Natural Gas: Contaminated Water

  Ariel Schwartz

  2 Sep 2010 | 11:37 am

  Natural gas is undoubtedly a practical source of electricity generation; it's plentiful, burns relatively clean, and produces minimal carbon dioxide. All good things--unless you happen to live near a drilling site with irresponsible owners. ProPublica reports that residents of Pavillion, Wyoming are being told not to drink their water and to even use ventilation when showering so as to avoid an explosion. Because apparently, they're all lathering up with benzene, phenols, metals, naphthalene, and methane.Test results from the EPA are pretty ugly: oil compounds were found in 89% of all…

• iFive: Hawking vs. God, Layoff-Happy CEOs, Euro Shopping Spree, Walkmen vs. iPods, Hurricane Earl

  Kit Eaton

  2 Sep 2010 | 11:34 am

  Soon the TV you flick on to watch the news before your morning commute may be cinema-screen-sized and 3-D. Innovation, even when your eyes can't take the early-hour strain.1. Stephen Hawking's new book is due out, and the physics guru has apparently changed his mind about God, according to an extract published in the Times U.K. today. Previously the prof had been ambivalent--physics didn't rule out a creator, he thought, even while it reduced his powers to significantly less than godlike. Now he's saying "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe…

• The Corporate Conscience

  Seth Godin

  2 Sep 2010 | 11:29 am

  There isn't one. Corporations don't have a conscience, people do. That means that every time you say, "It's just my job," or "My department has a policy," or "All I do is work here," what you've done is abdicated responsibility--to no one. It's convenient and even comfortable to blame the anonymous actions of many working in concert on a evanescent brand or organization, but that starts you on an inevitable race to the bottom. Organizations have more power than ever before. They are better synchronized, faster, and possess more tools to change the economy and the people in it than ever…

• If Apple's Ping Is Social, Then Where's My Facebook Friends?

  Austin Carr

  2 Sep 2010 | 11:26 am

  Yesterday, Steve Jobs boasted of iTunes' 160 million users when introducing Ping, Apple's new social music network. But anyone wading into the service this morning will find an empty community save a few artists (Lady Gaga, Yo-Yo Ma) and a few potential followers (Rick Rubin). Sure, early adopters are always a small crowd--but this is Apple, not some startup. Shouldn't we expect Ping to be a vibrant social network? Shouldn't there at least be some auto-integration with my other networks, namely Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter? Apple thinks so--the company even claims that iTunes 10 users can…

• Burger King Going Brazilian in $4 Billion Buyout

  Jenara Nerenberg

  2 Sep 2010 | 11:16 am

  An investment firm backed by a trio of wealthy Brazilians is buying the fast food franchise. Burger King is being turned over to Brazilians and becoming a private company. The New York Times first reported on the sale of the global fast food giant to the investment firm 3G Capital, which is based in New York but funded by Brazilians. Several news outlets are now reporting that the deal will be finalized today, pending any last minute problems. Brazil is a rapidly developing "BRIC" country, and not the first to purchase an American company--although few acquisitions have cut as close to Main…

• 

  Schumpeter's Century

• The International Attractiveness of US Universities

  BrianH

  25 Aug 2010 | 1:21 pm

  Seth Roberts, a psychology professor at Berkeley, bumped into a small group of first year students from Beijing. He asked a few questions and got some interesting answers, such as why they wanted to study in the US (Seth's Blog):But they preferred an American college to a Chinese one for two main reasons: 1. They can choose whatever major they want. At Chinese universities students are often forced into a major they don’t want if their scores are high enough to get into a prestigious university but not high enough to get into the major they want at that university. 2. They believe that if…

• Essays on Entrepreneurship in Honor of William Baumol

  BrianH

  22 Aug 2010 | 6:31 pm

  In 2006 the American Economic Association arranged three special sessions in Baumol's honor. Since his name just came up in a previous post, I thought this would be worth highlighting again.William Baumol Special Session on Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Growth I: Theoretical Approach Presiding: ROBERT LITAN, Kauffman Foundation WILLIAM BAUMOL, New York University—Entrepreneurship and Invention: Toward Their Microeconomic Value Theory EDWARD LAZEAR, Stanford University—Leadership and Entrepreneurs: Where They Produce the Most Value EDMUND PHELPS, Columbia University—Further Steps to a…

• The Savage Life of a Food Truck Vendor

  BrianH

  21 Aug 2010 | 7:40 pm

  Good WSJ article about the confrontational life of a food truck entrepreneur. (WSJ):For the most part, the trucks have battled everyone but each other. First there were turf wars with the push-cart food vendors. Then there were spats with the stores they park in front of. And now, inevitably, some are warring with each other."Obviously all of these kinds of things will continue to happen," Mr. Ponorovsky said. "Simply because the amount of trucks out there is growing. Whereas before, whatever confrontations occurred were between old school and new school, now it's going to be new school…

• The Microtheory of Innovation

  BrianH

  21 Aug 2010 | 7:22 pm

  This new book is the culmination of a brilliant career. Baumol, perhaps more than anyone, deserves the econ nobel. His new book is self-recommending, as they say and it is automatically one of the best nonfiction books of the year. The introduction is online (pdf). A blurb:Entrepreneurs are widely recognized for the vital contributions they make to economic growth and general welfare, yet until fairly recently entrepreneurship was not considered worthy of serious economic study. Today, progress has been made to integrate entrepreneurship into macroeconomics, but until now the entrepreneur has…

• CSR in the Food Service Industry

  BrianH

  20 Aug 2010 | 7:04 am

  It seems like its tough enough just making it in the food industry, what with the changing (fickle) taste of consumers, regulation, and a constant stream of new competitors, but a new entrant is promising to pay 1% of profits to local charities. CSR is often labeled by its detractors as a clever marketing gimmick and it's something we normally see in larger, more established industries (to be clear, I'm not saying small businesses don't give back to their communities - simply that what's most visible are the large companies that sponsor sports complexes, and the like).I'll skip the cynicism…

• 

  Wright Creativity

• Designers deserve to get paid for their work, no matter who they’re working for

  Kirsten Wright

  1 Sep 2010 | 12:16 pm

  <rant>Matt Giraud seriously ticked me of today. I have a search running on my tweetdeck for “web designer” at all times – it allows me to respond quickly if I see someone is in need of my services. Today, I saw one come through from Matt Giraud, explaining he was looking for a web designer and the details were on his facebook page… For those of you who don’t know who Matt Giraud is, he was on American Idol, season 8 and placed 5th. Since then, he has been on the AI CD, launched 2 of his own CD’s, gone on multiple tours and one would assume made a…

• Brilliant marketing for a bar…

  Kirsten Wright

  31 Aug 2010 | 10:00 am

  I love Failblog. If you’ve never been, I give you permission to leave me now and go there. It’s funnier than I could ever hope to be, I promise. If you’ve been, then stay here and read the rest of the post? I promise, it’s good So, browsing failblog the other day and I found this awesome bar sign gem…by far one of the best pieces of marketing I’ve seen in awhile. Why? It’s simple. It’s funny. It’s easy to read. It nails their target audience. It solves a problem. No one will forget it. Definitely a win. Share this on Facebook Tweet This!

• It which must not be named.

  Kirsten Wright

  30 Aug 2010 | 9:40 am

  Image credit: Capture Queen on Flickr Fear. The feeling inside you of no control, absolute terror, deep anxiety, complete and utter confusion of what you should do. Ever want to feel fear? Like you have no idea what is going on or when things will turn around? Start a company and wait. You’ll feel it. It’s the feeling of being a solo business owner. Starting my business was terrifying. It wasn’t just signing papers and saying “I am a business owner”…it was knowing that every day from now until I retire, I will have to work my butt off to make business…

• I’ll avoid the rose cliche

  Kirsten Wright

  27 Aug 2010 | 8:57 am

  This picture was taken with my new droid x, of a dried yellow rose. Using the fx camera, free from the droid marketplace (serious must have!!) Have phone, will take pictures. Any shot you capture with your phone can be featured! Submit it via form, twitter or email! Share this on Facebook Tweet This! Email this to a friend? Digg this! Share this on del.icio.us Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon Share this on Technorati Share this on LinkedIn Share this on FriendFeed Post on Google Buzz Share this on Reddit Related posts:What struggles do you face with social networks? Simple…

• Planning for Blogworld and PubCon

  Kirsten Wright

  26 Aug 2010 | 10:28 am

  This year, I am finally getting to attend two conferences I have wanted to attend for a very long time – Blogworld in October and PubCon in November. Even more exciting? I will be speaking at PubCon on a panel – November 10th – Navigating The Complex Social Media Marketing World. I will be discussing the different key social media tools and the best ways to get the most from them – and which tools to use depending on your industry. I will be on a panel with some brilliant minds and am very excited to be a part of this event! If you’re coming to the event –…

• 

  Foresight 20/20

• Book Review: The Other Side of Innovation

  22 Aug 2010 | 12:23 pm

  A couple of weeks ago I was given an advance copy of a new book called The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge, by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble, two faculty members from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.  The publishing date will be September 2, 2010. I'll start by saying that this is one of the most useful books on innovation I've read in a long time.  I want all of my clients to read it.  A few months ago, I wrote a post cautioning business leaders against expecting innovation to happen within their development processes.  In…

• New site - OnInnovation

  16 Aug 2010 | 9:27 am

  I was recently asked to contribute a short piece to the blog section of a new website - OnInnovation.  It's sponsored by the Henry Ford Foundation, and is intended to collect insights from innovators and thought leaders, and enable people to connect with their ideas.  I thought it was a great idea, and one worth supporting.  Below is an intro and link to my post: Preserving Dignity to Drive Creativity Posted August 10, 2010 We’ve all had the nightmares in one form or another.  You find yourself at a podium and you forgot what your speech was about.  Or…

• A new frontier

  23 Jul 2010 | 2:39 pm

  This fall I'll be teaching a class at the business school at BU.  It should be an interesting experience, as the class emphasizes multidisciplinary product development.  This class has been offered for a while, so the materials are pretty well set.  I'm looking forward to collaborating with the other faculty members, as we each teach a section within a specific discipline, but the students' project needs to span the disciplines.  I'll be teaching an Operations section, and what will be interesting is that I'll be able to focus on making the…

• Innovation Economics

  14 Jul 2010 | 12:29 pm

  I was recently reminded of the "hit rate" for investment in innovation (I'm also including entrepreneurial ventures here).  Most companies, VC's and others use estimates as rules of thumb.  An optimistic one is something like 1/3 of their investments will be winners, 1/3 will break even, and 1/3 will fail.  Others are more like 1% will be wild successes, 2 - 3% will do OK, and the rest will fail. What's interesting to me is that most people accept these rules of thumb.  The reason why this is interesting is because this means that for the…

• The Innovator's Perception

  22 Jun 2010 | 3:36 pm

  There's no question that truly innovative people are creative.  But creativity alone is not enough.  True innovators, those people who can deliver new ideas and offerings that are relevant to the market, possess something in addition to creativity.  I've been doing a lot of work in this area lately, and will be working with PDMA and with a consortium at the Steven's Institute to help identify best practices and build a body of knowledge in this area, especially as it relates to enterpreneurship and new venture creation. However, before we can…

• 

  New Medici

• Google Acquisition Appetite, Visualized

  Adrian Sexton

  26 Aug 2010 | 7:50 am

  Via Scores.org, an interesting breakdown by sized acquisition of Google’s hunger for startups and acq-hires (acquisition hires where they add independent engineers to their rosters), and to which Google products the acquisitions benefited. Related posts:Tim Armstrong Leaves Google to Innovate AOL Breaking: The portal days are a-changing ... again. Tim Armstrong,...What Would Google Do (to Innovate Next)? Jeff Jarvis' book came out this past week - yes,...Google Checkmate on Apple and iPad Hype: Buy Adobe With the new Apple iPad receiving an iHype or iYawn... Related posts brought to you…

• Social Media’s Conversation Prism Map

  Adrian Sexton

  17 Aug 2010 | 4:18 pm

  For those looking to better comprehend the sinews of social media platforms, apps/utilities and publishing players in the space, Brian Solis and JESS3 have a fine looking prismatic aperture diagram below. [More sizes via the link.] Social media is moving beyond a quantity palatte - just how many platforms can you splatter brand paint on, really? [...] Related posts:Social Media vs. Privacy on the Web I’ll admit it. I’m a social media junkie. And it’s...Social Farming, think Gold Farming with Social Identities The business of Gold Farming - where paid gamers amass...Social Networks as…

• Alex Bogusky: After Elvis Has Left the Ad Building

  Adrian Sexton

  16 Aug 2010 | 11:45 pm

  It’s undoubtedly hard to leave any industry unscathed after you are annointed as messianic. For Crispin’s Alex Bogusky, his departure was akin to an ascension, but the reasons for pulling the corporate ripcord were less than clear. Via Fast Company: [W]hen news broke that after a mere five months into Bogusky’s new gig, The One was abruptly quitting [...] Related posts:Welcome to Content Farmville! If the social or virtual goods market is exploding,...Cable’s Lost Generation They called it the "Battle Royale" of media and entertainment....Peter Chernin to Exit…

• The High-Paid Life or Decade of CEOs

  Adrian Sexton

  26 Jul 2010 | 9:56 pm

  Annual compensation for CEOs is nearly always a thorny question. Not so ironically, every CEO wants to land on Forbes’ “Billionaire List,” but mention of annual salaries for public companies brings a corporate chorus of no comments or quick stage lefts - helicopter waiting depending on the benefits package. Via WSJ (including the graphic): Larry Ellison, founder and [...] Related posts:Highest Paid CEOs, Disney’s Iger #3 Associated Press recently listed its highest-paid CEOs for 2008 list...The Ten Spot: Nov 5, 2009 Chart: U.S. Virtual Goods Revenue Ready To Explode…

• Newspaper of the Future, Ex-Googler Style

  Adrian Sexton

  19 Jul 2010 | 2:19 pm

  Calling itself “The World’s First Personalized Newspaper,” Hawthorne Labs has released Apollo on iPad only ($2.99 and going to $4.99). Founded by Google ex-coders for the most part, Apollo offers a cleaner, more laid-out version of NetVibes, Google News, AllTop, Newser, Yahoo!, HuffPo/Drudge - basically any of the news aggregators but with related clustering and [...] Related posts:Apple Tablet as Print/Magazine Page-Turner A potential interactive page-turner - think iTunes for magazines, books...Future of Journalism, Huffington on Ads and Non-Profits Via Gerd Leonard's…

• 

  Sharp Innovation

• Should Patents Have Background and Summary Sections?

  Jeff Lindsay:

  31 Aug 2010 | 10:46 am

  Greg Aharonian's recent PATNEWS newsletter mentions that he is reviewing the book Drafting Patents for Litigation and Licensing, edited by Bradley Wright of Banner & Witcoff. A chapter in that book led Greg to raise the question about whether inventors and patent owners are helped in any way by including background and summary sections in patents. Greg mentions that numerous risks that can arise when prior art is improperly discussed or when statements in the background or summary sections are imported by judges as unwanted limitations in claims. With all the risks, and with no legal…

• The Miazaki Case: Raising the Bar for Definiteness in Patent Claims

  Jeff Lindsay:

  2 Aug 2010 | 2:26 pm

  A senior patent examiner at the USPTO in a phone interview recently stressed the precedential BPAI case, Ex parte Miyazaki, Appeal No. 2007-3300 (BPAI 2008). In this interesting case, the Board had trouble with the language in this claim:1. A large printer comprising:a paper feeding unit operable to feed at least one roll of paper, at least one substantially flat sheet of paper and at least one stiff carton, the paper feeding unit being located at a height that enables a user, who is approximately 170 cm tall, standing in front of the printer to execute the paper feeding process including…

• Inventions from the Fox Valley (Fox Cities) of Wisconsin

  Jeff Lindsay:

  29 Jul 2010 | 8:32 am

  As a proud resident of Appleton, Wisconsin in the beautiful Fox Valley, I'm happy to report that this area has a surprisingly rich history of invention and innovation. In fact, the Fox Valley is one of the most patent-rich parts of the Midwest, largely due to the intense patenting activities of consumer products companies like Kimberly-Clark Corp. (which usually gets more patents each year than MIT!) and Georgia-Pacific. Here is a small sampling of the innovations that have come from this region with a population under 200,000 people (Appleton, the largest city in the Valley, has just…

• PCT Fees to Drop in September

  Jeff Lindsay:

  28 Jul 2010 | 8:20 am

  The IP Factor reports that PCT filing fees are dropping in September. About a 15% reduction. Nice! May US fees start moving downward as well--wishful thinking.

• Patent Reform and Medical Innovation: There Are Reasons To Be Concerned

  Jeff Lindsay:

  27 Jul 2010 | 1:40 pm

  One of the constant challenges in crafting policy and law is to avoid unintentional consequences. This cannot be done by living in an ivory tower. When it comes to the business world in particular, there is a need for careful communication with small business owners and entrepreneurs to understand what they are facing and what they might face in light of proposed changes. When it comes to some of the proposals for patent reform, the need to listen to the "voice of the innovator" becomes particularly great. Unfortunately, there is sometimes a human tendency to listen to the voice of one's own…

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  Innovation CHEF

• 10 second creativity

  Chef

  16 Aug 2010 | 5:44 am

  and now for something completely different. This is the result of a project from the SECOND SQUARE TO NONE team.They asked 52 artists to contribute an audio snippet, 10 seconds long, and were able to compile a group of tracks showcasing the unique styles of all the artists. Also check out the various downloads and [...]

• Start your own movement

  Chef

  5 Aug 2010 | 1:22 pm

  Another TED video. Not so much on Innovation but pretty relevantI like this because in innovation people can beat themselves up about novelty and being a thought leader and being original. This video reminds us of a couple of important things: Leaders without followers are just nuts Leaders should welcome followers as equals Move quick [...]

• Innovation: Newspaper from Twitter

  Chef

  4 Aug 2010 | 7:28 am

  Here is a cool innovation.Using the site www.paper.li you can create an newspaper out of links or hashtags that people have shared on twitter. say I am interested in innovation, I can get a newspaper style page by using the hashtag #innovation get find this the #innovation Daily and I can set it to alert [...]

• Are you doing the work you were born to do?

  Chef

  4 Aug 2010 | 6:04 am

  It is a question that we all face from time to time. Is this where I should be? I am doing the stuff I was meant to do?If that is where you are now check out Nick Williams and his thoughts on building an inspired business. If you are in London on the 12th August [...]

• Podcast link: Startup

  Chef

  4 Aug 2010 | 5:48 am

  You probably have seen the announcement by Taoiseach Brian Cowen on the new Technology Fund. There has been a lot of discussion on whether or not we would get a whole bunch of startups. Here is a link to an interesting podcast in which Professor Kevin Shakesheff from the University of Nottingham talks about his [...]

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  The EstiMate Software Blog

• EstiMate 2011: Customer Dashboard In Action (Video)

  Mark Smith

  1 Sep 2010 | 8:55 am

  When I first wrote about the new customer dashboard in EstiMate 2011, we got a flurry of requests for more information. Today I’ve made a video that shows the Customer Dashboard in action for you, and some of the new features that are available with it, such as notes, file attachments, customer metrics, and the merging of customers and their histories.  This overview shows you how this insanely powerful new tool can give you laser-like focus on your work, your customers, and their value to your business. Have You Heard About EstiMate 2011? If you don’t know about EstiMate 2011…

• EstiMate 2011 Feature Of The Day: Service Version Of The Multi-User Server (Video)

  Mark Smith

  1 Sep 2010 | 7:29 am

  The Multi-User Server is the program that allows multiple copies of EstiMate to all connect to the data files on one machine. Due to the fact that it is an actual Windows program that must be running in the background, someone always has to be logged into that machine for it to be running.  Not only is this a pain for the network administrator, who has to log in and start the server in the morning, but it’s also a security risk because that user has to remain logged in, reducing security to a password-protected screen saver. With EstiMate 2011 we’ve written a Windows Service…

• How To Get Fast Support From The EstiMate Community

  Mark Smith

  30 Aug 2010 | 10:05 am

  We are very excited to announce the new EstiMate Software Customer Service Channel on GetSatisfaction.com! For many years we have offered the EstiMate Cafe discussion group as a place for customers and friends to get together and discuss EstiMate support issues, ask how-to questions, and connect with each other.  We’ve tried forum software of all different stripes, and ultimately have found that they are mostly cumbersome to use and don’t really provide the tools we’d like to offer. Enter Get Satisfaction! Get Satisfaction does exactly what we believe any company support…

• Customer Profile: Sunny Neon Sign Systems, Pleasant Hill, CA

  Mark Smith

  30 Aug 2010 | 5:41 am

  Interview With: Alice Miller & Matthew Kalyani, Owners How did you get into the sign business? My brother Oscar purchased the business in the late 80′s from the original owner, who established the business as a wholesale Neon Shop in the late 1960s. At that time, Matthew was employed to as an Apprentice Glass Bender. In the early 1990’s Matthew and Partner Alice purchased the business from Oscar when he decided to pursue another career. At that time there were just the two employees: Matthew, Alice and the shop dog. Matthew was the primary contact for the sales and he would bend…

• EstiMate 2011 Feature Of The Day: Drop-Down Lists Sorted By Category (Video)

  Mark Smith

  26 Aug 2010 | 8:12 am

  We’ve gotten a lot of requests for sorting the drop-down lists by category inside the plugins themselves, and that’s been implemented in EstiMate 2011. So now, instead of just looking through a huge list of items by name, you can fly down to the proper category and then select the item you are looking for. Check out this 1.5 minute video to see how it works! Have You Heard About EstiMate 2011? If you don’t know about EstiMate 2011 yet, read the complete announcement here. Pre-Release Sale Pricing Read the full announcement here about our massive pre-release sale for EstiMate…

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  Information Design Watch

• Teaching Many Many People in a Leveraged Way

  Henry Woodbury

  30 Aug 2010 | 8:03 am

  My title is Bill Gates talking. He is talking about Sal Kahn, Harvard MBA, former hedge fund manager, and now the one man show behind online learning site Kahn Academy. Here is Gates at more length: There’s a web site that I’ve been using with my kids recently called Kahn Academy, K A H N, just one guy doing some unbelievable 15 minute tutorials…. He was a hedge fund guy making lots of money and he quit to do these little web videos and so we’ve moved I’d say about 160 IQ points from the hedge fund category to the teaching-many-many-people-in-a-leveraged-way…

• Data is the New Soil

  Lisa Agustin

  25 Aug 2010 | 1:10 pm

  TED offers up a talk by journalist/designer David McCandless, who we’ve written about before.  McCandless sees himself as a “data detective,” creating beautiful diagrams (“flowers of information”) that expose new insights in the process.  Check it out for a fun walkthrough some of his creations.

• Egg Cracking Technique

  Henry Woodbury

  25 Aug 2010 | 7:32 am

  A friend linked me to the delightful They Draw and Cook web site (thanks Katy!). Here you have simple recipes rendered by artists and illustrators. Many are no more than decorated recipe cards, but some clamber over the illustration fence into visual explanation territory. An example is Alex Savakis’s egg cracking technique: In this one, the text is superfluous. Others are just fun.

• Hello E. Coli, You’re Looking Large

  Henry Woodbury

  16 Aug 2010 | 11:46 am

  Start with a coffee bean and zoom down to a carbon atom. That’s a journey in scale from millimeters to picometers. To experience that journey, try out the interactive Cell Size and Scale application created by the University of Utah’s Genetic Science Learning Center. It is a tool of elegant simplicity. Move the single slider to the right and sets of increasingly tinier biological objects come into view. At micron scale, you’ll encounter the E. Coli bacterium with its friends lysosome and mitochondria. A gang of viruses make their appearance. And you’re only halfway to…

• The Dugout Canoe Description of My Job

  Henry Woodbury

  10 Aug 2010 | 9:54 am

  The Edge Annual Question for 2010 goes out to a bevy of deep thinkers: How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? Is it? That’s up to you. Editor and Publisher John Brockman anticipates the point: We spent a lot of time going back on forth on “YOU” vs. “WE” and came to the conclusion to go with “YOU”, the reason being that Edge is a conversation. “WE” responses tend to come across like expert papers, public pronouncements, or talks delivered from stage. Science historian George Dyson offers an evocative response: In the North Pacific…

• 

  Indexed

• Childhoods full of lies!

  Jessica Hagy

  2 Sep 2010 | 8:10 am

• Those roses smell nice.

  Jessica Hagy

  1 Sep 2010 | 10:03 am

• Oh, fudge.

  Jessica Hagy

  31 Aug 2010 | 9:04 am

• Feast, famine, or function.

  Jessica Hagy

  30 Aug 2010 | 6:54 am

• Founded or unfounded?

  Jessica Hagy

  27 Aug 2010 | 6:47 am

• 

  VizThink Blog

• New Web 2.0 Map: Locating the “Points of Control”

  VizThink

  1 Sep 2010 | 11:10 am

  Interesting to see the Web 2.0 Summit continue to use powerful metaphor to drive interest in technology. This “interactive” map is interesting both for what it does and doesn’t do. The conference promises: : “More than any time in the history of the Web, incumbents in the network economy are consolidating their power and staking new claims to key points of control. Meanwhile, insurgents both large and small are hoping to gain footholds or take ground in new territories. Welcome to the first iteration of the Web 2.0 Summit’s theme, Points of Control!” Liked…

• VizLinks | Visual Thinking Bookmarks for August 25th

  VizThink

  25 Aug 2010 | 3:00 pm

  A collection of visual thinking links found on the web in the past few days by our editors & vizthink community contributers. Have a link suggestion? Tweet it or add it to delicious and be sure to tag it with vizthink. These are the links for August 25th: Visual Thinking, Mind Mapping, Design and more: Video : How to use the iPad for visual recording – Liked this article? You may also enjoy:Graphic Recorders and Mind Mappers Needed for Berlin Getting Started with Mapping Free Web-Based Mind Mapping Usage Survey

• Sunni Brown’s Ignite Talk at FOO Camp: The Doodle Revolution

  VizThink

  25 Aug 2010 | 4:50 am

  Here, VizThinker Sunni Brown gives a concise and hilarious presentation on the power of the doodle. Liked this article? You may also enjoy:Sunni Brown and the Doodle Revolution: a TEDx talk [Event] Storm the Games: Bringing on the Doodle Revolution with Sunni Brown Visual Note-taking 101 w/Austin Kleon, Sunni Brown & Mike Rohde

• [Event] Storm the Games: Bringing on the Doodle Revolution with Sunni Brown

  VizThink

  25 Aug 2010 | 3:57 am

  “Place a pencil and pad near the telephone of any human of more than primeval intelligence and the bet is ten to one that he’ll doodle during his next telephone call.” So said Steven Arundel, author of Everybody’s Pixillated, in 1937 and not much has changed since then. Virtually all humans doodle once they have the physical tools, but what most of us don’t realize is that doodling is neither dilly-dallying nor pointless motion. The act of doodling engages all three of the major cognitive learning modes in our brains. Doodling, therefore, is a skill that should be strategically…

• The beauty of data visualization: David McCandless at TED

  VizThink

  23 Aug 2010 | 5:21 pm

  David McCandless show that information can be beautiful and even funny. Liked this article? You may also enjoy:[Podcast] Visual Miscellaneum: An Interview with David McCandless What do you want to ask the author of ‘The Visual Miscellaneum’? Webinar #2 Reminder: David Sibbet this Friday

• 

  Adaptive Path

• Examining trust as a key to great experiences

  peterme

  31 Aug 2010 | 7:36 pm

  A few months ago I wrote a post for HBR.org on how businesses that trust their customers deliver better experiences, because they use that trust to offer services that others simply will not match. In the article, I mention Amazon, Zappos, and USAA, and you could add to that Nordstrom, famous for their willingness to accept purchase returns without a receipt. I’m continuing to explore the importance of trust, though not just in customers, but in ones own employees as well. For example, Southwest Airlines empowers front-line employees to make decisions driven by customer needs, and does…

• Why Reward Failure?

  Jamin Hegeman

  31 Aug 2010 | 7:12 pm

  I just read a note from Jared Spool’s talk at UX Australia: “In the last six weeks have you rewarded a team for creating a major design failure?” While I don’t know the context, it’s hard to imagine anyone answering in the affirmative. Why would you? In the past few years, there’s been a lot of emphasis on failure in the world of design. Being unafraid to fail helps you take risks, or put design iterations out into the world to get feedback and learn. This should produce better results in the end. Some have called on designers to fail more, which usually…

• Mapping The Emotional Geography of Portland

  Teresa Brazen

  31 Aug 2010 | 10:49 am

  How do you get to know a place through the eyes of the people who live there? How do you discover the nuances that only a resident would know? Zakary Zide and I have been asking ourselves this question as we prep for a road trip to Oregon this week. So, we devised a fun little game to help us get to know our destination city, Portland, through the perspective of locals (rather than a guidebook). We’re inviting Portlanders to participate in a behind-the-curtain-scavenger-hunt that will reveal the emotional geography of the city. Here’s how the game works: (Please share with cool,…

• Signposts for the Week Ending August 27, 2010

  Adaptive Path

  27 Aug 2010 | 4:03 pm

  The Myth of the Fold. If we put this link further down the page, will you still find it? http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/blasting-the-myth-of “People said that a tape player, which could not record, would never catch on.” Oh yeah? http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/SonyHistory/2-06.html#block3 This indestructible soccer ball goes to show you that inspiration can strike for just about anything. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/18/BUT61EF67O.DTL This concept video on what Rock Band could be in the future is sure to make some heads explode…

• Feed the Habit: Digital Multitasking

  Elysa Soffer

  25 Aug 2010 | 11:02 am

  During a recent research and strategy project at Adaptive Path, our team uncovered a fascinating pattern around media multitasking—most participants between 20 and 30 years of age watched TV or movies while engaging with laptops, iPads, and smart phones. Our team was able to categorize this behavior into levels of multitasking ranging from backgrounding, which was more common, to full on media multitasking. I am guilty of this behavior too with multiple applications running, responding to email and reading SMS—all while watching TV. But the fundamental question our team debated was why…

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  The Phoenix Principle

• The End of Management - Wall Street Journal

  Adam Hartung

  31 Aug 2010 | 10:24 am

  Summary: The Wall Street Journal is calling for a dramatic shift in how business is managed Most corporations are designed for the industrial age, and thus not well suited for today's competition Change is happening more quickly, and organizations must become more agile CEOs today are concerned about dealing with rapid, chronic change - and obsolescence Resource deployment, from financial to people, must be tied more closely to market needs and not defending historical strengths A FANTASTIC article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "The End of Management" by Alan Murray, If you have time, I…

• Start Early! Waiting is Expensive - Amazon v. Microsoft

  Adam Hartung

  30 Aug 2010 | 3:41 pm

  Summary: We like to think we can compete effectively by waiting on others to show us the market direction You cannot make high rates of return with a "fast follower" strategy Companies that constantly take innovations to market grow longer, and make higher rates of return White Space allows you to learn, grow and be smart about when to get out while costs are low "I want to be a fast follower.  Let somebody else carry the cost of learning what the market wants and what solutions work.  I plan to come in fast behind the leader and make more money by avoiding the investment." …

• Shift Happens - Fast - telephony

  Adam Hartung

  26 Aug 2010 | 3:33 pm

  Summary: Trends happen much faster than we expect Old solutions disappear much faster than we anticipate Early adopters are big winners, suppliers who expect markets to last longer are killed in end-stage price wars We can anticipate the failure of land line phones in just a few years (as declining demand makes infrastructure maintenance too costly) There are a lot of other changes coming very quickly, more quickly than many of us anticipate - putting those who are late to change at risk of survival How long do you think you'll keep a land-line based telephone?  From the looks of things,…

• Profit from growth markets, not "core" markets - Virgin & Nike vs. Dell & Sears

  Adam Hartung

  25 Aug 2010 | 2:06 pm

  Summary: We are biased toward doing what we know how to do, rather than something new We like to think we can forever grow by keeping close to what we know - that's a myth Growth only comes from entering growth markets - whether we know much about them or not To grow you have to keep yourself in growth markets, and it is dangerous to limit your prospects to projects/markets that are "core" or "adjacent to core" Recently a popular business book has been Profit from the Core.  This book proposes the theory that if you want to succeed in business you should do projects that are either in…

• Finding the old Mojo - Macs are back - Apple

  Adam Hartung

  24 Aug 2010 | 2:43 pm

  Summary: It seems like the best way to find old success is to do more of what used to make you successful But lack of success is from market shifts, meaning you need to do more things Investing in what you know gets more expensive every year, with little (if any) improvement in returns To regain success it's actually better to get out into new markets where you can compete with lower investment rates, generating more profitable sales Apple increased its sales of Macs not by focusing on Macs - but instead by becoming a winner in entirely different markets creating a feedback loop to the old,…

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  FOLDEN.INFO eMedia News

• Search Engine for your Online Accounts

  FOLDEN.INFO

  2 Sep 2010 | 8:30 am

  Another kind of social search engine is provided by Greplin. The service enables to search through own content stored on various accounts across the web. This includes the most important social networks and other online tools like email and calendars with other services following. The service makes it easy to find own information, which usually [...]

• Facebook Search Engine with Trend Ranking

  FOLDEN.INFO

  31 Aug 2010 | 9:19 am

  A couple of search engines have been started lately enabling to search for content published at Facebook. Booshaka is the newest one following the already introduced social search engines Wowd, Kurrently and Facepinch. Booshaka searches the whole Facebook network with its content provided by over 500 million users and makes the content available by an search [...]

• Realtime Search for the Web and Facebook

  FOLDEN.INFO

  31 Aug 2010 | 9:11 am

  Wowd is a new search engine, which enables to search the web in realtime and offers a social networking software including a social search engine for Facebook content. The web search engine is directly available by the Wowd homepage and offers comfortable options. The search happens in realtime, which makes it favorable to research news. The [...]

• Google launched new Realtime Search Site

  FOLDEN.INFO

  26 Aug 2010 | 12:49 pm

  Google has launched a new site dedicated to its realtime search features, which seems to display only content out of the social web aka status updates. According to the blog post about the launch this is going along with a couple of new tools including local search features to fetch local news only. While visiting [...]

• Independent Film Portal and Video Show Rooms

  FOLDEN.INFO

  25 Aug 2010 | 10:58 am

  realeyz is an online film and video on demand portal showing movies and documentaries with some films even being premieres. The site is equipped with up to date features and offers a broad array of possibilities by being a social network with blogging facilities for film lovers at the same time. Most interesting and innovative [...]

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  Smart People RSS | SmartPlanet

• HumanCar pairs human power with electricity for greener, healthier drive

  Christina Hernandez

  2 Sep 2010 | 4:15 am

  It's a transportation solution that could, at once, decrease emissions and improve the physical health of sedentary drivers. The HumanCar uses the...

• For the deaf, new software brings sign language to cell phone video

  Christina Hernandez

  1 Sep 2010 | 8:20 am

  In an effort to improve communication for the deaf, engineers at the University of Washington are developing software that transmits American Sign...

• Red Lobster: Sustainability for the seafood lover of the future

  Melanie D.G. Kaplan

  1 Sep 2010 | 6:28 am

  Darden Restaurants, home to Red Lobster and Olive Garden, is one of the largest purchasers of seafood. What is the company doing to ensure there...

• World's largest naval town makes the case for 'living shorelines'

  Melanie D.G. Kaplan

  30 Aug 2010 | 9:00 am

  Much of Norfolk's waterfront is controlled by the Navy or private industry, but some homeowners hold land on rivers and creeks. For the sake of...

• Is the cure for cancer inside milk?

  26 Aug 2010 | 11:46 am

  Bruce German, a professor at UC Davis is researching the properties of milk and how it functions when ingested by growing infants. In his lab,...

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  ZenStorming

• Eight Ways to Help Your Group More Effectively Share Information

  Plish

  24 Aug 2010 | 8:34 pm

  Eight ways to bring out the hidden information that resides in individuals in group settings.

• Eight Insights in Design from the World of Bonsai

  Plish

  24 Aug 2010 | 8:00 am

  Reflections on the meaning of good design through the lens of Bonsai.

• Insights into Forcing Creativity: The Mood Board Music Experiment

  Plish

  17 Aug 2010 | 8:30 am

  An insight into the creative process using mood boards and music.

• Designing a Healthier You – Should You Take a Vacation or a Healthy ‘Staycation’? Take Some Vaykay!

  Plish

  12 Aug 2010 | 8:00 am

  Want to get on the path to a healthier you? No need to give up your vacation for a special health-based 'staycation'. Designing a custom health regimen is best done from within your current situation. Embrace who you are, acknowledge the limitations, and live a customized, and more effective, life health plan. And, enjoy your vacation.

• Want to Increase Creativity and Innovation? Touch and be Touched

  Plish

  5 Aug 2010 | 8:46 pm

  Humans are naturally social beings. Touching is part of being social. How does this impact innovation and creativity?

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  Holiday Matinee - A Blog For Creative Inspiration

• Boxes and flowers and seeds, oh my!

  hannah

  2 Sep 2010 | 10:35 am

  After watching the No Impact Man documentary, I began to feel guilty for how many disposable products I use. Sometimes, it’s an impulse water bottle purchase. Last week, I forgot to recycle my plastic grocery bags. When a friend sent me the link to the Life Box Company, I couldn’t believe how simple it was. These boxes are embedded with seeds; all you have to do is cut them up, plant them and water them, and trees will grow. No joke! There are birches, alders, pines, hemlocks and cedars just waiting to sprout. Next time you have to move, plan ahead and order some of these boxes.

• A man in a bear suit for your iPhone

  dave

  2 Sep 2010 | 6:32 am

  Juan Weiss is a designer and illustrator from Buenos Aires, Argentina who mixes traditional drawing and digital media to create his characters. His latest is this man in a bear suit, drinking a cocktail and totally chillaxin. Pick him up for free download on your iPhone, iPod or iPad here.

• Do Tell: Chromeo

  monique

  1 Sep 2010 | 2:15 pm

  Somewhere in between twenty minute hikes to stages across Golden Gate Park and those delicious sweet potato fries, I caught up with Chromeo at Outside Lands to find out two things they’re really excited about right now. Coupled with their funny fixation on my phrasing (you’d think I was the first person to ask them what they’re “pumped” about), P-Thugg and Dave 1 gave us the inside scoop on some collaborations from their new album, Business Casual, out September 14th. Hint: it involves an awesome redhead and a blood-sucking indie rocker. Are you ready to get stoked, pumped, and…

• When drinking beer means you’ve formed a band

  hannah

  1 Sep 2010 | 12:48 pm

  Hey, who says that drinking needs to be associated with tequila shots and loud, obnoxious people? I would much rather slowly sip on a beer and listen to some jazz with a group of friends. I think that’s the image that Matt Braun and Chris Mufalli had in mind when they created Tuned Pale Ale. Promoting “social spontaneity,” the duo transformed beer bottles into musical instruments — you drink to a certain point, check the label to see what note you’re hitting, and blow on the rim. Get a couple of friends together and you’ve got yourself a veritable jam sesh.

• How To Be Creative # 06: Ignore the Skeptics

  kiran

  1 Sep 2010 | 11:01 am

  New ideas are always resisted, even if they’re great. You know that. Maybe the idea seems too far-fetched and ambitious, or perhaps it’s so simple that everyone who didn’t think of it is hoping it’ll fail. That’s it right there – sadly, there are people out there that don’t want an idea to take off unless it’s theirs. Such are humans, unless they know better. And it’s hard to deal with that. Because maybe you just had the epiphany of a lifetime and no one gives a damn. It’s ignored, criticized, called stupid and pretty soon…

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  Inventor Spot - Inventions, Innovations, and Interesting Ideas for the Inventor in All of Us

• Auditory Inputs Give Sight Of Textual Satisfaction With BabelFisk

  Doug Bonderud

  2 Sep 2010 | 10:00 am

  From designer Mads Hindhede - he's Mads, Mads we tell you - comes the BabelFisk speech to text translator. Cool, huh? Oh - it's a pair of glasses. Say whaaaat?

• Social Media Sings A New Tune With Musical Social Networks

  Ron Callari

  2 Sep 2010 | 5:52 am

  MySpace, as one of the major social networks five years ago - not only built a critical mass - it attracted tens of thousands of users who were interested in music, whether they were promoting a garage band or selling online albums. When their popularity waned under the shadow of Facebook, several niche music-related social networks seized the opportunity to fill the void.

• Social Media Search Forecasts Clouds, With No Chance of Google

  Ron Callari

  1 Sep 2010 | 5:39 am

  With Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Dropbox and other online social networking sites and services now part of our daily routine, we have all become social media publishers to some degree. Our bon mots have been tweeted, emailed and updated with photos on profiles across a wide spectrum of "cloud" lock-boxes. However, the difficulty in accessing those entries after the fact is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

• Artistic Bandaids for Charity: Cynthia Rowley Bandaids For Design Ignites Change

  Fashion Finds

  31 Aug 2010 | 7:50 pm

  Bandaids have always been a favorite fashion accessory of those in the under 6 age group, but now they're being made more fashionable for adults and the proceeds go to a good cause!

• Foot Undeez: Capezio Makes Luxurious Lingerie For Your Feet!

  Fashion Finds

  31 Aug 2010 | 7:36 pm

  The term 'thong' refers to more than one fashion item; the kind that can be worn on your bum or the kind that can be worn on your feet. More often than not it's thought of as lingerie, though, so one footwear company has taken that idea and gone with the logical next step.

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  Work In Colour

• Using Images in Projects & Presentations

  31 Aug 2010 | 4:46 am

  I was talking to a colleague this week about using images in presentations, reports and planning documents, and it got me thinking more generally. What are the benefits of using images at work?

• Have you seen John Cleese on the Creative Process?

  24 Aug 2010 | 5:14 am

  This week's post is an invitation to watch a most excellent video of John Cleese (Monty Python, Fawlty Towers...but you knew that) talking about the creative process. It's about 10 minutes long but it's a real treat.

• Does a Tight Framework Help or Hinder Creativity?

  16 Aug 2010 | 5:56 pm

  I had a presentation at a boardroom lunch in Brisbane last Friday, on creative thinking as your career edge. I did all my prep, all good, then a couple of days before the event I just thought I'd better check what AV setup they had. Disaster, no slides, no video, nothing allowed.

• Do you know the Strawberry Tigers story?

  10 Aug 2010 | 4:47 pm

  This month has been a rollercoaster, both in the outside world and in my work and family worlds. Lots of activity, lots of distractions, sudden changes of plans...you get the drift. Then I remembered the Buddhist story about the tigers and the strawberry.

• 10 questions about your working life

  2 Aug 2010 | 5:11 pm

  I run a program called the Escape Hatch, because it is my belief that we should all find our strengths, tap into our passion and get paid for it. Because of this, I'm seeing a lot of unhappy people in CorporateWorld at the moment - mainstream professionals or executives who feel stifled, trapped by their own success, people who are looking for the exit but aren't sure where to start.

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  Innovatio

• Mais de R$ 48 milhões para Inovação

  Edson Menezes

  31 Aug 2010 | 2:49 pm

  A meta é sensibilizar 18 mil empresas, capacitar 9 mil empresários e executivos, preparar 3.600 planos de inovação e elaborar 2.400 projetos. Notícias Relacionadas:R$ 8 milhões para capacitação empresarial em Inovação R$ 30 milhões para fixar pesquisadores nas empresas brasileiras 30 milhões para fixar pesquisadores nas empresas brasileiras

• Lâmpadas Led são usadas para atrair consumidor em supermercados

  Edson Menezes

  31 Aug 2010 | 2:36 pm

  ComboLed funciona como uma cartaz promocional inteligente Notícias Relacionadas:Palavras “estranhas” usadas no mundo dos negócios O mito do consumidor racional Modelo para Produção Agroecológica em Sergipe

• Inovação e Mudanças de Perfil

  Edson Menezes

  23 Aug 2010 | 7:48 pm

  Especialistas discutem rumos da C&T no Brasil, com destaque para políticas de investimento, internacionalização e aumento da pesquisa em empresas... Notícias Relacionadas:Estudo revela perfil dos empreendedores de empresas de alto crescimento Brasileiros e Alemães discutem parcerias para Inovação em Munique Inovação Aberta, Inovação em Rede

• Casa ‘high-tech’ tem luz, som e TV controlados por celular ou iPad

  Edson Menezes

  22 Aug 2010 | 8:06 am

  Novidades em automação residencial foram apresentadas em feira Notícias Relacionadas:Amazon adquire start-up com 6 funcionários para combater o Ipad 86% de donas de casa estão em redes sociais Apple compra patente ‘iPad’ à Fujitsu

• 28 mil vagas para cursos GRATUITOS de Petróleo e Gás

  Edson Menezes

  19 Aug 2010 | 6:46 am

  Serão oferecidas 27.915 vagas para cursos gratuitos em categorias profissionais de níveis básico, médio, técnico e superior Notícias Relacionadas:Agência Nacional do Petróleo abre edital para seleção de cursos Cursos de Linux Gratuitos Conhecimento é poder: cursos online e gratuitos no Brasil

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  Creativity_Unbound

• Don’t let yourself be labeled

  edward boches

  1 Sep 2010 | 10:54 am

  Yesterday I ran into old colleague, now an art director at another agency.  Here’s how he greeted me.  “Hey, I heard you’re no longer creative.  You’ve gone 100 percent digital and social.” Now, I am under the impression that if you lose 30 pounds you may no longer be fat. Or that if you convert to Judaism you may no longer be Catholic. Or that if you have a sex change you may no longer be the same gender you used to be. But I had no idea that if you went all digital and social that it meant giving up your creativity.  Heck, for a moment I had actually believed that digital and…

• How to hire social media strategists

  edward boches

  27 Aug 2010 | 6:23 am

  Klout's a cool tool, but is it the best determinate of a candidate? Earlier this week my friend  Michelle Tripp, blogger/CD/social media consultant asked how Mullen assesses talent when we hire people to develop strategy, content and online presence for our social media clients. Specifically, Michelle wondered if we’d starting using tools like Klout to evaluate someone’s online presence, influence, and community engagement, and if not, did we have a formal approach to determining someone’s social media skills?  Apparently, Michelle has clients who are starting to check…

• Re: Today’s Creative Director, BBH’s Kevin Roddy gets it 90 percent right

  edward boches

  24 Aug 2010 | 11:19 am

  I give Kevin Roddy a lot of credit for coming out and declaring that creative directors might actually be clueless when it comes to creating ideas for the post digital age. In a guest column in Ad Age, Roddy suggests that traditional CD’s may still know a great idea when they see it, but he questions whether they can inspire or conceive complex digital ideas if their real comfort zone is in the media of TV, print and radio. BBH New York’s CCO goes on to suggest that advertising creative directors whose experience comes from old media story telling should “admit that they don’t know…

• SxSW panels from Mullen and friends: hope you’ll vote and comment

  edward boches

  23 Aug 2010 | 2:29 pm

  It’s that time of year again. When we start thinking about Austin and ribs and digital friends and panel nerd badges. But first, we have to take care of business and do our job influencing, or at least commenting on, the submitted panels and talks. Granted there is no shortage of great panels up at SxSWi this voting season. In fact there are more than I’ve had the time to plow through. So, just in case you’re in the same over extended situation, I thought I’d share a few that Mullen colleagues and I have either submitted or been invited to join in hopes that they meet with your…

• Marriott and the impact of social media: the conclusion

  edward boches

  20 Aug 2010 | 12:59 pm

  Marriott gave me a great opening to a speech on social media and a lesson in how anyone can create content, distribute that content and influence a brand conversation. Above the first four slides of a talk I gave at Sears. If you’ve been here this week you know the story of my dripping hotel room ceiling and my frustration with Marriott’s initial response.  But I’m pleased to report the story has a happy ending for all involved. For starters, the ordeal gave me a brilliant opening to a speech I was making to Sears HC the next day. Perfect timing for a talk titled “The End of Us and…

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  The Complete Innovator

• 6 Secrets to Corporate Authenticity

  Boris Pluskowski

  25 Aug 2010 | 6:02 am

  “Authentic” is undoubtedly one of most echoed words in the Social World nowadays – applied especially liberally when explaining to companies the means by which they should be conveying themselves to the broader world in order to be heard. The term seems seldom explained more than that, and yet the implications are deep.  It amuses me to no end that the word “authentic” has staged such an emergent come back into our vocabulary – not least of which when used to describe a media and communication form so recently embraced for its ability to allow people to engage in an almost…

• Is your Community Contaminated?

  Boris Pluskowski

  21 Jul 2010 | 9:32 am

  This morning I found myself at the W Hotel in Hoboken, accidentally (no really!) listening to an interesting story on one of the many breakfast shows on at that time. On that show, author James Fowler was describing research he had done that showed how social networks surrounding us can impact each of our lives in a much deeper way than most people realize. To make his point, (and the news presumably) he used as an example that divorce can be “contagious” amongst friends – mentioning that having a close friend experience divorce, increases the chance of your own divorce by 147%.

• 4 people to avoid at your next Innovation Conference

  Boris Pluskowski

  7 Jun 2010 | 6:59 am

  It’s conference season again, and I find myself in the enviable position of being able to attend many of the top conferences on Innovation, Collaboration and Social Media and just soak in the rootin’, tootin’ and high faluttin’ knowledge that pervades the atmosphere at a good conference. This week (June 8-9th) is no exception –  I’ll be at the World Innovation Forum in New York City (#WIF10 if you’d like to follow that conference on twitter), a conference with superlative speakers, and an equally interesting attendance – and if I’ve learnt anything from nearly a decade…

• Talking “Social Teams” – LIVE EVENT – #smchat – Wednesday 26 May, 2010 – 1PM EST

  Boris Pluskowski

  24 May 2010 | 1:51 pm

  So a few months ago I put up a post on this website about a concept I’d formulated whilst listening to some of the fine speakers at the annual World Business Forum last year. That post, entitled “Why companies shouldn’t build online communities” proposed that the entire mentality with which most companies approach collaboration and communities primed them for failure straight away. In the next post “Continuing the Conversation: For Companies, Build Teams, Not Communities” I continued to explain my rationale : namely that by looking at these virtual groups…

• The 4 Laws of Enduring Innovation Success

  Boris Pluskowski

  7 Apr 2010 | 6:00 am

  Always an avid reader of the Financial Times, (one of the few decent news sources in an otherwise barren information landscape here in the US)  I came across a great commentary/review by the FT’s always fabulous Lucy Kellaway on the “Money-Honey’s” (CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo) recent book “The Ten Laws of Enduring Success”. Lucy does amusingly short work of debunking the 10 laws that Maria came up with, and proposes a few laws of her own instead. Lucy’s Laws were so much better formulated (in my opinion) that it got me thinking about the “Laws” of successful Innovation…

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  SERVICE INNOVATION

• VALUE YOUR FRONTLINE EMPLOYEES

  Arnold Beekes

  31 Aug 2010 | 1:29 am

  More than 80% of our  (Western) economies is based upon services. However, most tools, processes, research and business models are still based upon products and manufacturing know-how.This creates tension, especially on the work floor. In the case of services, the person who delivers the service is in essence the service. Indeed, a human being and not a machine or a part. Human beings can and would like to think for themselves, they would like to grow, have meaningful work and feel engaged.Who are these frontline employees in service jobs?They are food service workers, nurses’ aides,…

• SALES & SERVICE GO HAND IN HAND

  Arnold Beekes

  24 Aug 2010 | 12:55 am

  Last week I had to buy a new TV, so I went to several stores for orientation. I am not up to date on the latest technologies in that industry, though. And that is what happened, I was bombarded with jargon out of that world (LED, LCD, HD, 50 Hz, 100 Hz, 32 inch, 40 inch, digital subscriptions etc).In one shop they only explained about the TV, which was on sale, and where I was just standing as the salesrepr approached. He made no other suggestions or explanations.In the second shop, I did get an excellent technical explanation of the possibilities. The best, however, was a demo of one 50Hz TV…

• PUTTING INNOVATION IN PERSPECTIVE

  Arnold Beekes

  17 Aug 2010 | 2:37 am

  That is what Richard Florida does in his latest book ‘The Great Reset’. I would say that this book is a must read for every innovator.We know that for every creative process, the following steps are necessary:What is the end result?What is the current reality?What are the action steps?Florida gives us a perspective on all these steps, both economically and from a society’s point of view.Below I have listed some inspirational thoughts:-       Great resets bring about shifts in consumption that fuel rising industries.-       The…

• SERVICES ARE HOT

  Arnold Beekes

  3 Aug 2010 | 1:42 am

  In a great article from W.P. Carey’s Center for Services Leadership called “Making Services a  Science – new study finds great interest – and great confusion (http://bit.ly/dmdAgy)” the need for service innovation is being recognized.more companies than ever are interested in services innovation -- the creation of "transformative" services. More companies than ever are interested in smart services design. More companies than ever are interested in creating service-centric cultures, in leveraging technology to boost services and in creating consistency of service across…

• FOCUS ON THE NEW WAY OF WORKING

  Arnold Beekes

  27 Jul 2010 | 1:23 am

  Last week I attended a webinar with Gary Hamel. He mentioned the following challenges, which trigger the need for management innovation:Accelerating changeIntensifying competitionDiminishing differentiationGrowing mistrustI would like to add these observations:Increasing globalizationStandardizing social mediaIntegrating technologyCollaboration between generationsLet’s have a quick look into each of them.Ad 1. You could say that this is an open door. However we still have not learned to cope with change in an effective and efficient way. Many researches indicate that most change efforts do…

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  ScottGould.me

• Top 10 Productivity Tips

  Scott Gould

  31 Aug 2010 | 1:39 am

  On yesterday’s post Ian Mcleary shared his 10 top productivity tips. Very useful: 1. Sort out my to-do list every morning 2. Start at 7 every morning. 3. Review my 99 day goals every week 4. Review my stats every week 5. Keep my CRM system up to date 6. Bring my laptop to meetings and be productive when waiting for people before meetings. 7. Do the GYM at least 3 times a week at lunchtime. The GYM helps me think and makes me more productive. 8. Avoid the laptop 1 day a week. You are more productive with 6 days work not 7. 9. Group my tasks by context, if I’m on the phone I try to…

• And then, and then, and then

  Scott Gould

  30 Aug 2010 | 1:39 am

  Whenever I talk with too much certainty about what I’ll do then, and then, and then, I know that I’ve become arrogant and lazy. One of the gems from the Like Minds Summit back in February was short term execution with a long term goal. In other words, it was “there’s where we want to be, but let’s execute this first.” So, essentially, there’s no “then,”, there’s only “now.” Your Leading Thoughts Do you have similar traits when you get too confident and become complacent? (Or is it just me?) When did you learn…

• Video: What One Man Can Do For God

  Scott Gould

  29 Aug 2010 | 2:19 am

  A lot. Mix faithfulness with tenacity and you see this one man did amazing things, not for himself, but for God: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdspKNEzH54 If you can’t see the above video, click here, or watch directly on YouTube This video convicts me as a Christian, as a marketer who understands that what should drive us is a genuine love for people, and finally as a human who wants to do the right thing, even if there’s no return. There’s no telling what someone can do when they don’t care who gets the credit. Your Leading Thoughts Let’s crack open the discussion --…

• What Is Social? Well…

  Scott Gould

  27 Aug 2010 | 1:10 am

  What with starting work this week on a manuscript for a book – “Social” being the working title – I want to share some of the content that I will make up the backbone of the book that I haven’t made public until now, as it’s been reserved for paying clients only. If you can’t see the above slideshow, click here, or see it directly on Slideshare This is a short 12 slide presentation that explains succinctly what the difference between social and broadcast as – as mindsets before they are media – and then three lessons that we draw that…

• I’m Back!

  Scott Gould

  26 Aug 2010 | 1:51 am

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnyKNHc__g4 If you can’t see the above video, click here, or watch direct on YouTube Hello friends -- I am back from Spain (36°C) to the glorious English summer of clouds and rain. Certainly I am very, very rested and relaxed. I did no work except on the first two days, and for the majority of the holiday I didn’t even know what time it was as my watch and phone were out of sight! A year ago after my summer holiday I said I felt re-envisioned, which was just before we launched Like Minds. This time, I feel like I’ve got a bit more re-prioritised.

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  BrainZooming

• Plane Creative Thinking

  Mike Brown

  1 Sep 2010 | 10:31 pm

  Zoom This!

• Five Columns to Get More from Twitter

  Mike Brown

  1 Sep 2010 | 2:50 am

  Even among people signed up on Twitter, you see questions about Twitter’s value and what Twitter is good for strategically. Many times these questions come from people who are still using Twitter at Twitter.com and haven’t gravitated toward a more robust application such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck. As a Tweetdeck user, here are 5 columns set up in Tweetdeck which increase the networking value Twitter provides: “Conversations” – This is a group column that’s continually building as anyone who has tweeted with me, retweeted a post, or I’ve met personally…

• Is Blogging Worth It?

  Mike Brown

  31 Aug 2010 | 2:50 am

  There are lots of reasons to blog, and many bloggers start with visions of making lots of money blogging. In fact, when I ran into a very nice group of women at Panera last week who were familiar with the Brainzooming blog, one of the first questions they asked was whether I was making a living off the blog. My quick answer was, “No.” But then again, making money was never the direct motivation for starting a blog. Instead, what sustains me in blog writing is the desire to share the many blessings I’ve been given (learnings, lessons, experiences, wisdom from mentors, etc.)…

• Creativity in the Worst Possible Conditions

  Mike Brown

  30 Aug 2010 | 2:50 am

  A looooong time ago, an MTV special with Hall and Oates talked about how they produced their studio recordings. They shared a recording studio strategy with broad strategic applicability in business that’s always stuck with me: When you mix a recording, listen to it on the worst speakers. If it sounds good there, it will sound good everywhere. In case you need that translated from musician speak, it means when you’re developing and converting your creative output into its final form, make sure it works in the worst possible conditions. That’s advice absolutely worth heeding.

• Plane Ride Creative Thinking

  Mike Brown

  27 Aug 2010 | 2:50 am

  Some of the most creative times for me are on planes – time and time again. On a return plane flight this week, I filled up page after page with notes and diagrams of ideas to help shape current projects… plus this blog post: Diversity is great for better thinking, but simply adding a “newer” version of the same person everyone in your group represents isn’t all the diversity you could use. If in an initial conversation someone introduces a topic you’d never want to be a part of, it tells you everything you need to know. I had a 90-minute business…

• 

  Breaking Glass by Rishi Dean

• The Quality / Expenditure Matrix: Where is your brand?

  Rishi Dean

  6 Aug 2010 | 1:00 am

  Summary: Terms like “luxury” and “utility” are used too often describe brands, each carrying positive or negative connotations. Here I present the Quality / Expenditure Matrix to characterize your consumers’ experiences, and to help determine how you can leverage that position to your advantage. E-mail. Tweet. Inspired by my interest in amateur mixology over summer vacation, I stumbled across an interesting post, while looking for a cucumber gimlet recipe. As an MBA, I’m a big fan of 2×2 matrices, which made me particularly interested in this…

• 5 Sources of Durable Competitive Advantage

  Rishi Dean

  25 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am

  Summary: We often talk about undertaking an initiative in order to create “competitive advantage”, but what does that really mean? What are things you can, and should be doing? Here we examine, the five sources of durable competitive advantage. E-mail. Tweet. There have been some pithy posts (for example here, and here written on creating durable, or sustainable, competitive advantage; however, the best I’ve ever seen was buried deep in the footnotes of a deck by Khosla Ventures. In this deck it outlines five major sources of durable competitive advantage: “Special…

• What motivates startup employees? Lessons from Daniel Pink’s “Drive”

  Rishi Dean

  11 Jul 2010 | 7:00 pm

  Summary: Dan Pink’s “Drive” explores the roots of motivation, and can help in recruiting, retaining, and developing startup teams. E-mail. Tweet. After my last post on evaluating startup personnel, I was referred to Daniel Pink’s book, Drive. Here, Pink explores the major factors that underlie our motivation, and applies them to the workplace context. He asserts (with supporting research) that for basic, rudimentary tasks money can work as a motivator; however, when tasks get more complicated, requiring conceptual and creative thinking monetary incentives no longer…

• Net Promoter Score (NPS) Equivalent for Startup Evaluations

  Rishi Dean

  7 Jul 2010 | 2:30 am

  Summary: While there are many ways to rate startup employees, The “Carryover Question”, and its ‘Net Carryover Score’, can help cut through the fluff. E-mail. Tweet. One of the most challenging thing to do in a startup is to keep your eye on employee growth and development, while fighting the day-to-day grind of helping to build your business. On the one hand, there is no point looking at employee career development since if the company doesn’t succeed it doesn’t matter, whereas on the other hand to build a sustainable and successful company, investing in…

• Beyond fundraising: the 5P’s of startup financial management

  Rishi Dean

  17 May 2010 | 2:00 am

  Summary: There’s more to start-up finance than raising money, here are the “5Ps” you need to know. E-mail. Tweet. While I try to keep topics on this blog related to innovation strategy, and product development (rather than being a pure “startup” blog) sometimes I need to weigh in on topics that get me a little annoyed. That is, in nearly every meet-up of young startups (the best places to find the seeds of innovation sprouting) the discussion is centered around raising money. All too often venture capital financing is lauded as the holy grail for a startup, over…

• 

  Christa in New York

• Step 245: Back to School and Life Lessons

  Christa

  2 Sep 2010 | 3:00 am

  “The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” ~ Tom Bodett, American author and humorist I love school. Weez is always kidding me that if I could find a way to be a student for the rest of my life and get paid for it, I’d do it. In truth, I kind of do that now. I’m an information junkie. Lots of data served up with a heaping side of industry reports please. All industries welcome. My education has followed me into the workplace and then follows me…

• Step 244: August Accomplishments and September Goals

  Christa

  1 Sep 2010 | 4:00 am

  The summer is slowly fading into the distance, even if the temperatures outside don’t seem to be subsiding. In a month or so, we’ll be digging out some slightly warmer clothing, starting a new school year, and making holiday travel plans. We may even see a leaf of two put on its own colorful wardrobe. So long summer, until next time. Fall is my favorite time of and always has been. I always feel most alive during these last months of the year, and it’s always been a time of great change and accomplishment for me. I revel in it. I expect this Fall to be no exception to the norm. I will…

• Step 243: Celebrations and Legacy Building

  Christa

  31 Aug 2010 | 4:00 am

  “A nation reveals itself by the people it honors, the people it remembers, and the people it celebrates.” ~ President John F. Kennedy While Dan and I were in Philly over the weekend, we stopped into the U.S. Mint to see where the money’s made. Because it was a Saturday, the manufacturing floor was not operating but we could take a look at the machinery and the self-guided plaques told us about the process. As we were leaving the Mint, there was a small section dedicated to commemorative coins. Off to the side there was a display of memorabilia that the Mint produced to commemorate…

• Step 242: Philadelphia Stories

  Christa

  30 Aug 2010 | 4:00 am

  This weekend, my traveling pal, Dan, and I went to Philadelphia. We stayed with Dan’s friends, Jeremy and Reese, who could not have been more gracious hosts. They also have a bulldog, Dolly – an added bonus. Jeremy took us on a tour of the neighborhood around Penn, my alma mater, and we went through neighborhoods that I haven’t thought about in over a decade. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have recognized them on my own. Philly has come a long way since the 1990′s. Philly’s an under-appreciated city; it has been for a long time. Great food, art, culture, easily…

• Step 241: Big Choices

  Christa

  29 Aug 2010 | 5:13 am

  The through lines of our lives can be drawn between our tipping points, those moments and decisions that are so influential that they end up shaping our path forward in a dramatic way. I’ve had a few of those moments: my choices to try to create a career in theatre and then to leave touring theatre companies, moving to Florida and then DC, enrolling at Darden for business school, and then moving to New York City post-graduation without a set job. Now I feel poised on the very edge of another turning point, with a window of opportunity that holds a lot of promise. That window won’t…

• 

  Breaking Glass by Rishi Dean

• The Quality / Expenditure Matrix: Where is your brand?

  Rishi Dean

  6 Aug 2010 | 1:00 am

  Summary: Terms like “luxury” and “utility” are used too often describe brands, each carrying positive or negative connotations. Here I present the Quality / Expenditure Matrix to characterize your consumers’ experiences, and to help determine how you can leverage that position to your advantage. E-mail. Tweet. Inspired by my interest in amateur mixology over summer vacation, I stumbled across an interesting post, while looking for a cucumber gimlet recipe. As an MBA, I’m a big fan of 2×2 matrices, which made me particularly interested in this…

• 5 Sources of Durable Competitive Advantage

  Rishi Dean

  25 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am

  Summary: We often talk about undertaking an initiative in order to create “competitive advantage”, but what does that really mean? What are things you can, and should be doing? Here we examine, the five sources of durable competitive advantage. E-mail. Tweet. There have been some pithy posts (for example here, and here written on creating durable, or sustainable, competitive advantage; however, the best I’ve ever seen was buried deep in the footnotes of a deck by Khosla Ventures. In this deck it outlines five major sources of durable competitive advantage: “Special…

• What motivates startup employees? Lessons from Daniel Pink’s “Drive”

  Rishi Dean

  11 Jul 2010 | 7:00 pm

  Summary: Dan Pink’s “Drive” explores the roots of motivation, and can help in recruiting, retaining, and developing startup teams. E-mail. Tweet. After my last post on evaluating startup personnel, I was referred to Daniel Pink’s book, Drive. Here, Pink explores the major factors that underlie our motivation, and applies them to the workplace context. He asserts (with supporting research) that for basic, rudimentary tasks money can work as a motivator; however, when tasks get more complicated, requiring conceptual and creative thinking monetary incentives no longer…

• Net Promoter Score (NPS) Equivalent for Startup Evaluations

  Rishi Dean

  7 Jul 2010 | 2:30 am

  Summary: While there are many ways to rate startup employees, The “Carryover Question”, and its ‘Net Carryover Score’, can help cut through the fluff. E-mail. Tweet. One of the most challenging thing to do in a startup is to keep your eye on employee growth and development, while fighting the day-to-day grind of helping to build your business. On the one hand, there is no point looking at employee career development since if the company doesn’t succeed it doesn’t matter, whereas on the other hand to build a sustainable and successful company, investing in…

• Beyond fundraising: the 5P’s of startup financial management

  Rishi Dean

  17 May 2010 | 2:00 am

  Summary: There’s more to start-up finance than raising money, here are the “5Ps” you need to know. E-mail. Tweet. While I try to keep topics on this blog related to innovation strategy, and product development (rather than being a pure “startup” blog) sometimes I need to weigh in on topics that get me a little annoyed. That is, in nearly every meet-up of young startups (the best places to find the seeds of innovation sprouting) the discussion is centered around raising money. All too often venture capital financing is lauded as the holy grail for a startup, over…

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  Wisepreneur

• Which P2P Lender Should You Choose?

  Wisepreneur

  1 Sep 2010 | 8:02 am

  By: Calvin Bacon If you are an entrepreneur who is seriously considering peer-to-peer lenders, the next question is which one should you pick. While there are many peer-to-peer lenders available, this article will compare three popular lenders as an example of how you might compare your choices. Before I even begin on the topic, let [...]

• New Ventures: Is Peer To Peer Lending A Good Funding Solution?

  Wisepreneur

  30 Aug 2010 | 7:46 am

  By: Calvin Bacon Funding a new idea or a new venture is always a challenge, particularly before the idea has become a reality. Sometimes it seems like the typical catch-22. You must have the funding before you can develop the idea, but you must have a developed idea before you can get the funding. If [...]

• Cultivating an Innovative Culture

  Wisepreneur

  26 Aug 2010 | 7:26 am

  Executives must create a culture that overcomes barriers to innovation. To succeed, organizations must be able to thrive in a culture of rapid and constant change. HR executives need to foster cultures that offer a common language, foster experimentation and mix the right talent.

• Personal Branding And How It Can Help Your Business…

  Wisepreneur

  24 Aug 2010 | 3:11 am

  By: Robert Strong What is Personal Branding and how can it help your business?  There are a few steps to accomplish this task although easy it can be time consuming especially for the individual that has not invested time into what is in their best interest.  The key to any success (and this isn’t cutting [...]

• Managing Internal Communications: Positive Energy for Positive Results

  Wisepreneur

  22 Aug 2010 | 7:37 am

  Managing through change can be extremely difficult or one of the most rewarding experiences an entrepreneur can ever have. It largely depends on the ability of the entrepreneur to gain employee confidence while at the same time leading and navigating through the type of rapid change a high-potential firm often has. Employees must know the company goals, his/her role in the process, and the proper change management tools. When an entrepreneur plans for change, he or she is able to direct valuable company resources to meeting the company’s goals, and that translates into more profits.

• 

  Game-Changer

• If a person is not innovative with self, can she be innovative in an organization?

  Jorge

  30 Aug 2010 | 2:57 pm

  Good question posted by @Stevekoss from yesterday’s post: Do companies need less innovation? The process of innovation is full of highs and lows and requires people to stretch themselves beyond their comfort zone so I think it depends on a person’s tolerance for failure. It basically comes down to mindset, Carol Dweck has written extensively about how there are people with a fixed and growth mindsets. If you look around you’ll see that we’re mostly surrounded by people with fixed mindsets, people who are afraid to be wrong and make mistakes. Where innovation requires a learning…

• Do companies need less innovation?

  Ralph Ohr

  29 Aug 2010 | 12:53 pm

  This is a guest post by Ralph Ohr in response to an article posted on Business Week titled: Why Companies Need Less Innovation. Thanks for this valuable post. Although, I just partly agree with the author, the post has greatly initiated an important discussion. The definition of what innovation means in a certain context as well as the resulting question who is responsible to drive the defined scope, turn out to be crucial for innovation success. As already indicated in former comments, the author tends in his understanding of innovation to focus on the more radical part of the continuum.

• Innovation posts of the week: Why companies need less innovation

  Jorge

  29 Aug 2010 | 11:38 am

  Why Companies Need Less Innovation – BusinessWeek via @ralph_ohr  If You’re the Boss, Start Killing More Good Ideas by @work_matters  The Art of Momentum: Why Your Ideas Need Speed by @the99percent You’re Smart Doesn’t Mean You’re A Good Problem Solver. Putting More Smart People On A Problem Might Not Be The Answer by @ideacouture  Innovation and commercialization, 2010: Global Survey – McKinsey Quarterly Why Great Ideas Can Fail via @core77 In Defense of Improvement by @jamestodhunter The Creativity Crisis? What Creativity Crisis? – HBR The…

• Innovating your business model

  Jorge

  24 Aug 2010 | 10:15 am

    Competition in industries is essentially competition between business models. A recent tweet by @TimKastelle which led to a post about the evolution of the business model concept reminded me of a great creative exercise to help you look at your and other industries dominant business model as a lego kit, which when broken apart can be reconnected like building blocks to create new types of business concepts. Here’s how it would go: First you start by thinking about the trends that are happening in the world and how they affect your industry, your business and your customers. You then…

• An authentic way to stand out is to have a point of view

  Jorge

  23 Aug 2010 | 11:25 am

  These pictures are from the border crossing between San Ysidro and Tijuana. This is Tijuana a few steps after you cross the border and this building is full of auto import agencies. There’s 18 of them and they all sell the same stuff, advertise the same way, operate the same way and talk the same way. The only recognizable difference between them is the name of their business, the font they use and the colors. Is that all there is? I imagine anybody who comes through here must think the same thing: Which one do I…what?! To prove my point I sat at a table across the street for a couple of…

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  Creativity at Work Blog

• Five Ways to Foster Your Creativity and Spark Innovation

  Linda Naiman

  19 Aug 2010 | 4:56 pm

  Replenish your creative stock In the The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron contends that, “In order to create, we draw from our inner well. This inner well, an artistic reservoir, is ideally like a... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Coaching Leaders and Managers: Control Freak Confidential

  Linda Naiman

  13 Aug 2010 | 5:20 pm

  “Help!” says a new client, “I recently got promoted to a management position at work. How do I find the balance between leading and being in control, without being a control freak?” As a former prima... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says he has a personal stake in supporting artists in Canada, as well as the CBC

  Linda Naiman

  12 Aug 2010 | 6:16 pm

  “People think I spent my life up there in the ivory tower, Ignatieff  told an audience in Kingston, “ I actually spent 20 years as a freelance writer and journalist. I wrote screenplays.... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Creativity at Work Newsletter: Is America suffering from a creativity crisis?

  Linda Naiman

  11 Aug 2010 | 12:39 pm

  Creativity at Work Newsletter, July/August 2010 Is America suffering from a creativity crisis? Pundits have been buzzing about this question ever since Newsweek ran “The Creativity... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Creatively intelligent companies and leaders: Arts-based learning for business

  Linda Naiman

  11 Aug 2010 | 11:53 am

  Journal of Business Strategy, Volume 31 issue 4, has published a special issue on creatively intelligent companies and leaders: Arts-based learning for business Guest edited by Harvey Seifter and Ted... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• 

  Think Primed

• Innochat Transcript – 19 August – Innovation Backwards?

  Sorry for the delay in getting the most recent innochat transcript posted. The challenge associated with connecting while on the road was greater than anticipated. Needless to say I didn’t expect to be looking at Uluru (aka. Ayers Rock) in the middle of Australia as I type this, but here I am. Thanks for your [...]

• If we build it, will they come? Innovation & the Boom hangover

  Exploring how R&D spending points toward a widespread desire for innovation in large companies but not necessarily an economic upturn any time soon. I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. - Wimpy The way companies position their investments in research and development (R&D) or capital programs speaks volumes about the kind of [...]

• Innochat Transcript – 13 August – The Effects of Booms and Busts on Innovation

  David W. Locke stepped in this week with a great framing post and moderation of the topic: The Effects of Booms and Busts on Innovation. Many thanks to David for his efforts! A vibrant discussion was had and the perils of commoditization came to light as a pattern that drives down innovation performance due to [...]

• Innovation & the Status Quo: The perils of groupthink, stereotyping and system justification

  Everything is in a state of flux, including the status quo. - Robert Byrne Effective innovation demands embracing change. Unless you are completely dissatisfied with what you have now, the idea of forsaking some of your present discomfort for the pain of full-blown change not only seems unlikely, it is downright foolish. This is the [...]

• Innochat Transcript – 5 August – Fixing an Innovation-averse Corporate Culture

  Another fun time with the excellent moderation of Renee Hopkins – always a pleasure. A great topic which was well turned over by those present, but as with all #innochat topics there is always room for more. Take a look and weigh in. And next week it looks like we may discuss: cultural problems in [...]

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  Steve Hill

• The Pipeline Principle

  Steve

  29 Aug 2010 | 12:39 pm

  My father always has and always will be one of my greatest sources of inspiration and insight.  One of the things that I most respect about him, is his business acumen and work ethic.  I could spend all day describing [...]

• My 2010 Fantasy Football Team

  Steve

  25 Aug 2010 | 8:29 pm

  I know this really has nothing to do with innovation or marketing, but I figured I would share my fantasy football team roster.  My league’s draft was this evening and this is who I selected: Quarterbacks: Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers [...]

• Social Media’s Plan B: Innovation

  Steve

  23 Aug 2010 | 12:52 pm

  I’m not a prophet of internet communications and I don’t believe I’m God’s gift to social media, but I think it’s time that the social media community makes an account of itself.  Over the last few years we’ve witnessed a [...]

• Building an Innovative Culture

  Steve

  21 Aug 2010 | 10:49 am

  It’s pretty well understood and accepted that in a corporate environment innovation can’t be forced.  However, there are legitimate ways to encourage it.  Sure, there are plenty of tools technology has given us to be innovative, but ultimately creating the [...]

• The Key to Successful Entrepreneurship

  Steve

  20 Aug 2010 | 4:35 pm

  The key to successful entrepreneurship isn’t to identify what the consumer wants and then present it in the most profitable way possible. The key is to offer a product that the customer doesn’t yet know he or she wants and [...]

• 

  The Hubble Innovation Feed

• BizTweet innovates internal communication

  Philipp Reker

  1 Sep 2010 | 6:00 pm

  The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Ramstad reports on how South Korea’s LG CNS officially launched BizTweet, an adapted version of Twitter, strictly for their internal network of 7,000 employees. Employees notify each other about seminars, meetings, and test products. Many companies already use internal messaging software in conjunction with email, but LG CNS’ BizTweet system offers a faster, less formal system of conversation than email and a more fluid way to stay abreast of news than bulletin boards. LG CNS is ahead of the curve in revolutionizing internal communications, thanks to…

• Smithsonian wins 25m to improve science education

  Johannes Bhakdi

  1 Sep 2010 | 5:00 am

  The Smithsonian received a $25 million grant, contingent on a 20% private match, from the Department of Education to “transform science education from 1st grade to 8th grade”. Finally, some stimulus money we can see! Note to America: science education is key. Good to invest (more). Make sure that creativity is part of the “transformation”. It can be taught, too, and is the #1 trait we seek in the leaders of the future!

• Profiles In Doing Both: Why Cirque du Soleil Isn’t Clowning Around About Business Models

  Inder Sidhu

  31 Aug 2010 | 4:31 pm

  “Ka.” “Kooza.” “Ovo.” And “Nouba.” Are these names familiar to you? If so, then you’re likely one of the nearly 100 million people who have seen a performance by Canada’s famed circus troupe, Cirque du Soleil. Founded in Quebec, Canada, by stilt-walker and fire-breather Guy Laliberte, Cirque du Soleil has grown into one of the world’s truly great entertainment companies. With $700 million in annual revenue, the company now entertains patrons on six continents and in more than 200 cities. That’s a far cry from the Cirque…

• Procter and Gamble plans eco-friendly packages – matter of scale:

  Philipp Reker

  31 Aug 2010 | 5:00 am

  Procter & Gamble, the fast moving consumer goods giant, plots a major green move: using a new, sugarcane-derived plastic to package beauty products under their Pantene, Pro-V, Covergirl, and Max Factor labels. Sugarcane is a renewable resource, as opposed to traditional plastic that is made from non-renewable petroleum. Procter & Gamble says it wants to “leverage its scale to deliver meaningful environmental improvements”. Bravo, P&G! Currently, we produce 100 million tons of plastic pollution every year, damage our planet and use the last gallons of valuable petroleum for it.

• Best Buy capitalizes on ‘an internal venture capital mind-set’

  Johannes Bhakdi

  30 Aug 2010 | 8:00 am

  If Venture Capital builds new business models and opens new markets, why don’t large companies embrace this concept more decisively to drive growth? Exactly, thought Best Buy – and did it. Rick Rommel, senior VP of a new business group at the retailer,  is taking advantage of increased internal financing for ‘experimental ventures’. Rommel is focusing specifically on exploring what customers think and what technologies are ready for widespread adoption. One outcome of the new thinking and infrastructure is a close collaboration with start-up Shopkick, which works on an…

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  The Fertile Unknown

• Breakthroughs at Every Turn

  Michelle

  30 Aug 2010 | 8:25 pm

  Had to capture this inspired intersection: I took this picture at Kayser Ridge in Berkeley Springs, WV

• Creativity in Business: My Interview with Stephen Shapiro

  Michelle

  27 Aug 2010 | 7:34 am

  Interview # 21 in the Creativity in Business Thought Leader Series is with Stephen Shapiro, one of the foremost authorities on innovation culture, collaboration, and open innovation. Stephen is an author, consultant, speaker, and the Chief Innovation Evangelist for InnoCentive, a pioneer in the burgeoning field of open innovation. Over the years, Stephen has shared his innovative philosophy in books such as 24/7 Innovation, The Little Book of BIG Innovation Ideas and Goal-Free Living - a manifesto on how to increase your creativity by not being so hyper-focused on your goals. Stephen…

• On Creativity...

  Michelle

  25 Aug 2010 | 5:54 pm

  Information is free. Knowledge is acquired. Wisdom is earned. Creativity is cultivated.

• On Creativity...

  Michelle

  24 Aug 2010 | 10:05 am

  It's not about boxing creativity into our current constructs...it's about expandingour constructs via creativity.

• Creativity in Business: My Interview with Seth Kahan

  Michelle

  1 Jul 2010 | 2:25 pm

  Interview #20 in our Creativity in Business ThoughtLeader Series is with Seth Kahan, President of the Performance Development Group, Inc. Seth writes for the Fast Company blog, Leading Change; is a regular contributor to the Washington Post's On Success; is the author of the book, Building Beehives: Creating Communities that Generate Returns; and recently published his latest book, Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out (read an excerpt at GettingChangeRight.com). Seth works with visionaries to help them bring their dreams to life. His work since…

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  Thoughtwrestling

• Eliminating your internal broadcast delay

  Mark Dykeman

  2 Sep 2010 | 2:45 am

  This is a guest post of Jordan Cooper of NotAProBlog.com.  His bio appears at the end of this post. In radio and television, broadcast delay refers to the practice of intentionally delaying broadcast of live material. Typically used in the case of unexpected profanity, it’s also commonly employed for other undesirable glitches such as technical problems, coughing fits or downright blooper reel worthy moments. Enacted as a compromise between the corporate suits who manage the bottom line and the creative types who inhabit the airwaves, this 7 second delay allows them to work…

• What Fans Can Teach Us About Creativity

  Susan Murphy

  1 Sep 2010 | 1:28 am

  TweetMy husband and I are geeks. For our vacations, we often travel to places far and wide, like Indiana and Ohio, to attend horror movie conventions like this one. This past weekend, we stayed a bit closer to home, heading down the road to Toronto to take in the FanExpo Convention. FanExpo, for those who may not be familiar, is Canada’s largest convention for Sci-Fi, Horror, Comics, Anime, and Video Game fans. It’s an entire weekend of geeky fun, including everything from a huge trade show, to celebrity meet and greets, to Jedi School. What I love most about these conventions (or…

• Guest posts at Lateral Action

  Mark Dykeman

  31 Aug 2010 | 2:48 am

  Hello Thoughtwrestlers!  Today I’d like to point your attention towards Lateral Action, a great blog by Mark McGuinness.  I’ve written three different guest posts there over the past year or so that I thought you might enjoy: Drill Sergeant or Buddy:  Who Brings Out the Best in a Creator? – the article talks about one of my favorite bands, XTC, and their experiences recording some of their most famous albums, as well as the before and after picture of the band. Why Creative Work Is Like Making Magic – this one looks at the creative processes of a prolific magician…

• Creative technique – make the villain the hero

  Mark Dykeman

  30 Aug 2010 | 2:33 am

  TweetReversals are a great creative challenge.  They can also help you solve problems.  Taking a key piece of information and reversing it early in a process (or a story) can yield unexpected insights and powerful results. Sometimes turning the villain into the hero is the key to solving a problem. Let’s take a famous pop culture example and unpack it a bit. No, I don’t mean Toy Story. I mean something… bigger.  From a long, long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Star Wars – when good and evil were black and white Star Wars started out pretty straightforward when…

• Free consulting sessions almost gone!

  Mark Dykeman

  27 Aug 2010 | 4:32 am

  The free consulting sessions offer has had a great response. I’m actually down to two open spots (23 filled). If you’re on the fence about getting a 30 minute free consultation with me, you should send me an E-Mail at thoughtwrestler@gmail.com and soon. Happy Friday! Share this on del.icio.us Share this on Facebook Post on Google Buzz Add this to Google Reader Share this on LinkedIn Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon Related posts:Special offer – free consulting sessions with me Free ebook plus new newsletter plus a contest! Last day for free books draw…

• 

  TalentCulture

• Interns Are People, Too!

  Kirsten Taggart

  30 Aug 2010 | 6:30 am

  Photo from Style Amor As I wrap up my time as an intern at TalentCulture, I find myself reflecting on my eleven-month experience as a part of a truly unique company and exciting social community.  Cliché, I know.  But compared to internship horror stories from fellow students, I’ve had it pretty good.  The difference between their experiences and mine is simple: leadership quality. The value we interns gain is largely determined by our boss. We want one that cares about our well- being as an employee as well as a person—and doesn’t force us to pick the chickpeas off of his/her salad…

• Can Your Workplace Brand Recruit a Brett Favre?

  GL Hoffman

  27 Aug 2010 | 6:30 am

  Photo from Sports News Blog Unless you have been living under rock, you know the Brett Favre story.  Skilled, but aging quarterback is released by Green Bay, which has named sub-divisions after him, a couple of years back.  The Jets, those poor Jets, beg him to play which he does, which is sometimes painful to watch.  The old guy can throw, sure, but too many interceptions made everyone say, “Brett, buddy, hang it up.” Then last year. The Vikings, my home town team, begged him to play.  Mostly because we had a QB who was too young, too inexperienced and not really qualified…

• What Salvador Dali Didn’t Understand About Day-to-Day Creativity

  Mike Brown

  23 Aug 2010 | 6:30 am

  Struggling to find a suitable topic for this article, a tried-and-true creativity technique came in handy: using random inputs to trigger an idea. I grabbed a folder of notes from presentations I’ve attended the past few years. The first reference was to a story about an art patron who asked surrealist artist Salvador Dali if it were hard to paint a picture. Dali’s answer? “No, it’s either easy or impossible.” What a great quote. Pithy, to the point, encapsulating a much bigger truth…yet completely useless for someone trying to be creative on-demand in a…

• To Find, Fit, and Glow – A New TalentCulture Strategic Partner

  Kevin Grossman

  19 Aug 2010 | 7:54 am

  What does Glowan and TalentCulture have in common? Well, Glowan is the Old English word for “to glow”. And TalentCulture is all about talent acquisition and culture fit and so much more. Glowan is the name of The Glowan Consulting Group, a firm that transforms individuals and organizations utilizing its L3 Leadership Learning programs and executive coaching activities. TalentCulture, the talent acquisition and career branding firm led by Meghan M. Biro, is also a diverse community of experts and contributors focused on facilitating interaction that promotes creativity and supports…

• Crowdsourcing for your Business or Community

  Eric Leist

  16 Aug 2010 | 6:30 am

  Crowdsourcing is using an open call for tasks, information or data collection mostly through new media technology. Many times, a passionate crowd is much more powerful than an individual, business or closed community. Here’s how crowdsourcing works: 1) You discover a problem or a need. 2) You broadcast that need online and call for solutions. 3) An online crowd discovers that call and collectively contributes solutions. 4) You use the crowd’s suggestions to choose a way to fix your problem and reward the individuals who developed that suggestion. 5) In the end, you’ve fixed your…

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• What Did The Millennials Ever Do To You?

  Josip Petrusa

  1 Sep 2010 | 5:09 pm

  Over the last 2 weeks or so, twentysomthings, Millennials and all those Gen-Y have found themselves on the other side of some harsh rhetoric. As often as it is with younger generations, there is a constant need for talking down to youth. And whether that be for the best of intentions or for the fear of kids going wrong, our older counterparts have some serious beefs with us. After all we’ve never fought a great war. We’re taking to long to grow-up. Our parents have treated as too well. We’re too dreamy, extremely connected, spent years as students, and so on. The dialogue has been a…

• Will The Millennials Out-Run Technology?

  Josip Petrusa

  31 Aug 2010 | 2:06 pm

  For all the negative acclaim Millennials receive, I may be pretentiously adding another “negative” characteristic to the list. To think that the Millennials are dictating technology as opposed to technology dictating our lives is absurd and crazy. Isn’t it? Well not really, at least from a Millennial’s point-of-view. Nor are these projected “negatives” really that negative from our point-of-view either. The Cause Over the last few days, I experienced a series of revelations. Well, actually two revelations. The first, was the result of a friend’s birthday. And the second, was the…

• Are You Crowdsourcing Gen-Y? Maybe You Should Be

  Josip Petrusa

  27 Aug 2010 | 11:49 am

  The internet has allowed has to all to expand our horizons. Whether it be connecting with great individuals and brilliant minds across the globe or simply writing your own customer reviews for a brand and experience, one thing is for certain and that is most likely someone is watching and listening. Usually that “someone” is a company trying to avoid a PR blunder by monitoring activity about what is being said about them. But more interestingly, these same companies are even trying to get ahead of the game by sourcing that information they’re receiving and hopefully pulling some…

• Why We Will Ultimately Break-Up with Social Media

  Josip Petrusa

  26 Aug 2010 | 3:08 pm

  Over the last week or so, I’ve spent some considerable time reflecting about social media. What is it? Why do we use it? How long will it last? These were only but a few questions that came to mind. And the more I thought about it, the more I began to realise. And the more I began to realise, the more I began to wonder and question what relationship actually exists between us and social media For some years now, social media has been ragging forward. And since it’s inception, much of the social media world has drastically changed. Many of us have also changed as a result of it. The early…

• Will the Gen-Y Dream Kill the Product Brand?

  Josip Petrusa

  25 Aug 2010 | 7:36 pm

  I must admit, it’s a pretty outlandish statement. The thought that a single generation of young consumers could halt the wheels of product consumption seems, well, absurd. We’re all about the products. Aren’t we? Having more possessions than we can all truly enjoy. The advertisements are everywhere we look. There’s no getting away from any of it. We want it all. Right? Well, we do want it all. However, what we want, what Gen-Y wants, has significantly evolved from our consumer notions of the 1990s and 2000s. A recent study, the 2010 MetLife Study of the American Dream, has more than a…