Resources for Innovation – The Power of Constraints

The wise stewardship of resources is the task of any organization. How those resources are deployed for maximum gain is the key responsibility of organizational leadership. The only problem with this concept is what happens when wise stewardship comes up hard against the necessary risking of resources for the material benefit of innovation? Unfortunately, in the present “economic unpleasantness” as a dear friend keeps calling the train wreck that is this great recession, stewardship of resources has digressed to hoarding of resources. Save for one notable exception – human resources.

Ignite Princeton – March 2nd – 7:00pm – Nassau Inn, Princeton NJ

What is Ignite?
If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers. This is Princeton’s first Ignite Event.
Be there! It should be a fun night.
Attend Ignite [...]

Want to Improve Your Innovation Culture? – Start by understanding organizational culture

Culture is a little like dropping an Alka-Seltzer into a glass-you don’t see it, but somehow it does something.
- Hans Magnus Enzensberger
What is Organizational Culture?
At its most basic, organizational culture is reflects the “personality” of the organization. Culture is the combination of the held assumptions, espoused values, practiced norms and physical artifacts of organization members [...]

5 Innovation Traps in Organization Culture

“Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.”
- Oscar Wilde
Organizations can be such powerful forces for change. Sometimes they can get in their own way and the value they could bring to life becomes trapped. A little experience of the ways in which an organization’s culture can trap innovation might help others avoid [...]

Framing for Accountability in Innovation for Twitter #innochat December 17 at Noon EST (USA)

Accountability – the currency of social innovation

This post is to trigger dialogue on innovation in the moderated Twitter #innochat on Thursday, December 17 at Noon, EST (USA) – all interested parties are welcome to join in. Follow #innochat to join at that time.
“The ancient Romans had a tradition: whenever one of their engineers constructed an [...]

Eyes on the Prize – In a CoIN a flexible approach to changing conditions means more wins

In his fascinating research on collaborative innovation Peter Gloor, a Research Scientist at MIT’s Sloan School for Management Center for Collective Intelligence, identified a model he termed CoIN for, Collaborative Innovation Networks. He first named this model in the popular press in his book, Swarm Creativity: Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks. His stated goal [...]

Innovation Trapped – Rethinking the flow of ideas to market

I think we do need to move very swiftly in creating value for consumers and reacting to the economics.
- Brian Becker
On BusinessWeek’s website recently (November 9, 2009), Vivek Wadhwa posted a ViewPoint column focused on the implication of globally outsourced innovation. While what he reviewed was not necessarily earth-shattering in its revelations it did highlight [...]

Space & Place – Using the physical to influence the psychological

One of the great challenges in galvanizing a team to achieve new levels of creativity and innovation lies in the intersection between the tangible and the intangible. Missing from the thinking in the realm of innovation and product development is the way in which space not only influences, but directly informs, the quality and productivity [...]

Working Creativity – Blog by Mark Batey, PhD at Psychology Today

The second of a 12-part series focused on organizational creativity:
OK – a few words on reclaiming creativity from the banal…
We’re lost. We have drifted. The safe shores of lexical precision, descriptive accuracy and the exacting use of words have slipped over the horizon. Etymologists the world over sob silently to sleep each night.
Once, a word [...]

Top Elements of Successful Execution

Faculty from Cranfield School of Management–identified a series of “elements” that drive successful strategy execution. Here are their top four:
1) Maintaining management control of change programs;
2) Managing adverse impacts on operational business when delivering change programs;
3) Establishing accountability and governance of each change program; and,
4) Harmonizing the strategic leadership team to support the change [...]