Innovation Is Not Clockwork – The Challenges of Innovation Systems

A system is a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. A system must have an aim. Without the aim, there is no system. – W. Edward Deming
Ignoring the interconnections between organizational subsystems causes havoc when innovation is demanded of all areas of the business, instead of one function, and the competition for resources becomes fierce.

Working The Processes of Innovation – Learning to Love & Live Failure

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
- Henry Ford
To create innovation there must be a structure that can support the exploration, the risk-taking, the resource expenditure without direct monetary return. A structure that supports innovation must capture and support an organization’s ability to reach beyond what it produces in the present to what it might produce for the future. It demands a structure that can seek and use unknown resources, to build the unknown for unknown customers (or at least meet current customers’ unknown needs!)

Linchpin: Are You Indispensible? (A call to arms from Seth Godin)

A genius looks at something that others are stuck on and gets the world unstuck.
- Seth Godin, Linchpin

Genius Marketer Markets Book Ingeniously
If Seth Godin was doing anything with his past books it was perhaps leading a trail of breadcrumbs to this current book, Linchpin. Where Tribes (2008) was a call to finding a following [...]

Bill Gates’ 2010 Annual Letter focuses on Innovation

Gates: This is my second annual letter. The focus of this year’s letter is innovation and how it can make the difference between a bleak future and a bright one.
2009 was the first year my full-time work was as co-chair of the foundation, along with Melinda and my dad. It’s been an incredible year and [...]

Innovation Is Not A Strategy

Why Blue Sky Thinking Does Not A Blue Ocean Make
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
- Sun Tzu

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other
The confused merging of strategy (specifically strategy formulation) and innovation in business circles is alarming. Both strategic thinking and thinking about [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Stupid Wins In The Game Of Innovation – Phil McKinney

Phil McKinney’s latest blog post nails the way in which we are primed to think that creativity and innovation are domains reserved for the “gifted and talented”. So many times our ideas are beaten down by our own ruthless self-censorship, denial and embarrassment-induced conformity. McKinney notes that, “We are a race of innovators – born [...]

Brand Complacency – Why User Experience (UX) Designers must look to their cultural impact

If there is a future for designers and marketers in big business, it lies not in brand, nor in “UX”, nor in any colorful way of framing total control over a consumer, such as “brand equity”, “brand loyalty”, the “end to end customer journey”, or “experience ownership”. It lies instead in encouraging behavioral change and [...]