Design for Social Change Group News. A Seven-Step Guide To Innovation Amid A Crowded Market | Co. Design. As an industrial designer and the CEO of a design agency with experience across many fields, I am struck by how difficult it has been for the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry to successfully innovate to meet the needs of the ever-changing marketplace.
How did that happen? The history buff in me looks back to the birth of our country and the many innovations that have come about through the ingenuity of our early pioneers, whose legacy includes everything from blue jeans, to the fire hydrant, to toilet paper. These innovations helped create a world of comfort and spurred America's ascent to superpower status. But today, we are saddled with a debilitating short-term focus. We lack the resilience and courage required to pursue breakthroughs. Efficiencies yield lower costs, but also impede change. The CPG world has spent far too long driving cost out of the brand at the expense of innovation. So how do we address these competing challenges? How can brands innovate through packaging? ? Innovation in turbulent times. News organizations have an innovation problem. Especially print media. As they gingerly wade into digital, their ability to foster innovation becomes more critical than ever.
In today’s fast-changing landscape, they should view innovation as their main weapon against direct competitors and emerging players such as tech startups,. Unfortunately, print media appears ill-equipped to innovate. The reasons are many. – The weight of the past. Looking back ten years, making changes to a newspaper or magazine used to be a lengthy and complicated process, with technical, industrial as well as political implications. . – The takeover of the bean-counters. . – A risk averse culture. . – No management reform. As a result, very few news organizations prepared themselves to switch to a genuine competitive innovation model, more comparable to the one used by technology companies.
Last week, the New York Times unveiled its Beta 620 initiative. The dominance of finance-driven management impacts innovation. The Most Innovative Companies Today--And Tomorrow. Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2010. By Braden Kelley After a week of torrid voting and much passionate support, along with a lot of gut-wrenching consideration and jostling, I am proud to announce your Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2010: Mitch DitkoffMitch Ditkoff is the Co-Founder and President of Idea Champions and the author of “Awake at the Wheel”, as well as the very popular Heart of Innovation blog. .Jeffrey PhillipsJeffrey Phillips is a senior leader at OVO Innovation. OVO works with large distributed organizations to build innovation teams, processes and capabilities.
Jeffrey is the author of “Make us more Innovative”, and innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com. Hutch Carpenter is the Vice President of Product at Spigit. Special GiftAs promised, I would like to give you all a free sample chapter from my new book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire in advance of its October 5, 2010 hardcover launch date. Paul SloanePaul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creativity, innovation and leadership. How Mature is Your Company? Social Business Maturity quiz. Innovate on Purpose. Innovation. Creativity and Innovation.
Centre for Innovation. Leadership Innovation. As we start a new year during a slow recovery, innovation will be at a premium as organizations strive to uncover new opportunities for growth. Yet many leaders have trouble thinking about (let alone driving) innovation when they're focused on managing through the still-challenging present. Five years ago, GE (GE) launched a leadership development program called "Leadership, Innovation and Growth" (LIG) to stimulate growth and innovation from within the organization. The program created new ways to think and talk about innovation simply and practically, so it would grow into part of how leaders operated their business. Leadership teams from across GE's top 60 businesses have since participated in the program, and have learned how to translate innovative ideas and opportunities into initiatives with real results. As GE prepares to launch the next iteration of LIG (focused on global growth), we've spent some time reflecting on what's worked and what needs improvement.
IDEO: Big Innovation Lives Right on the Edge of Ridiculous Ideas. Imagine for a second if you could somehow wrap up the creative chaos of a kindergartner’s life and apply it at work. You’d go on field trips, make stuff, hatch crazy ideas, and be awed by the world on a daily basis. Sound ridiculous? At the renowned international design consultancy IDEO, it’s how work gets done every day. Psychologists tell us that as we age, we become self-conscious in classroom and other public settings, and quietly begin to suppress our playful tendencies for fear of being childish or breaking with social norms. Creativity requires that we fight against this trajectory.At IDEO, being playful is almost an obsession.
Boyle, who teaches a course at Stanford’s d.school called “From Play to Innovation,” is a partner at IDEO and heads up the Toy Lab in addition to promoting entrepreneurial thinking throughout its locations worldwide. I spoke with Boyle and Wilcox by phone about how they integrate play into their work lives, and culture – and how you can, too. INNOVATION. Most Innovative Companies. Innovation. Working on Innovation. The 99 Percent. Frog design | Global Innovation. The Connected Company « Dachis Group Collaboratory. Many thanks to Thomas Vanderwal for the many conversations that inspired this post. The average life expectancy of a human being in the 21st century is about 67 years. Do you know what the average life expectancy for a company is?
Surprisingly short, it turns out. In a recent talk, John Hagel pointed out that the average life expectancy of a company in the S&P 500 has dropped precipitously, from 75 years (in 1937) to 15 years in a more recent study. Why is the life expectancy of a company so low? I believe that many of these companies are collapsing under their own weight. The statistics back up this assumption. This “3/2 law” of employee productivity, along with the death rate for large companies, is pretty scary stuff. I believe we can. Historically, we have thought of companies as machines, and we have designed them like we design machines. 1.
A car is a perfect example of machine design. It’s time to think about what companies really are, and to design with that in mind. 1.