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The Global Innovation 1000: Why Culture Is Key

The Global Innovation 1000: Why Culture Is Key
The elements that make up a truly innovative company are many: a focused innovation strategy, a winning overall business strategy, deep customer insight, great talent, and the right set of capabilities to achieve successful execution. More important than any of the individual elements, however, is the role played by corporate culture — the organization’s self-sustaining patterns of behaving, feeling, thinking, and believing — in tying them all together. Yet according to the results of this year’s Global Innovation 1000 study, only about half of all companies say their corporate culture robustly supports their innovation strategy. Moreover, about the same proportion say their innovation strategy is inadequately aligned with their overall corporate strategy. This article is featured in the strategy+business app “Don’t Blame Your Culture,” available for smartphone and tablet devices. To download, select your device: This disconnect, as the saying goes, is both a problem and an opportunity.

TEN - Top Executives Net Group News by Daniel Goleman | 3:19 PM October 14, 2011 “We hired a new CEO, but had to let him go after just seven months,” the chairman of an East Coast think tank complained to me recently. “His resume looked spectacular, he did splendidly in all the interviews. But within a week or two we were hearing pushback from the staff. They were telling us, ‘You hired a first-rate economist with zero social intelligence.’ The think tank’s work centers on interlocking networks of relationships with the board, staff, donors, and a wide variety of academics and policy experts. Why does social intelligence emerge as the make-or-break leadership skill set? As I’ve written with my colleague Richard Boyatzis, technical skills and self-mastery alone allow you to be an outstanding individual contributor. That was brought home to me yet again reading “Making Yourself Indispensable,” by John H. Lacking social intelligence, no other combination of competences is likely to get much traction.

Verizon API To Give Apps 'Turbo' Bandwidth Boost Verizon will publish an API that could allow consumers to "turbocharge" the network bandwidth their smartphone apps use for a small fee, executives said Tuesday. Verizon anticipates that a customer running an app on a smartphone will have the option to dynamically snatch more bandwidth for that app, if network congestion slows it down, said Hugh Fletcher, associate director for technology in Verizon's Product Development and Technology team. The app, however, must be running what Verizon referred to as the network optimization API it is currently developing, and hopes to publish by the third quarter of 2012. Users could have the option to pay for the extra bandwidth via a separate microtransaction API Verizon is developing and hopes to have in place by the end of 2012, Fletcher said. At an open-house event at Verizon's Application Innovation Center in San Francisco, Verizon executives showcased several partner efforts, plus their own in-house technology development.

Economists See More Jobs for Machines, Not People The automation of more and more work once done by humans is the central theme of “Race Against the Machine,” an e-book to be published on Monday. “Many workers, in short, are losing the race against the machine,” the authors write. Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the M.I.T. Center for Digital Business, and Andrew P. McAfee, associate director and principal research scientist at the center, are two of the nation’s leading experts on technology and productivity. The tone of alarm in their book is a departure for the pair, whose previous research has focused mainly on the benefits of advancing technology. Indeed, they were originally going to write a book titled, “The Digital Frontier,” about the “cornucopia of innovation that is going on,” Mr. The authors are not the only ones recently to point to the job fallout from technology. The M.I.T. authors’ claim that automation is accelerating is not shared by some economists. Technology has always displaced some work and jobs.

What I Learned From Steve Jobs Many people have explained what one can learn from Steve Jobs. But few, if any, of these people have been inside the tent and experienced first hand what it was like to work with him. I don’t want any lessons to be lost or forgotten, so here is my list of the top twelve lessons that I learned from Steve Jobs. Experts are clueless.Experts—journalists, analysts, consultants, bankers, and gurus can’t “do” so they “advise.” They can tell you what is wrong with your product, but they cannot make a great one. Bonus: Some things need to be believed to be seen.

A Case for Using Social Media with Learning Culture Flickr:Anna Briggs Educators are finding ways to leverage social media sites like Facebook with learning. By Aran Levasseur We are witnessing the emergence of something profound: Humans, historically divided by geography, culture and creed, are beginning to connect and collaborate on a scale never seen before. What starts out as social networking is evolving into social production. In spite of all the potential to innovate surrounding blogs, forums, wikis and social networks, there are legions of detractors. Granted, not every use of social media is remarkable. “Educators ought to be asking what social dimensions of learning might be enhanced by using these tools and networks?” Writing initially emerged as a form of record keeping in Mesopotamia. Rather than focusing exclusively on the problems, educators should be experimenting with how these new forms of social media can amplify student learning. Related Explore: Social Media

Vijay Govindarajan's Blog: What is Reverse Innovation? A reverse innovation, very simply, is any innovation likely to be adopted first in the developing world. Increasingly we see companies developing products in countries like China and India and then distribute them globally. In our article How GE is Disrupting Itself, we argued that reverse innovation will become more and more common. We also showed that it presents a formidable organizational challenge for incumbent multinationals headquartered in the rich world, and we explained an organizational model for overcoming that challenge. The fundamental driver of reverse innovation is the income gap that exists between emerging markets and the developed countries. For us, reverse innovation is not a “nice to have” boost to revenue growth rates. The Evolution of Reverse Innovation: A Historical Perspective The globalization journey of American multinationals has followed an evolutionary process which can be seen in distinct phases. Reverse Innovation: Organizing Principles

Get the Mentoring Equation Right - Whitney Johnson by Whitney Johnson | 5:01 PM October 25, 2011 This post was co-authored with Bob Moesta. While it’s written from my perspective, he was central to the development of the idea. Bob is the Managing Partner of The Re-Wired Group in Detroit, an innovation incubator and consultancy specializing in demand-side innovation. An engineer, designer, serial entrepreneur, investor, and researcher, he has developed 1,000+ products/services and has collaborated with Clay Christensen at HBS for more than 15 years. I used to be able to say “yes” to pretty much anyone who reached out to me for mentoring. My quandary has led to a considered, lengthy discussion with Bob Moesta, a demand-side innovation expert, about how to decide whom to mentor. Bob sees mentoring as the balance of two worlds that overlap for a period of time and a certain amount of effort. Drive = How motivated is the mentee? The mentor side asks: Can I help and how much effort will it require?

Microsoft And TechStars Launch Kinect Accelerator For New Kinect-Based Startups The Kinect has proved fertile ground for hackers and innovators all over the world, from individuals to student teams to established researchers. But as yet there haven’t been many commercial applications. Microsoft and TechStars are hoping to turn the creativity and momentum associated with the Kinect into some functioning startups. Applications are being taken through January 25th; ten will be chosen and given the opportunity to participate in a three-month incubation program at Microsoft — and get $20,000 in seed funding. There are minor catches. Clearly, the idea is to package and monetize some of the creative energy going into the platform. There are more details and a FAQ at Microsoft, and TechStars has a blog entry as well.

How to Avoid the Innovation Death Spiral Consider this all too familiar scenario: Company X’s new products developed and launched with great expectations, yield disappointing results. Yet, these products continue to languish in the market, draining management attention, advertising budgets, manufacturing capacity, warehouse space and back office systems. Wouter Koetzier explores how to avoid the innovation death spiral. Compounding the problem, fewer resources are available to invest in other initiatives that may prove far more innovative and fuel profitable growth. We call this the “innovation death spiral,” a cycle in which far too many firms find themselves today. Balancing innovation In contrast, companies taking a bolder, more far-sighted approach to innovation are on the opposite trajectory: becoming a high-performing organization. Financially, companies simply do not generate the growth premiums with incremental innovations that they do with platform or breakthrough innovations. Inside the death spiral Strategic impact

Apple to announce tools, platform to "digitally destroy" textbook publishing Apple is slated to announce the fruits of its labor on improving the use of technology in education at its special media event on Thursday, January 19. While speculation has so far centered on digital textbooks, sources close to the matter have confirmed to Ars that Apple will announce tools to help create interactive e-books—the "GarageBand for e-books," so to speak—and expand its current platform to distribute them to iPhone and iPad users. Along with the details we were able to gather from our sources, we also spoke to two experts in the field of digital publishing to get a clearer picture of the significance of what Apple is planning to announce. So far, Apple has largely embraced the ePub 2 standard for its iBooks platform, though it has added a number of HTML5-based extensions to enable the inclusion of video and audio for some limited interaction. GarageBand for e-books Our sources say Apple will announce such a tool on Thursday. Will Apple launch a sort of GarageBand for e-books?

Why You May Be Blind to a Good Idea (and What to Do About It) - Cathy N. Davidson by Cathy N. Davidson | 11:38 AM August 24, 2011 Several years ago I attended a lecture on attention blindness, the basic feature of the human brain that means when we concentrate intensely on one task, we miss almost everything else happening around us. Since we can’t see what we can’t see, the speaker showed us a video designed to catch us in the act. Six people pass basketballs back and forth and viewers are told to count the number of tosses only between the three wearing white t-shirts, not black. Many people correctly count fifteen tosses. I saw the gorilla. A cognitive scientist would say the experiment demonstrates a structural limitation of the human brain. I see two particularly important practical lessons. Lesson One: just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Lesson Two: I’ll count — if you take care of that gorilla. Like most organizations, in ours we need to keep an eye on the bottom line and we need to see the big gorilla.

Google Launches Internet Research Site 20 January '12, 05:42pm Follow Google has today announced the launch of a new site called Value of the Web, which will collect research from around the world that “sheds new light on the economic impact of the Internet.” The site has launched with 19 studies, many covering the effect of the Internet in countries as diverse as Japan, Israel and Sweden. Many of the papers currently uploaded are Google-commissioned studies by the Boston Consulting Group, such as the UK-focused Connected Kingdom report which we have previously covered. Whether self-commissioned or not, sharing research around the broad benefits of the Internet fits with Google’s policy of encouraging more people to go online. While the Value of the Web site appears to have gone online lacking some fit and finish (partner logos are missing, as are two of the studies), it’s worth bookmarking in case you need some data fodder to back up a pro-Internet argument or pitch in the future. ➤ Value of the Web

Designing Tension into Innovation Designing appropriate tension into the innovation process When you consider building up your innovation capability, to me this is most important: “appropriate adaptiveness is not a natural tension- it has to be designed in.” When you are dealing with the innovation process you naturally have tension. Firstly a cautionary warning here. Now this is about to get into the realms of theory but I hope you stay with me on this. Using theory often helps- really! According to Professor Clayton Christensen the only way to look into the future is to use theories. The theory of innovation helps to understand the forces that shape the context and influence natural decisions. Let me explain this in its different parts. Coherence in purpose & consistency is what we all desire It is accepted wisdom in today’s environment, enterprises cannot design and impose from the top down, it stifles far too much and limits creativity. Creative tension Context and co-ordination Leadership needs innovation to happen

Google Fiber in Kansas City - The Building the Gigabit City Report In the spirit of broad Kansas City community efforts to brainstorm ideas for how the introduction of Google Fiber can change lives in Kansas City, The Brainzooming Group was excited to partner with Social Media Club of Kansas City to create “Building the Gigabit City: Brainzooming a Google Fiber Roadmap.” We conducted the large-scale brainstorming session on October 3 with a diverse cross-community group of nearly 90 people. The 120-page Google Fiber brainstorming report is available via free download on the Brainzooming website at brainzooming.com/googlefiberkc. As we compiled the Google Fiber brainstorming report, we wanted to share the voices of the many passionate Kansas Citians who participated in Building the Gigabit City. Just as the input was crowdsourced, the results are as well as we’re making the report available for free to everyone in partnership with Social Media Club of Kansas City. Finally, you’ll “hear” a range of voices in the ideas and concepts themselves. </i></b>*}

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