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On ABS CBN News we discuss “Businesses counter political risks with innovation”
Later in the day in the Manila Times Paddy Miller suggests with it’s proclivity to establish entrepreneurs with their ranks, big organizations are not solving the innovation challenge. Something radical has to be done..maybe it’s about creating more innovation architects?
We’ve all seen heist movies and know their predictable plot. Some scoundrel from central casting, Tom Cruise (MI3) or George Clooney (Ocean’s 11) and his team crack the vaults of the Bank of England, the headquarters of the CIA or some creepy villain’s Rome casino and proceed to haul off the loot.
All these movies have one thing in common; our target has assumed that his closely guarded possession is heist proof. Or at least, he has accounted for any combination of heists that could take place. We, the audience, sit back to relish that inevitable moment when the villain finally realizes that he has got his comeuppance.
How many businesses could we identify as having believed the same thing, that they were heist proof? The taxi industry until Uber came along? The travel agency industry until Expedia came along? The music industry until MP3 came along? The airline until SouthWest and Ryan arrived? Read the rest of this entry »
I manage to get Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal and author of Zero to One, together with Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn on stage to talk about their thoughts (and books)…….at CEIBS (Snow Zhou in the centre) on May 26th 2015.
This Thomas at his best – “How many Stealth Stormers would you want running around your organisation?” None is what many senior executives would say – Thomas disagrees. See below
On the Insight Centre this is the lead feature. How Samsung gets innovations to market is based on the case we’ve recently tested on our MBA course. Some very potent learning from a well researched case that has been nailed down by Thomas and the Samsung EU Team.
We find people often get tied up with lots of definitions on what is or isn’t disruptive innovation. The whole discussion of incremental versus radical innovation can be confusing. This excerpt captures the whole story without any frills.
(Hat tip to Vox.com)
At the end of the month, you’ll be able to attend our exec programme in Sydney.
It’s two days of intensive involvement in innovation. Block those dates – 1st and 2nd May.
Booz & Co. has released its annual Global Innovation 1000 survey results. This year’s edition is called Why Culture Is Key. To its thread of the importance of aligning innovation strategy with overall corporate strategy, Booz adds the importance of aligning a company’s culture with its innovation strategy.
We have been emphasizing the link between culture and innovation for some time now. It is fairly self-evident however that bolting it down becomes more difficult, as can be seen in the Global Innovation 1000 report – the authors’ most relevant finding is that “there is no statistically significant relationship between financial performance and innovation spending…” but they still proceed to dedicate more than half of their study to reading meaning into that non-existent link.
The Innovation Architect programme includes a section on the lessons gained from watching conductors at work conducting great orchestras. However here Paddy Miller questions Ben Zander, Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, about whether it’s all emotion and of little practical value.
Booz & Company’s Global Innovation 1000 highlights certain anomalies, not least all the contrast between those companies that actually make the list of heavy R&D spenders and those that are perceived to be leading innovation companies. Of this latter group you have to pass through Apple, Google, 3M and GE before arriving at the fifth company, Toyota, that is identified as a top R&D investor. Is it that perceived innovators have a better batting average? This is not borne by the report itself. Maybe they manage their “Innovation Image” better? More than a third of the big spenders are healthcare companies and what is clear is that few people understand what’s happening in the sector – not a single company featured in the perceived list. Would someone like to put up the argument that the iPod was a more important innovation than the cardiac stent?
Defining innovation strategies in terms of need seekers, market readers and technology drivers and then a list of unrelated competencies doesn’t help. For example, anyone who has read Ken Auletta’s “Googled” would come to the conclusion that Google is a great search company but has struggled in finding a focus outside of that space.
The Innovation Architect 