The Cultural Importance of the Leader Around Innovation - Robert Verganti - Author of Design-Driven Innovation

"When it comes to radical innovation of meanings, a product's culture reflects the culture [values, norms, beliefs, and aspirations] of the executive who has launched it." Is it that important? photo of Roberto VergantiRoberto Verganti: Not necessarily, but if I wish to be a good CEO, a good executive, the product design will be affected by the way I see the world. Coming back to the example of Steve Jobs and Apple, you can see that Apple's products reflect the way Jobs sees the world. It's the way he sees life. This is a good thing. One thing that I like a lot about Steve Jobs is that when he can – and the only restrictions has related to his health – he presents Apple's new products himself. He jumps onto the stage and introduces the products. He likes to say his nametag is on the product.

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The Ill Informed Argument of Death by PowerPoint

I have recently come across a series of comments about the "death of PowerPoint" that are at best ill-formed and at worse reactionary. Professor John Sweller of the University of New South Wales argues that the use of Powerpoint has been a disaster and should be ditched. He says it is effective to speak while showing a diagram or graph because it presents information in a different form. However he argues it is not effective to speak the same words that are written because it puts too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented. An article in the Melbourne Age on the same topic by Christopher Scanlon of RMIT University titled "The PowerPoint of No Return references a book The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint by Edward Tufte. Scanlan claims Tufte suggests that PowerPoint affects the way we think. " Technologies shape what we think about, how we think about it, and, more importantly, how we relate to the world around us. For the naive bullet lists may create the appearance of hard-headed organised thought. But in the reality of day-to-day practice, the PowerPoint cognitive style is faux-analytical. Bullet outlines can make us stupid, " says Tufte. The basis of these argument are incorrect because they don't address the core issues.

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