No Strategy – No Innovation!!!

You’d think with all the fawning press many companies and executives receive that defining a clear, concise corporate strategy would be a “no brainer”. After all, don’t we hire and pay executives exorbitant sums due to their vision and strategy? You’d think that with the hordes of “management consultants” available from a wide array of highly compensated consulting firms that well-conceived strategic plans would simply flow like water from these founts of knowledge. And let’s not forget the virtual library of books on corporate strategy, from the likes of Drucker, Porter, Hamel, Prahalad, and so forth. Clearly there is a wealth of information, advice and knowledge about corporate strategy.

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The Creativity Crisis? What Creativity Crisis? - Michael Schrage - Harvard Business Review

The most important thing to understand about America's "crisis of creativity" is that there isn't one. The notion that American business creativity is either at risk or in decline is laughable. Arguments that "Yankee ingenuity" is ebbing into oxymoron are ludicrous. They invite ridicule. So here it comes. Yes, America's economy is awful. But so what? Hard times haven't nicked, dented or damaged this country's creative core competence. To the contrary, they've made more people more interested in being more creative. Spend serious time at research university labs. Or sit in on 10K business plan competitions. Or wander through Silicon Valley incubators and Texas industrial parks. Or listen to top-tier venture capitalists. You'll be impressed. There's no shortage of creativity and ingenuity here. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests the only measurable "creativity crisis" America faces is an embarrassment of riches. We're spoiled for choice.

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The Three Types of Innovation Failure That Are Intolerable - Scott Anthony - Harvard Business Review

I read with interest David Simms' recent post about the power of positive failure. I of course agree with the general perspective — given the probabilistic nature of innovation, failure isn't always a bad thing, and all things being equal, you'd support someone who has tried, failed, and learned over someone who has never tried. The interesting thing to me is that this isn't a particularly new perspective. Failure has long been a badge of honor in Silicon Valley; thought leaders like Henry Mitnzberg, Rita McGrath, and Tim Brown note how failure is an essential part of successful innovation. Yet, in most organizations a fear of failure persists.

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The simple truth is that it is quite possible to create a thriving business without a big idea.

"The simple truth is that it is quite possible to create a thriving business without a big idea" is a lively presentation from Change This. The author.  Trevor Ginn is an entrepreneur and blogger who lives in Bethnal Green, London, UK. His online nursery business, Hello Baby, is unashamedly unoriginal, though, at least in his opinion, well executed. He is also a consultant at Vendlab and you can follow his exploits at trevorginn.com and on twitter @trevorginn.

How the internet can facilitate social change directly | Charles Leadbeater | The Observer

Author and social entrepreneur Charles Leadbeater says that new technology can give ordinary people the means to tackle social problems in direct, innovative ways charles-leadbeater-activisim-internet Charles Leadbeater, online evangelist, at home in London. Photograph: Sonja Horsman for the Observer Charles Leadbeater is an online evangelist. The former Financial Times journalist has moved away from politics into a world of social entrepreneurs, amateur activists and grassroots campaigners who are exploiting digital technologies to develop solutions to problems that lie outside the interests of commercial and state institutions. He believes that online tools can be used to organise and galvanise. He produced a call-to-arms in We-think: The Power of Mass Creativity (Profile), a book that documents the rise of amateur activism in a time of information revolution. His research with digital activists who work with people in some of the world's most impoverished places shows how the web can galvanise support from around the globe – using new applications, devices and social networks – and what needs to be in place for this to happen.

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