Exploring A 6 Year Case Study Evolving into World's Best Innovation Practice Behaviors

I thought you might like to know about a highly successful webinar we ran recently “How A Mature International Financial Services Organization Succeeded in Turning Innovation Into A Core Value for Success". The webinar explored how against the most turbulent financial times of recent history, Allianz UK over 6 years built and implemented a powerful innovation ecology that now contributes directly and measurably to the organization’s growth and value. It is one of the best examples of innovation practice globally I have come across and have had the pleasure to write and speak about. Interestingly,

Click to read more ...

One Giant Leap to Nowhere - Tom E Wolfe's Great Story on Poor Strategic Innovation | NYTimes.com

WELL, let’s see now ... That was a small step for Neil Armstrong, a giant leap for mankind and a real knee in the groin for NASA. Enlarge This Image The American space program, the greatest, grandest, most Promethean — O.K. if I add “godlike”? — quest in the history of the world, died in infancy at 10:56 p.m. New York time on July 20, 1969, the moment the foot of Apollo 11’s Commander Armstrong touched the surface of the Moon. It was no ordinary dead-and-be-done-with-it death. It was full-blown purgatory, purgatory being the holding pen for recently deceased but still restless souls awaiting judgment by a Higher Authority. Like many another youngster at that time, or maybe retro-youngster in my case, I was fascinated by the astronauts after Apollo 11.

Click to read more ...

Shilo Shiv Suleman: Using technology to enable dreaming | Video on TED.com

Has our technology -- our cell phones and iPods and cameras -- stopped us from dreaming? Young artist Shilo Shiv Suleman says no, as she demos "Khoya," her new storybook for iPad, which floats us through a magical world in 7 minutes of pure creativity.

Shilo Shiv Suleman is an illustrator, storyteller and iPad book creator.

Big innovation needs ‘Big Data’ - FT.com

‘Big data’ is all the rage, and for good reason. Companies need to sort through tons of it to understand what products their customers really want, and what they will buy. After all, their future depends on it. Yet, in spite of vast amounts of market intelligence and virtually unlimited information, how well do companies really know their customer? In a world where, according to the Association of Product Management and product Marketing, more than 50 per cent of new technology products that enter the market fail, and roughly 75 per cent of consumer packaged goods and retail products fail to earn even $7.5m during their first year, we are clearly not doing a good job putting this data to work.

Click to read more ...

The Days of "Manager Knows Best" Are Ending - Harvard Business Review

To get a glimpse of what tomorrow's young global managers might be like as leaders, take a look at how today's young people think about communications. For one thing, they are devoted to connectivity. In a recent survey of more than 2,800 college students and young professionals in 14 countries, Cisco found that more than half said they could not live without the internet, and if forced to choose, two-thirds would opt to have an internet rather than a car. This intense desire to be connected leads to a demand for greater flexibility: Two out of five people said they'd accept a lower-paying job if the position offered greater flexibility on access to social media, the ability to work from where they chose, and choice on the mobile devices they could use on the job. Tomorrow's young managers will share these attitudes, and workplaces will inevitably become more flexible.

Click to read more ...