How Do Innovators Think?†

Harvard Business Review, September 28, 2009 — What makes visionary entrepreneurs such as Apple's Steve Jobs, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Ebay's Pierre Omidyar and Meg Whitman, and P&G's A.G. Lafley tick? In a question-and-answer session with HBR contributing editor Bronwyn Fryer, Professors Jeff Dyer of Brigham Young University and Hal Gregersen of Insead explain how the "Innovators' DNA" works

Change By Design

In his new book, the CEO of design shop IDEO shows how even hospitals can transform the way they work by tapping frontline staff to engineer change

BusinessWeek, September 24, 2009 — As the center of economic activity in the developed world shifts inexorably from industrial manufacturing to knowledge creation and service delivery, innovation has become nothing less than a survival strategy. It is, moreover, no longer limited to new physical products but includes new sorts of processes, services, interactions, entertainment forms, and ways of communicating and collaborating.

CMOs: Don't Neglect Innovation at the Expense of Your Bottom Line†

Former Best Buy, eBay CMO Linton Offers Brands 5 Tips to Help Change Consumer Behavior

Advertising Age, September 10, 2009 — Given that innovation is the only sustainable advantage these days, advertisers need to allocate at least 10% of their marketing budget to foster it, even in these economically challenged times, said former eBay and Best Buy CMO Mike Linton, who spoke to an audience at the Aberdeen Group's Chief Marketing Officer Summit here yesterday.

How 'Go/No Go' Thinking Can Stop Innovation Dead in its Tracks

Knowledge@Wharton, July 15, 2009 — In Unlocking Opportunities for Growth: How to Profit from Uncertainty While Limiting Your Risk, authors Alexander B. van Putten and Ian C. MacMillan offer a tool they call Opportunity Engineering (OE), which shows companies how to engineer the risk out of uncertain opportunities in order to pursue more high-payoff innovations. OE, the authors note, is both a tactical approach and a mindset. It provides a specific way of valuing opportunities, using proprietary software, that enables companies to plug in the parameters of a project and determine its potential quickly. In short, the authors say, OE helps inculcate a culture of innovation. Below is an excerpt from their book.

Google Searches for Ways to Keep Big Ideas at Home†

Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2009 — Google Inc. is revamping how it develops and prioritizes new products, giving employees a pipeline to the company's top brass amid worries about losing its best people and promising ideas to start-ups.

The Mountain View, Calif., company famously lets its engineers spend one day a week on projects that aren't part of their jobs. But Google has lacked a formal process for senior executives to review those efforts, and some ideas have languished. Others have slipped away when employees left the company.

Lessons from innovation's front lines: An interview with IDEO's CEO

Tim Brown, whose company specializes in innovation, distills the lessons of his career.

McKinsey Quarterly, November 15, 2008 — Many companies claim to be innovative, but few can claim innovation as their raison d’être. One such innovation machine is IDEO—a designer of products, services, and experiences ranging from Apple’s first mass-market computer mouse to aspects of Prada’s store in New York City to the patient-care delivery model at SSM DePaul Health Center, in St. Louis, Missouri.

IDEO’s single-minded focus makes it an intriguing port of call for executives seeking insights on innovation.

The Challenges of Innovation

Indifference, hostility, and isolation are among the major obstacles to a healthy innovation environment

BusinessWeek, August 22, 2008 — In most companies, just about all the cards are stacked against the nurturing of innovation, especially the kinds of new ideas and disruptive innovations that generally lead to major changes in the marketplace and within the business.

Following are some of the behaviors I have observed in companies throughout the years that have convinced me how difficult it is to create an environment in which innovation can flourish.

Where Do the Best Ideas Come From? The Unlikeliest Sources†

Peers, Suppliers Can Spark Some Great Innovations for Marketers

Advertising Age, July 14, 2008 — There's a "secret sauce," as a friend would put it, to creating a recipe that works for serving up innovation success. But if businesses have trouble getting it quite right, it's because they're short on a critical ingredient: inspiration.

One-on-One with Carole France

Consulting Magazine, January 16, 2008 — Oliver Wyman’s latest report in its Global Leadership Imperative series takes a look at innovation’s relationship with leadership. According to the research, 65 percent of executives still don’t have an innovation strategy in place