Chasing Innovation (Your Economic Life Depends on It)

Cass PursellWilliam is a guy I work with. Ever since he drunkenly proclaimed at happy hour that he has royalty in his family tree he’s been known around the office as Prince William.

He’s a bright guy – a business … Read More

Improvement and Innovation

Praveen Gupta

Improvement and Innovation

Recent BusinessWeek articles have been singing obituaries of Six Sigma, and giving birth to innovation. According to a recent article, the two could not co-exist because Six Sigma has been used for efficiency, and innovation for … Read More

Innovation and Six Sigma

Katie Barry

Or should it be innovation OR Six Sigma? Innovation with a hint of Six Sigma? Innovation and Six Sigma separate but equal? It’s a topic covered on this site (see below) and, this week, in Business Week’s quarterly “Inside … Read More

Measures of Innovation

Praveen Gupta

Why everyone wants to measure innovation without understanding the innovation process and its elements. I have seen, similar expectation for other performance measurements when we first want to get handle on some measures, fit some statistics to the numbers, … Read More

Over Innovation

Ellen Domb

Our friend Roni Horowitz introduces the concept “over innovation” in his recent ASIT newsletter.  For more about his work, his courses and books, see www.start2think.com.  The rest of this commentary is reprinted from his newsletter 282–thanks, Roni!

Why do … Read More

Innovation Epicycles

Michael S. Slocum

“”Adding epicycles” has, thanks to the many attempts to make the obviously failed earth-centered model work, come to be used as a derogatory comment in modern scientific lingo. If one continues to try to adjust a theory to … Read More

Last Day of Front End of Innovation

Katie Barry

It was another jam-packed day of innovation ideas today and now that I’m back in my hotel room, I’m ready to share what I listened to today.

The morning keynote speaker was Dustan E. McCoy, Chairman & CEO of … Read More

Day 2 of the Front End of Innovation

Katie Barry

Dale McIntyre with PDMA welcomed everyone (500-600 of us) to day one of the main Front End of Innovation conference.

Conference chairman Peter Koen followed and presented some best practices in the front end and led us through … Read More

Front End of Innovation Conference

Katie Barry

I’m in Boston this week, attending the Front End of Innovation conference. This afternoon the full conference began with a kickoff keynote by Peter Diamandis, M.D., best known as the founder of the X Prize and who wears a … Read More

Education in Innovation

Praveen Gupta

In my earlier commentary, I was searching for courses on the process of innovation. While it is difficult to find courses on teaching the process of innovation, however, universities such as Harvard, University of Chicago, and Kellogg School of … Read More

Economic Growth Through Innovation

Praveen Gupta

Some time ago, I was discussing innovation with a friend. We were discussing job losses in various industries, and how the new jobs with lower pay are being created in service operations. In order for businesses to create better … Read More

Teaching Innovation

Praveen Gupta

Institutionalizing Innovation

Cass Pursell

In my experience, you have to get someone’s attention if you want what you have to say to sink in; I make this next statement in that spirit. Two-thirds of the organizations currently listed on the world’s stock exchanges … Read More

Innovation Payback

Ellen Domb

A persistent trend in the growing literature on innovation is the drawing of lines: various authors draw the line between creativity and innovation in various ways and at various points, but the usual mode is to put creativity on … Read More

Innovation Survey

Katie Barry

(March 27, 2007 – The survey is closed. Thank you for your participation!)

Some of you may have noticed a new link on our navigation menu to an Innovation survey being conducted by our sister website, iSixSigma. This survey … Read More

Innovation or Evolution?

Michael Cyger

I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “All Companies Need Innovation; Hasbro Finds a New Magic” (2/26/07, page B1). I immediately got excited to read that title because a) most of my formidable years were … Read More

Why is Systematic Innovation So Hard?

Michael Cyger

Jessica Harper, managing editor of iSixSigma Magazine, and I have been discussing the upcoming July/August issue of the magazine focused on innovation. We had what we thought was a simple idea for the cover story: find a company that … Read More

Think You Have What It Takes to be a Chief Innovation Officer?

Michael Cyger

Companies like Humana, Coca-Cola, AMD, Citigroup and Cargill are all establishing the position of Chief Innovation Officer (CIO - unfortunately, confusingly similar to Chief Information Officer). It appears that companies are recognizing that the development of new ideas, new products, … Read More

Surveying Innovation Activity

Katie Barry

InnovationLabs released results of its Permanent Innovation survey this week. Particularly noteworthy responses include:

• Only 13% of those surveyed felt that their company/organization understands the innovation process.
• More than half of the respondents felt that “lack … Read More

Innovation and Rome

Michael S. Slocum

Rome was founded in the middle of a savage world. Legend has it that twin brothers Remus and Romulas founded the city after being raised by a wolf in the wild. Rome was, at this time, under the … Read More