What You Must Know To Step Up As An Innovation Hero

The Reality
Creating deeply innovative organizations needs to replace the more simplistic view of creating organizations that are technically innovative, but perpetuate a business culture that is toxic and destructive. Too often this gets ignored until there are legal, financial, or public relations consequences at hand. As a result, brand risk management innovation has yet to, in most companies, expand beyond this limited framework for assessing and addressing toxic and destructive issues. Brand risk management is still seen primarily through the lens of risk aversion and exposure to legal liability, and innovation is mostly understood exclusively through the lens of technological innovations. This is how glaring blind spots remain present in the cultural mindset and become institutionalized. Alternatively, those who embrace the importance of diversity inclusion in fostering innovative organizational cultures reap its rewards.

  • 85% of CEOs whose organizations have a lived diversity and inclusion strategy say it has enhanced
Read more
Market Driven Innovation

Market Driven Innovation (MDI) is designing, managing and implementing your innovation process based on the needs and wants from your key markets. MDI is not new, but still today, many companies have found it difficult to transform their innovation work from their entrenched technology and product forward approach they have been using to a market back approach. Often, their entire business processes have been built around their assets and products they produce and their go-to-market strategy based on their historical sales experiences. The result of this behavior is premature commoditization of their value propositions, their most important assets. Market Driven Innovation is based on a strict set of principles:

o Engineering/technical resourcing decisions are made based on a validated market need and an attractive business case.

o Organizational Focus is achieved from understanding market segments and targeting the most attractive segments for growth

o A cross-functional team approach, marketing, technical, … Read more

High-Tech Gadgets Last Much Longer With Freely Available Spares

Since all the high-tech gadgetry hit the market, it appears that everyone has their favorite piece of equipment that they just cannot live without. Finding one of these pieces gets damaged or broken then sends some people into a spin. Without their ‘right hand’ they feel a little lost and some people just toss this one away and replace it with a new one. However, since there are now iPod parts available online, this needs no longer to be the case. There are wholesale iPhone parts available too and they are very easy to source on the web.

For those who are not afraid to try, there are some spares which can be replaced by the amateur handyman. Some people may be nervous about attempting this but since some spares are just connected to the casing or screens, this should not be unthinkable.

The first thing that the novice repair … Read more

Hotels Need to Adapt to the Next Generation of Guests

For years, the baby boomer generation has dominated and dictated how hotels behaved and marketed themselves. But now, as more and more Gen Y’s and Gen X’s are traveling, hotels will need to become more sensitive to their needs and their travel habits. And with the emergence of social media as a major marketing platform, hotels will need to refocus their energies on this exciting new medium-a medium dictated by ‘young, forward’ thinking.

Tackling this shift change in outlook won’t be easy for hoteliers. It represents radical, even somewhat zany ideas and requests. For instance, in the past, hotels have always left the lights on for their guests at all times. There’s even a major hotel chain that uses that concept as its tagline. But this isn’t always what this younger generation desires: in a greener, more environmentally conscious atmosphere, these younger travelers would actually rather you left it dark. … Read more

Creativity and Innovation Management – Teach, Coach, Learn

Coaching, training or learning about creativity and innovation involves mastery of at least 12 domains.

These include:

a) Creativity and Innovation differences and definitions.

Often used interchangeably, they ought to be considered separate and distinct. Creativity can be described as problem identification and idea generation and innovation idea selection, development and commercialisation. Creativity can also be measured according to the number of ideas produced and their diversity and novelty.

b) Creative Types.

Are some people creative and others not? Why is it that some people just seem to be more so? Some theorists argue for creativity traits such as tolerance for ambiguity and intolerance of conformity whilst others counter that traits are hard to identify and not stable or transferable across situations. Further, motivation is more important.

c) Learning versus talent.

Is creativity a talent or can it be learned and developed? How conclusive are nature and nurture arguments and … Read more