Mobile Apps: Harness your Moments of Genius While on The Go

25 October 10

If the smartphone hasn’t already taken over your life, chances are, it soon will. According to a 2010 Gartner report, by 2013 mobile phones will overtake PC’s as the most common Web access device worldwide. In fact, the install base of smartphones by the year 2013 is projected to be 241.8 million.

Part of what makes a smartphone so smart are the applications one can download and use. There are over 350,000 applications available for the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry.  A study done by Microsoft on diversity in smartphone usage showed that the median number of apps owned is 50 (and this doesn’t even include iPhone owners).

In today’s world of go, go, go, some apps, like Angry Birds, (a fantastic and fun app by the way) is the digital procrastination tool, while others can really help you be more creative, productive, and collaborative.

Since our goal is to enable you to be all of those things, we are excited to share the release of our latest product, the Mobile Application Resource List.  In this list, we feature 21 of our favorite smartphone apps that stretch your mind, help track your big thoughts, and generally make you more innovative.

Out of the 21, I am most excited about shareyourboard, an Android app that enables you to take a picture of your whiteboard post brainstorm. Gone are the days of discerning ideas from fuzzy flip chart photos.

image source: thedroidguy.com

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Posted by Meredith Stowe

Innovation Tip: Sign on the Dotted Line

20 October 10

Innovation efforts that aren’t supported from the top are often doomed to fail—senior managers must commit to support innovation efforts in order for those efforts to really take off. Ask your team to collaborate on drafting a “Leadership Contract”—a brief summary of what leadership will commit to doing in order to drive innovation forward. Have each member of your team come to the table with two or three specific actions or behaviors they’d like leadership to commit to.

Once you’ve met with your team and agreed on your commitments, assemble a one-page document that you can present to senior leadership. Have them sign the document as a show of their commitment to innovation.

This exercise accomplishes three main goals:

  1. It forces teams to clearly articulate what and how they expect senior leaders to commit to innovation.
  2. It forces leadership to make a visible, tangible commitment.
  3. And the final document serves to remind leaders how important their support is.

Looking for more ways to inspire others and become a role model for innovation? Check out our Advanced Guide: How to Be an Effective Innovation Leader.

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Posted by Jenny Wang

Innovation Tip: Reframe Your Brainstorms

13 October 10

Reframe Your BrainstormOne of the biggest problems with brainstorming sessions is that as a technique, brainstorming is overused. After years of open-ended brainstorming sessions that have gone nowhere, people are skeptical of their efficacy and probably tired of the exercise altogether.
Remember that there are many methods for idea generation that go beyond the typical brainstorm. One of the easiest things you can do to create a more productive idea generation session is to utilize structured exercises (some are found here) and guided conversations to attack your problems.

* Start with a clearly, succinctly defined problem you’re looking to solve (or a concrete goal you’re trying to reach).
* Plan your session so that it’s not completely open-ended.
* Set an agenda; be sure to keep things moving quickly so that people don’t get bored.
* Create an output worksheet so that participants have a structured format in which to place raw ideas.

Include time in your session for people to sit quietly and write to ensure that quieter individuals have a chance to ‘be heard.’ Balance this time with opportunities to share and discuss ideas. And most importantly: follow up with your team. Turn the skepticism around by updating your team on where their ideas are and what’s being done to move them forward.

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Posted by Jenny Wang

Retail Revolution

27 September 10

The Future of Retail

At this fall’s New York Fashion Week, the most interesting trends were happening off the runway. While models were showing off new looks, designers and their retail partners were demonstrating innovative ways to connect with today’s shoppers.

High-end fashion houses including Gucci streamed their runway shows live online. Burberry took it a step further with a “retail theater” that allowed at-home shoppers to purchase runway outfits online as models were strutting down the catwalk. Diane Von Furstenberg’s partnership with HP further proved that fashion and technology are now highly integrated. At the DVF Lounge during fashion week, customers were invited to sip refreshing drinks while browsing new DVF looks on HP touchscreen panels. They were even able to conveniently print out their favorites on HP printers. Real-time tweets about the event were on display on another large HP display screen.

It is not only high-end designers who are on the cutting edge of retail innovation, leveraging technology to reinvent the shopping experience and connect with customers; the following are a few more examples of how retailers are reaching their customer in new and innovative ways. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Jenny Wang

Innovation Tip: Refine Your Goals, Rethink Your Strategy

23 September 10

As an innovation leader, you need to help your team understand the role of innovation in executing specific corporate goals and strategies. Employees can become distracted by irrelevant ideas when there is no guidance on the strategic outcomes that your organization values.

To help your team better focus its efforts, pick apart your organization’s larger corporate strategy. Find out what’s important to your organization? Is it customer service? New product development? Organic growth? After selecting what’s important, define the particular outcomes and goals your organization strives toward. Now work backwards and outline how innovation can help you attain those goals. Customer service excellence, for example, can be attained by coming up with new ways that your organization can communicate with its customers.

As you work backwards, keep narrowing your focus until you arrive at a set of tasks and ideas that your innovation team can work on. Keep asking “how?” By the end of this exercise, you’ll end up with an innovation project list that is directly linked to your corporate strategy, which is something senior managers throughout your organization can get behind.

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Posted by Jenny Wang

Innovation Tip: Create an Innovation-Friendly Environment

9 September 10

Through working with over 200 global organizations, we know that change initiatives will wither or thrive based on what we, as leaders, do to create a climate that encourages and supports positive new behaviors. How leaders engage employees is a critical factor that determines the work environment. Engagement involves rewarding, recognizing, and most importantly respecting your employees for their ideas.

At this year’s Front End of Innovation conference, Harvard Business School’s Teresa Amabile spoke about the importance of respecting people and their ideas, and how people need to feel a human bond at work if they’re going to get invested in their work. For managers in particular, she created this checklist that she encouraged everyone to use at the end of their day to assess employee engagement:

1.   Did people get the personal support they needed?
2.   Are people’s ideas and suggestions being dismissed?
3.   Did I recognize people for the progress they made?

As leaders, creating an environment where people’s ideas and progress are supported and rewarded is one of the most important things we can do to move innovation forward.

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Posted by Jenny Wang

Climate Control: Netflix on Corporate Culture & Innovation

27 August 10

“Our model is to increase employee freedom as we grow, rather than limit it, to continue to attract and nourish innovative people, so we have a better chance of long-term continued success.”

– Netflix CEO Reed Hastings

To become more innovative, companies need to cultivate the key elements necessary for innovation— one of which is an innovation-friendly culture. To build a corporate climate that truly fosters innovation, you must be able to encourage smart risks and energize your workforce. Netflix, one of Fortune Magazine’s 100 fastest growing companies of 2010, does exactly this by promoting a culture of freedom and responsibility from the top down. The company’s commitment to these principles goes far beyond just a values statement chiseled in marble.

• Freedom — Netflix does not have a vacation policy and doesn’t track vacation time. Employees may take as many vacation days as they feel they need. When it comes to expenses and business travel, the only rule is to “act in Netflix’s best interests.”

• You Have to Believe — Netflix also requires that all employees take responsibility for contributing to the company’s success. High performers are substantially rewarded and the merely adequate are quickly let go.

Sound harsh? According to Hastings, “We need a culture that supports rapid innovation and excellent execution. Both are required for continuous growth. There is tension between these two goals: between creativity and discipline.”

How has balancing creativity and discipline paid off for Netflix? Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Jenny Wang

Two Days. Ten Ideas. Unlimited Insights.

26 August 10

Set against the stunning backdrop of the Cascade Mountains, this year’s 10 Conference promises to bring together an extraordinary group of people to explore some of the most important ideas shaping the future of business and society.  Participants include scientists, educators, artists, economists, designers, and social entrepreneurs who will explore ten “catalytic” ideas, including wayfinding, resilience, sense-ploitation, and heroism, among others.

Taking place on October 27-29 in Leavenworth Washington, the conference promises to forego traditional keynotes and promote meaningful conversations instead. 10 is built around ten interconnected ideas, each explored through short, dynamic presentations from speakers with multiple perspectives and experiences. Speakers include a behavioral economist making new discoveries about the neuroscience of decision-making, a designer who creates social robots to work with autistic children, one of the world’s leading psychologists who has spent his career studying the cause of evil, now on a quest to understand the causes of heroism, and many others.

In addition to stimulating talks, the two-day program is packed with award-winning food and wine, as well as extraordinary performances from musicians and artists. For more information on the conference please visit tenconference.org.

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Posted by Doron Yaghoubi

“What’s In Your Wallet?” May Be A Thing of The Past

13 August 10

With an impressive array of business, credit, metro, and various loyalty cards bursting out of our expanding wallets, a move to digitize plastic cards may come as a pleasant reprieve to many. Earlier this month, Bloomberg uncovered a planned venture between AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to develop a smartphone based payment system designed to compete directly with credit card companies. Using a technology known as NFC (Near Field Communication) embedded into mobile phones; payments would be made by holding the smartphone over a special reader that can communicate with the phone. This method differs from RFID technology, which doesn’t allow two-way communication between devices that would, say, allow for a password to be entered before a payment can be completed.  While Visa and MasterCard have invested in their own mobile payment systems, the new venture, which includes Discover Financial Network and Barclays, will place phone carriers and smartphones at the center of a new financial network. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Doron Yaghoubi

Innovation Tip: Strategic Planning for Innovation

12 August 10

How are you ensuring that your team members are building the skills they need to innovate? As you begin planning for 2011, consider how you’ll help your team of innovators accomplish their goals.

Take some time to map out your innovation objectives and challenges. What skills does your team need to learn? What companies can your team learn from? What are the challenges they need to overcome? Once you’ve delved into some of these important questions, you’ll have an idea of what you need to accomplish over the next year.

You can then outline how to make it happen. If your team is too inwardly-focused, what external best practices and innovations would you like everyone to know about and learn from? If your team struggles with bringing ideas to launch, they’ll need to learn how to better screen ideas and build out concepts.

Work with your learning and development departments to make the courses happen. You can facilitate the training course yourself, or turn to outside experts, but either way, build “learning” time into your plans for the next year. There’s nothing like a refresher course on creative problem solving to reignite stale innovation efforts and invigorate your team.

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Posted by Jenny Wang

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