29 March 10
futurethink is launching another round of innovator interviews to share insights and best practices from leading innovation practitioners. All of these interviews are free to download once you’ve registered on futurethink‘s website.
Our first interview in this series is with Tony Tomazic, Director of Consumer Innovations at Humana. In his leadership role in the Humana Innovation Center, Mr. Tomazic focuses on developing and implementing programs to engage consumers in their health and promote well-being.
Below is an excerpt from his interview. The full version can be download here. Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | 
Healthcare, New Business Model, New Business Process | Tagged: collaboration, consumer insights, innovation, open innovation | 
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Posted by Andrew Der
24 March 10
Perhaps one of the most common pitfalls of would-be innovators is that they try to build an innovation program in one fell swoop. Innovation, like any other business competency, has many discrete parts that must ultimately be successful in order for an innovation program to really take off.
As the global economy shows signs of recovery, managers are beginning to turn their attention back to innovation and rebuilding their businesses in an entirely new and different marketplace. In doing so, it’s critical to evaluate your organization’s innovation program not as a whole—but as a series of steps and functions. Does your organization struggle with generating ideas or executing them? Are employees in your organization isolated from one another or are they easily able to collaborate across departments and functions? Does your organization have a clear innovation strategy given the vast changes that have occurred over the last year? Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: innovation, innovation strategy | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Kutticherry
25 February 10
The world of work is changing – on this point we can all agree. But how, and why, and at what rate are all questions that consistently plague managers, workers, and business thinkers around the world. The nature of work has changed dramatically in the past decade, and will continue transforming in the years ahead as demographic shifts, technology advancements, and new economic realities settle in.
What we know is that, in general, workers today have different expectations and priorities. “The corporate ladder” and the hierarchical world it created are vanishing relics of the 20th Century. Workers today, empowered by technologies that allow them to work any time, from anywhere, are demanding more flexibility from their employers. Employers are discovering that it’s often cheaper and more efficient to have a smaller ‘in-office’ headcount. The economic crisis has forced many to re-evaluate their personal and professional goals. Sustainability and environmental conservation are increasingly driving decision-making. Read the rest of this entry »
3 Comments | New Business Model, Uncategorized | Tagged: collaboration, future, futurist, innovation | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Kutticherry
30 November 09
We live in what the Huffington Post calls an evolving “Clickocracy,” one nation, under Google, with email and viral video for all. There’s no question that the ever-expanding universe of technological innovation pushes all of us to seek out the next big innovations of our own. Some organizations, however, are better at embracing new innovations than others.
Take, for example, the now ubiquitous iPhone App. When Apple launched its App Store back in 2007, it invited pretty much anyone to submit applications for the device using a toolkit of neat technologies. Some organizations have gone on to create genuinely useful, innovation applications for this platform. Like the popular website Yelp, whose app not only allows users to easily find and read reviews of nearby brick-and-mortar business, but nudges into the world of augmented reality by allowing users to hold their iPhone cameras up to a business storefront and instantly see ratings and reviews of that location without having to type a thing. For every App like Yelp, which takes full advantage of the iPhone’s interface and feature set and adds value to Yelp’s core offering, there are ten more that are, to put it mildly, completely useless. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: apple, apps, innovation, iPhone, the web | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Kutticherry
29 October 09
How are the world’s leading organizations developing their people and honing employees’ skills? What is the role of the Learning & Development function today and how will that change in the future? We set out to answer these questions in our latest survey on the future of learning and development. (Download the report HERE) Over the years, we have encountered more and more L&D professionals looking to help build innovation into their training programs. In doing this, we learned that the world of corporate education is in the midst of a transition fueled by new technologies, greater time and resource constraints, and a heightened need to provide employees with emerging skills and competencies. In short, innovation in the marketplace hasn’t necessarily translated to innovation in the world of learning and development.
Many organizations we have encountered over the years have been held back by training programs that simply didn’t evolve and adapt with the rest of the organization. While Learning & Development professionals face a wide range of issues, some of the most prominent challenges are around the practice of training itself. The big “AHA!” many are realizing is this: the reason training offerings aren’t more successful isn’t because of the people that attend them (or don’t attend them) — it’s because of the courses themselves. If L&D teams want better attendance and better ROI for their training offerings, survey respondents voiced that course offerings and presentation need to change dramatically. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: eLearning, innovation, L&D, learning and development, training | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Kutticherry
29 September 09
The Clinton Global Initiative’s fifth annual meeting was held last week, bringing together business and government leaders from around the world to hash out potential solutions for some of the world’s biggest problems. Interestingly, the central theme of this year’s meeting was innovation. U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a speech highlighting the importance of innovation as a means to bringing the world’s economies safely out of our current recession. Numerous workshops and panels were held throughout the week to help leaders wrap their heads around what innovation means and how they might harness it to ensure growth and prosperity into the future.
But in reading the various re-caps and announcements coming out of the meeting, we were struck by how the conversation around innovation seems to have stagnated. Considering the collective power and stature of Clinton Global Initiative members (membership is restricted to CEOs and political leaders), there was very little ‘news’ emerging from the meeting. The problem is that very few people are thinking differently about growth and innovation. Generally speaking, we’re stuck in the past and shackled by our old notions of growth and success. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: innovation | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Kutticherry
30 July 09
Plastic Logic’s electronic reader may be the ‘Kindle Killer,’ but for many, this little innovation will be quite the savior.
The new eReader will provide users with access to Barnes & Noble’s abundant eBook store—this means more than 700,000 titles at their fingertips, while Amazon’s Kindle provides only 300,000 titles. But the thing that positions this new eReader toe-to-toe with the Kindle—and has eBookers stirring—is that it will provide wireless access through AT&T’s wide 3G network; giving users unlimited access to new books in many more locations, ultimately providing added mobility. Read the rest of this entry »
4 Comments | Media & Entertainment, New Product or Service, New Strategic Partnership, Technology | Tagged: amazon, barnes and noble, competition, ebook, ereader, innovation, kindle, kindle2, plastic logic | Permalink
Posted by Chaya Wilkins
22 July 09
I’ve recently finished reading The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times, a new book by Innosight President Scott D. Anthony. As part of a ‘virtual book tour’ (we’re all very Web 2.0, you see), I agreed to review the book and post a brief interview with Scott. First, the review: Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: book review, innosight, innovation, recession, scott anthony, scott d. anthony, the silver lining | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Kutticherry
22 July 09
When it comes to innovation, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. “Innovation inside” can be more powerful than even the flashiest of new product ideas – especially in today’s business environment.
While some companies are cutting funding for innovation projects during the economic downturn, others are turning to internal innovation to help them improve efficiency, cut costs,, and even generate funds for external growth initiatives. Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: GE, innovation, reed elsevier | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Kutticherry
30 June 09
As we slide into the (relatively) relaxed summer months, we’re looking forward to the opportunity to help our clients take stock of their innovation efforts so they can be prepared for the strategic planning season that lies ahead. We’re increasingly reminded of the important role that strategic foresight can play in this process. While organizations of all sizes could afford to experiment and innovate freely during better times, everyone today is being much more careful about how and where they allocate innovation resources. Strategic foresight—the process of carefully analyzing trends and the broad marketplace to identify opportunities for the months and years ahead—allows organizations to place fewer bets that collectively have a higher likelihood of success in the long run.
As Mark Hausfeld, an Innovation Manager at P&G recently told us in an interview, “We constantly challenge ourselves to understand what the big opportunities out there are, and then articulate those needs in a way that can help us really drive innovation around that opportunity area. Some organizations say: Let’s find all the cool technologies and ideas out there, and then we’ll go find a problem that they solve. We take that and we reverse it. We say: Let’s have a clear understanding of the problem we need to solve. We make sure the problem is well-defined first, and then come up with the innovations to solve those problems.”
Strategic foresight practices will help you better identify opportunities and problems in need of solutions so that your innovation efforts can be more focused and successful. Luckily, the summer is the perfect time to start embedding strategic foresight activities into your regular routine. Identify a few niche blogs or forums that cover your industry and start scanning these sources regularly. Set up a Google Reader account to easily track and view these blogs. Sign up for a few new newsletters and trade publications. Beefing up your scanning list will allow you to easily track the pulse of the marketplace so that you’ll have a better picture of what could happen in the future.
How will you engage foresight activities as we enter the strategic planning season?
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Foresight, innovation, strategic foresight | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Kutticherry
