“If you go from Moscow to Budapest, you think you are in Paris. And if you go from Paris to Budapest, you think you are in Moscow,” as Gyorgy Ligeti very sharply noticed, perfectly describes the location of the XXVI ISPIM Conference in Budapest. ISPIM, short for International Society for Professional Innovation Management, organized this worldwide event once a year. A place to be for everyone involved in Innovation Management, both practitioners and scholars.
Read moreA 5-Dimensional Model for Managing Innovation through Organizational Change
I’m in the lucky position to run into quite a few business owners, corporate directors and leaders on a daily occasion. And when talking to them about innovation – and their ambitions – it almost always comes down to one simple question: “How can we implement innovation in our organization?”. A question which seems easy to ask, but needs a complicated answer.
Read moreCreating Space for Innovation: The Role of “Design Zones”
I stumbled upon the following article about the ‘design zone’ at Babson College. After some years of analysis, they conclude that these zones:
- increase student participation and therefore create more positive energy;
- increase personal contact between lecturers and students;
- the layout can be easily adjusted to the requirements needed at the moment.
There are also some challenges:
- Set-up and clean-up times take away part of lecture times;
- Because of its size and layout, these rooms don’t work well for presentations (i.e. sharing knowledge);
- It requires more participative teaching methods by the lecturers, which some seem to struggle with.
I have found it relieving that ‘even’ Babson College seems to deal with the same problems as we do. On the other hand, it strikes me that even there, they are still small-thinking in terms of classrooms (with walls), whereas we can easily find much better examples especially in business.
Do you know of any extraordinary collaborative workspaces that increase sharing and learning? What is your experience with this way of working?
Read full article: Creating Space for Innovation: The Role of “Design Zones”
Using Games to create Business Model Innovation
Gudiksen concludes with the statement that there are three reasons for using games in business model innovation:
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- Games can be a beneficial way of combining various interests.
- Games challenge assumptions.
- Games create surprises that might eventually lead to innovation.
- Games offer the freedom to improvise, suggest, play and test alternative and future business model scenarios.
Please take a look at the Innovation Management Game if you’re interested in business model game.
Read full article: Using Games to create Business Model Innovation
Teamwork and Organizational Innovation: The Moderating Role of the HRM Context
Read full article: Teamwork and Organizational Innovation: The Moderating Role of the HRM Context
Two Tests to Test your Company’s Innovativeness
In collaboration with Avans University of Applied Sciences, we can provide 2 different tests that will help you analyse your organization’s overall performance on innovation management. The first test, based on John Bessant’s and Joe Tidd’s Managing Innovation focuses on 5 different aspects of organizing and facilitating innovation in your organization. The second test, based on Keeley’s Ten Types of Innovation framework, will provide you with an overview of the different types that your strong at.
The tests will give you immediate insight in your scores. Please send the test results to Avans University (jp.spruijt@avans.nl) in order to participate in the research and to benchmark your scores within your sector or country.
Follow the graphs below to go to the website where you can download the tests.
The world of Patents in Europe (Infographic)
Did you know for example that there were 265.690 European Patent Filings in 2013 but only 66.712 were granted? Did you know that your invention will be protected in up to 40 European countries based on 1 single application? James Sherwin from SOR Solicitors, a Dublin-based law firm, created an infographic about European Patents.
This infographic is published with permission of James Sherwin.
10 reasons why you should think twice before starting a start-up.
- If you don’t understand business basics, don’t start a startup.
- If you don’t have industry experience or knowledge, don’t start a startup.
- If you haven’t got a strong backbone, don’t start a startup.
- If you haven’t thought of the consequences – for instance for your family life – don’t start a startup.
- If you got a hole in your pocket, don’t a start a startup.
And what could doom your startup during the initiating phase:
- Don’t try to do everything yourself.
- Make sure your plan is scalable.
- Don’t forget to continuously increase customer value.
- Don’t be unwilling to kill your darlings.
- Never forget to measure progress.
These tips came from Tabitha Jean Naylor and Brent Beshore.
Read full article: 10 reasons why you should think twice before starting a start-up.
4 ways in which ideas management helps innovation flourish
- It helps organisations to capture, evaluate and progress proposals
- It provides a democratic environment to determine the best ideas and to show a willingness to consider all ideas
- It helps to increase genuine cross-organization transformation
- It helps in creating a corporate shared view on key activities
It may be an advertorial, but at least it provides a nice overview of an under-researched element of the innovation process.
Read full article: 4 ways in which ideas management helps innovation flourish
The world’s best e-courses on Innovation Management
This autumn, we gathered some of the best 21st century courses on Innovation Management for you. While specialist courses at Insead, Berkely or IESE are extremely good, they are expensive and intense. You don’t want to get into the hussle of persuading your employer you’re worth the 50K investment, but still want to learn something? Go for one of the following excellent online courses on innovation (management):
- Innovation Management Game – individual course
The Innovation Management Game is “a serious game for serious professionals”. Their individual course lets you battle against well-known innovation companies worldwide by learning and practising the newest theory on innovation management. According to some of their clients “The key learnings from the game for us were especially the multidimensionality of the innovation process inside a company and the idea that companies can influence their innovation success in many different ways” and “It introduces innovation in a learning environment and it is completely different than just learning theory.”
The price: €495,- - THNK – School of Creative Leadership
THNK is a worldwide renowned institute for linking Design Thinking with Business Thinking. It has an online course, Start Innovating Now, “to build your innovation muscle, and come up with real innovations. An innovative real-life course that will keep you on your toes.” Or as someone says it on their website: “I use TNKS’s innovation process and tools to brainstorm new ideas, synthesize them into innovations that scale and then prototype, test and finetune them.”
The price: €945,- - Entrepreneurial Leadership – Babson College
The definition of a short course: it takes only 30-60 minutes to complete. But who doesn’t want a glimpse of the world’s best school on entrepreneurship education?
The price: $59,99
Any other suggestions? Please let us know.