News and views

  • Crisis innovation demands a strategy

    Change presents endless opportunities for innovation. We are going through the largest change to our lives for a generation, and at an alarming pace. Both our professional and personal lives have been hugely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.  So how do organizations deal effectively with the multitude of innovation opportunities which the new landscape is…

  • How strategic is your innovation?

    Your strategy is your overall approach to achieving your purpose. You can only have one: strategy is a singular thing. Is your organization serious about the role that innovation plays in achieving its purpose? If so, to what extent is innovation part of your overall approach (your strategy)?

  • The discontinuous nature of innovation

    Making sense of the field of innovation is not simple. This is partly because of the range of aspects of innovation that are frequently discussed. In this interview with Brightidea, the leading provider of innovation management systems, Keith McConnell, of Sara Lee, makes a distinction between innovation and “continuous improvement” in the first 25 seconds, when he…

  • Tesla in Texas: two innovations interacting?

    Selling innovative products If you are selling something, then you want people to buy it, but how? The challenge is greater if your product is more innovative. But maybe other innovations can come to the rescue. Resistance from existing distributors For Tesla, the electric car manufacturer which is shaking up the motor industry, Texas is…

  • Bring back the great British tea break!

    It’s an institution or, at least, it was an established ritual: the great British tea break. Get together When I first started work, and for many years afterwards, there was a break every morning and every afternoon. Everyone in the department would stop work for 15-20 minutes each morning and afternoon, to get together to have…

  • Innovation and marketing – an important pair

    Understanding “innovation” relationships With so much current interest in innovation, and with there being so many differences of view on what innovation is, one way to organise one’s thinking on the topic is to describe its relationship to other topics. … with “marketing”! The relationship between innovation and marketing is a particularly important, and this…

  • Innovative strategy

    While strategy and tactics are important topics, which are frequently confused, the role of innovation provides a key to distinguishing them. This led to an article, focussed on the innovation aspects of strategy, which is intended to separate the two more clearly by describing their relationship, and putting tactics in their place! Read the full…

  • Innovation does not start with ideas

    Innovations might come from ideas, but ideas might not lead to innovations. Innovations enable us to make small steps, big jumps and giant leaps in the direction that we choose to go. But searching for, and realising, those innovations involves more than searching for, and developing, ideas. An idea might be a key that fits…

  • Innovation happens like fire

    Innovation happens automatically, under the right conditions, like fire. For fire, those conditions are generally: fuel, air supply and heat. Removing any one, prevents it. For innovation: fuel is something valuable to be done, air supply is the communication of information and ideas, heat is energy, and sparks of enthusiasm and inspiration. Innovation is prevented…

  • Innovation, management and strategy

    Innovation is attracting attention. Innovation management is the reason. Innovation strategy is the essential element.