Innovation

The 11 Bad Habits Killing Innovation in Your Company

Taken from a guest post of Alexander Osterwalder on the blog of Steve Blank

  1. The current business model dominates the agenda
    “…managing the present often takes oxygen away from inventing the future” 
  2. One-size-fits-all decision making hurts speed & inventiveness
  3. Insisting on untested and detailed business plans 
    “Business plans actually maximize the risk of failure because of the focus on executing an unproven idea rather than testing it.”
  4. Opinions matter more than evidence 
  5. Outsourcing customer discovery and testing
    “You can’t hire outside professionals to test and learn from customer interactions and make decisions for you“
  6. Senior leadership too busy for hands-on innovation
    “…leaders have to be more than just sponsors of new business ideas. Decision makers are the ones who can make things happen.“
  7. Obsessing about competitors rather than customers
    “You can’t drive forward by looking in the rear view mirror.”
  8. Focus on technology risk at the expense of other risks
  9. Innovation is career limiting
    “…in most organizations any type of failure is seen as a negative for your career. …  prestige in companies is measured by who commands the largest budget and staff.”
  10. Innovation is siloed from Execution
    “…the execution engine deprives the innovators from access to valuable resources like customers, brand, or skills.”
  11. Integrating new ideas into the execution engine too quickly

    “New ideas are fragile and they need to be carefully nurtured and scaled before they are integrated into the execution engine with its rigid processes, key performance indicators rules, and procedures.”

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Great article from Gary Hamel – Who’s Really innovative?

If you are interested in Innovation and how companies can be classified in terms of their innovation management approach, then this article from Gary Hamel is definitely worth reading.

My favorite quote is:

Fourth are the cyborgs, companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple that have been purpose-built to achieve super-human feats of innovation. You won’t find much industrial age DNA in these organizations. These companies have been built around principles like freedom, meritocracy, transparency, and experimentation. They are so endlessly inventive and strategically flexible they seem to have come from another solar system–one where accountants are treated as servants rather than gods.

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11 innovation lessons from creators of World of Warcraft

Inside Innovation with Colin Stewart » Blog Archive » 11 innovation lessons from creators of World of Warcraft

Great article on (product) innovation! Here is the lineup of “innovation lessons” from Blizzard:

  1. RELY ON CRITICS
  2. USE YOUR OWN PRODUCT
  3. MAKE CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENTS
  4. Go BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
  5. DESIGN FOR DIFFERENT KINDS OF CUSTOMERS
  6. THE IMPORTANCE OF FREQUENT FAILURES
  7. MOVE QUICKLY, IN PIECES
  8. STATISTICS BOLSTER EXPERIENCE
  9. DEMAND EXCELLENCE OR YOU’LL GET MEDIOCRITY
  10. CREATE A NEW TYPE OF PRODUCT
  11. OFFER EMPLOYEES SOMETHING EXTRA

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Cellphone Makers Realize: It’s the Software, Stupid

Wired Magazine – Cellphone Makers Realize: It’s the Software, Stupid

To cut a long story short, the software running on a mobile terminal is becoming a key asset and a competitive advantage. From a technical perspective the iPhone is not rocket science. No 3G, no GPS, no WiMAX, no 3D chip, etc. The strength is the software running on the iPhone and the brilliant ideas behind the user interface. I mean, you could compare this step with the movement from Dos to Windows. Usability is a very big issue for the adaptation of the mobile Internet.

Worth to mentioned that three 800 pound gorillas are fighting for the domination of the smartphone OS.

  1. Nokia – Symbian
  2. Micorsoft – Windows MObile
  3. Google – Open Handset alliance

Do not under estimate the power of Google! Even if the Android OS is far from maturity, they could/will leverage their installed base of “cloud computing services” like Gmail, GTalk, Youtube, GMaps, etc.

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Deutsche Telekom launches Project “Helios” Open Platform similiar to BT Web21C SDK

Deutsche Telekom will launch a service creation platform for developers in the next couple of days, that is probably similar to the BT Web21C SDK. So far i have only seen this press release on the public internet. Here the official quote (in German):

Helios – Open Development. Helios öffnet Dienste der Deutschen Telekom zur Verwendung in Webanwendungen durch Drittanbieter. Ziel ist die Schaffung einfacher Schnittstellen für Entwickler, die diese Dienste zu neuen Angeboten kombinieren können. Ãœber das Developer Portal werden Entwickler Teil der Community, erhalten Zugang zu offenen Programmierschnittstellen und nutzen bei Bedarf das Software Development Kit.

The internal press release on the corporate Telekom intranet was also very short. Besides BT there are a couple of other carriers who have or plan to introduce such SDKs: Orange UK , Orange Isreal, Vodafone Betavine.

Google Android SDK

Other interesting SDK’s in the mobile arena are the upcoming Apple iPhone SDK and the already available Google Android SDK.

I think it’s a perfect testbed for so called meshup services. Developers can easily integrate telecommunication services (e.g. initiate a voice call, send a SMS) into their web applications. As soon as i get more information on the subject i’ll make an update. Stay tuned!

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