About this Author
Gwen Smith Ishmael, Sr. Vice President of Insights and Innovation at Decision Analyst in Arlington, TX, has led marketing and new product development activities in the CPG and technology industries since 1986. She also conceived and developed ground-breaking Web-based promotional vehicles, two of which are patent pending. Gwen holds an MBA in Marketing and is a featured speaker on insights and innovation around the world. Her writings have been featured in international text books, most recently in Managing 4 Ps of Marketing FMCG Sector, and Product Innovation: A Strategic Tool for Growth, by ICFAI Publications, 2006 and 2007, respectively.
Founding Author
Renee Hopkins Callahan started IdeaFlow and serves as chief blog-wrangler. She is Director of Innovation Services at Decision Analyst in Arlington, Texas, is a former journalist who worked as an editor and reporter for The Dallas Morning News and the Nashville Tennessean, and was managing editor of D, the Dallas city magazine. She has a master's degree in rhetoric and has also taught college-level English and informal logic.
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Category Archives
February 23, 2007
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New Chief Innovation Officer course being offered
Think you know what a Chief Innovation Officer is supposed to do? The folks at BMG -- Breakthrough Management Group -- do. They are offering a two-day Chief Innovation Officer course at the end of April in Denver. Topics to be covered -- "The Emerging Role of the CIO," "Fostering An Innovative Company Culture," "Establishing A Systematic Innovation Process," and "Accelerating Innovation In Your Organization."
Speakers include some heavy hitters -- David Silverstein of BMG, who is also author of Insourcing Innovation; Robert Tucker of The Innovation Resource, who is also author of Driving Growth Through Innovation, Dr. Phil Samuel of BMG, and Cheryl Perkins, President of Innovation Edge, LLC, and former CIO of Kimberly Clark.
Regular IdeaFlow readers may remember that this post that mentioned David Silverstein when he was quoted in Business Week last year.
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October 18, 2006
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Vote on 'Six Core Values of Innovation' by Jeff De Cagna
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June 5, 2006
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New BusinessWeek innovation magazine coming this week
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June 1, 2006
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IBM, Microsoft partnering up with and purchasing small tech companies
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February 21, 2006
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Collaborative creativity in action
Dave Hitz posted a great anecdote on collaborative creativity: "A group of people are working to solve a problem, and together they invent a new solution, but if you try to determine who actually 'made the invention,' it's impossible. One person suggests a solution that isn't quite right, but another person mishears it and repeats it back slightly modified, and the first person says, 'That's not what I meant,' but a third person says, 'You know, that could work!' " Make sure to read the part about Doctor Death.
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February 20, 2006
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How to create a more innovative business environment
John Winsor posted a few tools for how to create a more innovative business environment, from his book Spark. The two posts and the book are well worth checking out. Examples: Create SWAT Teams (a diverse team around a specific innovation issue); Support Varied Innovation (look at an innovation problem from many different angles)
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December 1, 2005
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Creative people have more sex
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November 30, 2005
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Web 2.0 and innovation
Francois Gossieaux makes a good point about all the Web 2.0 hype: "I am totally excited about this current wave of web innovation and a big believer in where it might lead us (as I wrote about it a few times - including here). What confuses me is the fanaticism with which the current tools are being promoted - and the associated "death of the old tools" predictions that go with it....[snip]...there are remaining web 1.0 tools that are still working fine for certain applications - let's not become too snobbish about this whole thing - because that will impede innovation."
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Using mind-mapping for case-based learning
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November 27, 2005
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Current VC trends
From a WSJ (free access) article on VC investing trends: VC firms are still pouring money into biotech firms and Internet startups, but they are also investing in new markets overseas, the alternative energy sector and "start-ups that weathered the tech downturn and now boast a cool new product or, better yet, a profit." Also on the trend list are Chinese companies, Web 2.0 companies and a comeback of sorts for telecom companies.
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November 18, 2005
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New innovation website: Innovate Forum
The past couple of weeks I've been reading a new website called Innovate Forum that's targeted to "engineering-driven manufacturing companies" -- very much a PDMA kind of audience. In that time the site, which has been up for about two months, has had some thought-provoking articles about global innovation strategies, innovation networks, and offshoring. It's worth checking out. A good starting point is this article, which outlines the "top 5" ideas that have been discussed on the site in its first 60 days, such as "approach innovation more systematically." It's not earth-shaking news, but worth a look.
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TQM, Six Sigma can slow innovation
Wharton management professor Mary J. Benner's research has found that process management systems such as TQM and Six Sigma can drag organizations down and dampen innovation: "In the appropriate setting, process management activities can help companies improve efficiency, but the risk is that you misapply these programs, in particular in areas where people are supposed to be innovative," notes Benner. "Brand new technologies to produce products that don't exist are difficult to measure. This kind of innovation may be crowded out when you focus too much on processes you can measure." Read about it here.
Here, you can read about a more innovative way to use Six Sigma -- it's the name for a New Jersey rock band.
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November 9, 2005
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Business Week on 'the new young tech entrepreneurs'
"Even the skeptics expect more Microsofts and Googles to emerge from dorm rooms around the country," says Business Week's special report on entrepreneurs under 25. There's lots of comparisons between the "current crop" to those who were starting companies during hte 1990s boom years. Differences -- today's entrepreneurs are more wary of venture capitalists, and don't necessarily always need VCs because "thanks to the Internet and free open-source software, launching a small tech company is cheaper than ever." One thing that hasn't changed: "young entrepreneurs need to recognize how much they don't know, and more important, how to ask for help."
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Richard Florida on 'fast cities': up-and-coming hubs for creative workers
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October 31, 2005
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Shopping for innovation: how to hire a design firm
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October 27, 2005
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'The Creative Mind' -- New Scientist special report
A special report on "The Creative Mind" is on the cover of the current New Scientist magazine and available to subscribers on the Internet. It's a very nice package of stories that summarizes current research on creativity and discusses the specifics of mathematical, scientific, musical, and literary creativity. It would have been nice if they had left one or two of the stories on the free side of the website, but if you're a subscriber or don't mind becoming one, it's worth a look.
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October 26, 2005
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Innovation Q&A with Renee Hopkins Callahan
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2005 Innovation Challenge blog
I'm again judging the Thunderbird Innovation Challenge, an MBA competition in which teams try to solve global sponsors’ real-world business issues to win the title "Most Innovative MBA Team in the World." New to the competition this year is a blog on which some interesting posts and podcasts have been published. You can check it out here.
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October 25, 2005
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Wall Street Journal 2005 Technology Innovation Awards
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Update: New version of Chuck Frey's Mind Map book
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Reports from Collaborative Innovation Summit
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October 24, 2005
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Innovation "busting out all over"
Microsoft Emerging Business Team member Don Dodge says "innovation is busting out all over" and lists as examples promising technology start-ups (that presumably Microsoft may have an eye on?) in search, social networking, security,wireless applications, blog tools, and lead generation including del.icio.us, TypePad, and Jookster. (Thanks to Dominic Basulto at Fortune Innovation Forum blog for the pointer.)
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Ten Faces of Innovation
Tom Kelley's been blogging over at Fast Company about his new book, The Ten Faces of Innovation. In case you need to catch up, this post serves as an index to his entries on the ten faces and offers a little background on the book.
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October 3, 2005
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Finally, innovation comes to beer
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September 29, 2005
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New: The Daily Innovator blog
Jeff de Cagna of Association Innovation has launched a new blog, The Daily Innovator. He's posting great quotes, links, and tips on how to be innovative every day -- and so far he's posting every day, which I certainly applaud even though I don't manage it often myself....! Check it out.
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New e-book on mind mapping strategies
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September 27, 2005
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Shameless self-promotion dept.!
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September 5, 2005
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Business Week: 'The Creativity Economy'
From several weeks ago -- Business Week celebrates what they call the "Creativity Economy" by describing the new "innovation gurus" who "focus more on micro-innovation -- teaching companies how to connect with their customers' emotions, linking research and development labs to consumer needs, recalibrating employee incentives to emphasize creativity, constructing maps showing opportunities for innovation." The package of articles can be accessed by links to the right of the main article here.
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Saved by design?
The new innovation mantra is that we're all going to be saved by design, and this Business Week article talks about how you can't just graft design principles into your organization. To better integrate design principles into "traditional" firms, the article specifies the ways in which design organizations differ from traditional firms along "five key dimensions: flow of work life, style of work, mode of thinking, source of status, and dominant attitude." Business Week also has launched a new Business Innovation Center with articles focused on "Innovation and Design: Strategy, creativity, and research." Well, that pretty much covers it all!
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Excerpt: "The Design Of Things To Come"
I haven't read this one yet, and if you haven't either you can get a sneak peek at new book The Design of Things to Come: How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Products by Jonathan Cagan, Craig Vogel and Peter Boatwright from this Knowledge @ Wharton excerpt of the first chapter. The book's premise: "Many successful products today signify a revolution in product design that is driven by customer emotion, self-image and fantasy, not just function."
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New companies faster and easier to launch
New companies are far easier and faster to launch today compared to even five years ago because of the improvements to open-source software and the commoditization of hardware, says an MIT Technology Review story, quoting one entrepreneur: "Since you don't have to put out a lot of capital to start, you're going to see a real creative wave of products."
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PSFK.IF blog
Marketing ideas and inspiration can be had for a price on the PSFK IF blog. It's a paid-sub blog; the free version's entries have teaser info but often don't feature links to sources the way the paid-sub version does (there is a free newsletter available on the site).
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July 11, 2005
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Free seminar on 'Building an Innovative Enterprise'
Last April at the American Creativity Association conference I was impressed by a talk from futurist Paul Schumann, who will be speaking at a free seminar on "Building An Innovative Enterprise," from 9 a.m. to noon on July 26. Hosted by the Center for Community Based and Nonprofit Organizations at the Austin Community College Highland Business Center in Austin, Texas. Go here for more information and to register for this seminar (then click on "Learning Opportunities").
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June 28, 2005
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New blog on the future of work
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Richard Florida on Minnesota Public Radio
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June 22, 2005
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Microchip inventor Jack Kilby dies
Fascinating tidbit from this obituary of microchip inventor Jack Kilby: Kilby failed the college entrance exam for MIT. Proving what most of us already know -- college entrance exams are certainly no test of creativity!
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New technology: roadcasting
Roadcasting: I want it!! C'mon, developers, let's get those mesh networks meshing!!
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'Mass collaboration on the Internet is shaking up business,' says Business Week
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The Zen of Creativity
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June 20, 2005
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Fun with Flickr!
OK, maybe I'm easily amused, but I think this is pretty cool -- the letters "CPSI" on the left came from a site where you specify the word you want to spell and then get a script that renders your word in letters that come from publicly accessible photos on Flickr. The photos used to make the letters change every time the page is refreshed.
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June 16, 2005
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New blog on customer co-creation
Koen van der Wal in the Netherlands has started the first blog I've seen on customer co-creation. Anybody who knows of another blog on this topic, let me know. The mission of the Co-Creation Blog: "Since we only seem to be at the beginning of this development, I would like to share ideas here on how designers, marketeers, market researchers, managers and users can give shape to co-creation. Simply put: How will this work?"
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June 14, 2005
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Technology drives car innovations
It's not really a car, it's a network: "As automotive electronics become more complex, car manufacturers are borrowing a page from the network industry, relying on shared networks and standard protocols to support internal communications between control systems. They're also turning to industry standards such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to support links to external systems that provide traffic, weather, entertainment and other information."
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Top-down disruptive innovations
Clayton Christensen has made us all aware of bottom-up disruptive innovations that sneak in as underperformers then manage to displace established products in mainstream markets (example: Sony Walkman). But there are also top-down disruptive innovations, writes Nicholas Carr in Strategy + Business, that "actually outperform existing products when they’re introduced, and they sell for a premium price rather than at a discount. They’re initially purchased by the most discriminating and least price-sensitive buyers, and then they move steadily downward, into the mainstream, to recast the entire market in their own image." (examples: FedEx's overnight delivery services, XM satellite radio)
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May 4, 2005
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Recipe for creative "dream teams" revealed
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February 3, 2005
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Innovation At Play
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Innovation At Work
When The Sous-Chef Is An Ink-Jet (NYT): "Chef Homaro Cantu wants to use technology to change the way people perceive (and eat) food, and he uses Moto [his restaurant] as his laboratory. 'Gastronomy has to catch up to the evolution in technology,' he said. 'And we're helping that process happen.'
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January 3, 2005
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Discounts Available for 2005 Front End of Innovation Conference
Managing the Front End of Innovation, one of the best innovation conferences, is offering $400 off the registration price if you register before Jan. 21. This year's conference features Henry Chesbrough, Benjamin Zander, Jack Welch, Steve Wozniak and tracks on Open Innovation and Six Sigma.
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December 31, 2004
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Innovation Ethics
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Blink About 'Blink'
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Fast Comnpany's Creativity Issue
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Top 10 Corporate Innovators
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December 30, 2004
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Innovation Lessons 2004
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2004 Innovation Wrap-Up
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December 15, 2004
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US Has Innovation Edge Over EU
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December 8, 2004
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Grad Student Restrictions Will Hurt Innovation
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Innovation Spending To Increase in 2005
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Innovation Arms Race
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Test New Hires For Imagination
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Six Myths ABout Creativity
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Prototype-As-Design
In PDMA's Visions magazine: NASA still uses "prototype-as-design," which according to Michael Schrage is "a medium of co-development with the client."
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Kurzweil On Merger Of Biology And Technology
Ray Kurzweil says in CIO.com that the merger of technology and biology will change our lives, our work and our bodies over the next couple of decades.
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December 6, 2004
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Innovation A 'New Competency in IT'
'The New Competencies in IT' -- As the mission of IT shops changes from technology mechanic to innovation leader, CIOs must hire a new kind of employee. An excerpt from the book, The New CIO Leader. (from HBS Working Knowledge)
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Innovation and Disruption Still Going Hand In Hand
'Innovation and Disruption Still Going Hand in Hand,' says NYT: "Technology-driven dislocation ... is spreading throughout the economy, many economists say, as more businesses discover how to harness new technological tools and fuel a surge in productivity growth."
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December 2, 2004
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Innovation/job creation gap
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December 1, 2004
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P&G
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The Future of Innovation in the US
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