July 31, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
10 Tech Trends Driving Connected Consumer Behavior [infographic]
To help innovators understand and prepare for future consumer demand, Gfk has chosen the ten key Tech Trends they believe will have the most impact on consumer needs and behavior in 2016 and beyond. For an overview, check out the ten trends in this inf…
July 31, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
New Model with Four Routes To Start Innovation
The start of innovation is described by Wikipedia as the messy getting started period of a new product development process. It is in the front end where the organization formulates a concept of the product or service to be developed and decides whether or not to invest resources in the further development of an idea [i]. The ‘front …
July 31, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
The 2015 Lean Startup Conference
GE Powers up a New Generation of Corporate Innovation The company formerly known as General Electric (GE) is synonymous with technological advances such as the light bulb, TV and nuclear power but until recently its innovation processes that were forge…
July 30, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Why Your Organization Needs to Create a Culture of Storytelling
Why create a culture of storytelling?
Storytelling videos, interviews and articles
Sparking innovation via storytelling
Idea Champions
July 30, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Tips for Facilitating Meetings with Different Personality Types
Anyone who has lead a meeting has been there. You are leading a meeting, ideation session or workshop, and watching the meeting run off track or hijacked by the mix of personalities in the room. Getting the conversation back on course can be a huge effort, assuming the meeting gets back on track at all. …
July 30, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Strategic Canaries
Animal sentinels, such as canaries in coal mines, provide critical warnings to people in vulnerable positions. Because they more quickly succumb to the danger in the environment, they can give crucial time for people to escape when things have gone ho…
July 29, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Key Metrics to Benchmark Innovation Performance
Top performing companies are now launching almost three times as many successful new products as bottom-performing organizations! Over the last decade the performance gap has grown significantly.
July 29, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Climate change video games?
Getting kids engaged and interested in green issues like climate change might take more creativity than a book or a classroom lecture. A company called Strange Loop Games used crowdfunding to create an online video game that teaches young people about environmental changes. The game is called, “ECO”, and its focus is on sustainability to […]
July 29, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
To Succeed with the Internet of Things, Start Smart
The potential value of the Internet of Things (IoT) varies as widely as the definitions of the term. If your approach to IoT requires that every last thing be connected before you can claim victory, or realize a return – you have a daunting task ahead of you. As Charlie Peters, Senior Vice President of …
July 28, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
How PARC Saved Xerox
Xerox invented the core technology that made personal computing easy and fun—the mouse, the graphical user interface and the ethernet—but it was Steve Jobs who built the Macintosh and profited. By now, the story has become so well known that it’s almost a cliche. The story resonates because it ties into two recurring themes: The wily entrepreneur outmaneuvering the bloated corporate behemoth and the primacy of business acumen over the development of core technology. Yet there’s a lot more to it than that.
July 27, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Innovate by Adopting a Role Model Organization
Can you innovate and improve business performance by copying another company from an entirely different industry? This is what the Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital in Michigan did when it wanted to transform its customer service and operational efficiency. The hospital borrowed some of the practices of a five star hotel and hired a new …
July 26, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Innovation in the World Demands Adaptability in the Workplace
The online magazine Digital Trends suggests that automation will commandeer around 5 million jobs by 2020. That means that 5 million workers are going to have to resign themselves to joblessness, or will have to improve current and even learn new sets …
July 26, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
FINDING JOE: The Hero’s Journey
This is a wonderful movie about the Hero’s Journey — the one we are ALL on. Sets the context beautifully for the 5-day Hero’s Journey Retreat I will be co-facilitating with Dr. Beverly Nelson at the LifePath Center in San Miguel de Allende on Augus…
July 26, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Pen “copies” color of any object
Imagine being able to copy the exact shade of whatever color you want to draw with from any object – even pets! This gadget is a few hundred dollars and it’s called the Scribblepen. It was originally designed for tablets,allowing you to easily transfer your custom and captured colors into Photoshop or CorelDRAW, for use […]
July 26, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Play to Win
While certain roles depend upon pinpoint accuracy (surgeons, logistics, pharmacy), most industries can be rethought and create more value – and most experiences can be made better – with a sense of wonder and human-centric user viewpoint.
July 25, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People [Infographic]
Want to develop a better work routine? Discover how some of the world’s greatest minds organized their days?
July 25, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Intellectual Property Rights for Startups [presentation]
By striking the right balance between the interests of innovators and the wider public interest, the IP system aims to foster an environment in which creativity and innovation can flourish.
July 25, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Harnessing the Global Talent Pool to Accelerate Innovation [White Paper]
The talent market relationship changes are not just happening at the individual level. Change is also happening at the organizational level, as organizations themselves are moving from a fortress mentality, where all work is secret and kept inside the organization’s four walls, to an integrated, global economy…
July 25, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Innovation: A World of Ambiguity
Innovator operate in a world of ambiguity. Every situation you face has some uncertainty, and you need to be prepared when unexpected things happen. If you’re not prepared, your strategy may derail and you end up losing competitive ground in the marketplace.
July 24, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
I’m From Woodstock, Yes I Am!
This story in the Huffington Post
The Munich workshop
Idea Champions
Excerpted from Storytelling at Work
What our clients say
July 24, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
How to use Design Thinking to get fit and lose weight
Really interesting article in the New York Times relating to Bernard Roth’s book The Achievement Habit. Roth, a prominent Stanford engineering professor, says that Design Thinking can help everyone form the kind of lifelong habits that solve problems, achieve goals and help make our lives better.
July 23, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
The Lean Startup
Many of you ask us, ‘What is Lean Start-up?’ and almost as many follow up with the question, ‘Why should I care?’ While many people know start-ups like ride-sharing service Uber and accommodation sharing website Airbnb, many don’t know that what spawned these game-changing companies can also work for their own businesses.
July 22, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Five-Day Hero’s Journey Retreats in San Miguel de Allende
Mitch Ditkoff, Co-Founder of Idea Champions, is thrilled to announce that he will be co-facilitating a series of 5-day Hero’s Journey Retreats in San Miguel del Allende, Mexico with Dr. Beverly Nelson, Founder of LifePath Retreats. The first session …
July 22, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Cool electronic flight bags to be featured at EAA
Next week, hundreds of thousands of airplane geeks, from more than 70 countries will descend on Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, WI for the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) annual AirVenture. Billed as the “World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration®”, AirVenture 2016 will make the Oshkosh airport the busiest airfield in the world. More than 10,000 aircraft, from […]
July 21, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
8 Ways to Fight Brain Drain when Baby Boomers Retire
While many baby boomers are preparing to leave the workforce; organizational leadership at most companies are not prepared to lose them. As reiterated in a McKinsey Quarterly Survey, the baby boomer generation is “the best-educated, most highly skilled aging workforce in U.S. history.
July 21, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Participative Innovation at France Job Center
Reynald Chapuis is Innovation and CSR manager at France Job Center (Pôle Emploi). He shares with us the various and tangible initiatives he lead at Pôle Emploi, from participative innovation, E-Novaction platform, Innovation Lab, Innovation App store, emploi-store.fr, to the open innovation cluster, Lab RH. Welcome to a world where unemployment is not a fatal, but can trigger a rebound.
July 21, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
INNOVATION MASTERY: Outcome: Developing New Products & Services [VIDEO]
Book available here: http://amzn.to/29q9ZsK If your outcome is to develop new products, the metrics are easy on this one, simply track the number of ideas which make it through the pipeline from idea to actual product. If this is really your goal, then you need to invest the time, money and resources to make…
July 20, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Is it REALLY disruptive? It matters.
At the recent ISPIM conference, I sat in several presentations ostensibly describing approaches to disruptive innovation when, in reality, it was difficult to see what (a market or a company) was actually being disrupted. They were really talking about…
July 20, 2016 | by Chris Kalaboukis
4 Innovation Lessons from the History of Warfare
What do the Hydrogen bomb, the Minuteman missile and precision guided weapons all have in common? They all provided crucial financing for technology that we now carry around in our pockets. It is a curious fact of modern society that civilian life, in large part, is powered by the technology of war. Even today, national …