April 30, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT MY NEW BOOK
Storytelling for the Revolution
Storytelling at Work
MitchDitkoff.com
April 30, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Validate the Business Model Before Building It
One of the best ways to learn is to make a prototype. Prototypes come in many shapes and sizes, but their defining element is the learning objective behind them. When you start with what you want to learn, the prototype is sure to satisfy the learning …
April 30, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Getting to Why
In their classic book on negotiation and persuasion, Fisher and Ury outline the steps to get to yes. They suggest the following approach: Separate the people from the problem The purpose of this step is to recognise that emotions and egos can become entangled with the problem in negotiations, and that this will adversely affect your ability …
April 29, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Game of Thrones, Star Trek and Innovation
I recently wrote a couple of articles for Innovation Excellence that explored innovation insights we can glean from science fiction writers. In this article, I want to further expand on that topic, and ask how other authors, including William Gibson, Jules Verne and James Burke may be able to help us stretch our thinking. And …
April 29, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Using Blockchain Innovation to Rebuild Trust in the Food Industry
Consumer trust is one of the biggest hurdles that the food industry is up against today. A recent Food and Health Survey uncovered a serious trust deficit between consumers and food manufacturers and suppliers, and we don’t have to look far to see why. In October 2018, J&J Snack Foods recalled its Fit & Active sandwiches from Aldi stores …
April 28, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Okoni Innovation Agency: there is no transformation without creation
Pierre Baudry, Marc-Antoine Franc and Cécile Bernardet are respectively founding partner, partner and project director at Okoni, an new kind of Innovation Agency, which involves co-making innovation with their customers. First Cécile and Marc-Antoine guided me at Okoni premises, then Pierre took his pen to explain how their holistic approach is quite singular, and impactful on …
April 28, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Jeff Bezos Sums Up What Separates Winners from Dreamers in Just 2 Words
There may be no single formula for success, but Jeff Bezos’s annual letter to stockholders comes darn close. Few figures have captured our attention the way Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has. In just under 23 years, Amazon’s revenue has soared from $500,000 to $178,000,000,000, from nine employees to over 560,000, and its stock …
April 27, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
The Dream Customer
In 2012, the first major collaboration between Chrysler and Fiat produced a brand new version of the classic 1970s Dodge Dart, to a lukewarm reception. Why? At least three reasons: including a manual transmission for a mainly automatic transmission buy…
April 27, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Why We Need More Women In Innovation
Every once in a while I get a comment from an audience member after a keynote speech or from someone who read my book, Mapping Innovation, about why so few women are included. Embarrassed, I try to explain that, as in many male dominated fields, women …
April 26, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
What is your Waterproof Teabag?
Consider for a moment these self-contradictory innovations: The solar-powered flashlight The inflatable dartboard The underwater hairdryer The waterproof teabag The concrete liferaft At first sight they look silly but each contains the germ of an inter…
April 25, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
How IBM, Google and Amazon Innovate Differently
Every organization strives to innovate, but few succeed consistently over time. That’s why so many once dominant companies hit a peak and then decline. A recent study estimates that 50% of the current S&P 500 will be replaced over the next ten years. Success is supposed to breed success, but it often breeds failure. Yet …
April 25, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Management Participation in Online Idea Challenges
As stated by Jan Martijn Everts in the blog ‘You get what you give’, senior management and sponsorship are important aspects of running successful Idea Challenges. There is no arguing about that. Management support and sponsorship are a necessity for the initiative itself. But should senior management also visibly participate in the online Idea Challenge …
April 24, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Financial Advice for Elon Musk That You Can Learn From
You may not have millions to invest but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn a thing or two from Musk’s investment strategy. We’ve all heard about how important it is to live in the moment and focus on the here and now. However, nobody ever built the future by just living in the present. There …
April 24, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Understand To Lead
Spoiler Alert: David Bruel (DB) talks to a new way to lead, based on understanding, before anything else. This affects the way we ‘live’ a company culture. I agree, and also see the understanding of a company culture and its people as relevant as the understanding of the vision of a company, if there is …
April 23, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Use Your Next Leadership Retreat to Manage the Future
Each year, thousands of organizational leaders head to the hills for an annual ritual: the strategic offsite leadership retreat. The purpose of such meetings, of course, is to get away from it all and strategize. To leave behind the quarterly pressures, and think big about the future. All too often, that’s not what transpires. Social events …
April 23, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
How much is in your organization’s Innovation Reinvestment Account (IRA)?
One of the best ways to reduce your tax burden and save for the future is to maximize contributions to your Individual Retirment Account (IRA) early and often, create the proper asset mix and periodically doing an asset allocation rebalance at the righ…
April 22, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
And a Child Shall Lead Them
Powerful TED Talk on climate change by a 16-year old girl from Sweden. Perhaps the best 11 minutes you will experience today. Worth watching — and then doing something in response to her message.
Idea Champions
April 22, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
15 Common Missteps Entrepreneurs Make
Illustration: Gapingvoid
Idea Champions
April 22, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
The Packaging Industry is Massive, and It’s About to Be Disrupted
Technology isn’t just for creating new products and services. Disruptive technologies are transforming the packaging that comes with just about everything we buy. Imagine a day when you receive an alert from your refrigerator as you walk past 7-11 because the carton of milk at your home just expired. Or a day when you receive …
April 22, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Why the Next Big Thing Never Turns Out Like You Think It Will
The first thing we think about when we first hear the news about a major breakthrough is the great possibilities it unlocks. The space age spawned fantasies about living like the Jetsons and riding around in flying cars. That still hasn’t happened and possibly never will. Yet we’ve still benefited great from space technologies. Satellites have …
April 21, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Sleep Innovation: The New Rules
The sleep category is growing rapidly. Sleep, or more pertinently, the lack thereof, is increasingly an issue for more and more people. Levels of anxiety, stress and insomnia are on the rise. Consumers are looking for solutions, and willing to spend money on them. 30% of the UK and US population report symptoms of …
April 21, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
We Actually Went Driverless 100 Years Ago
Most of us don’t have a clue that this isn’t the first time we’ve been afraid of going driverless. Part 2 in a series of columns about Autonomous Cars In the aftermath of Ubers’s recent fatal crash in Tempe, which involved a driverless car, there has been a great deal of speculation about the future …
April 20, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Should you rely on intuition?
One of the games I play with my colleagues is : “Guess the relationship”. The rules of the game are simple. When we are in restaurants each of us makes a hypothesis about the relationship between people sitting at another table. We discuss our intuitive sense of their relationship. If everyone agrees to your hypothesis …
April 19, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Profit from Your Idea with a Patent
A patent can be taken out on almost any new implementable idea. It is not just about protecting your idea. Your patents are part of your Intellectual Property (IP) and can be valuable assets. Often a start-up company will be bought for its IP rather than its products or sales revenues. Here are some tips …
April 19, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Best Practices in Bioentrepreneurship Education
Entrepreneurship education programs are expanding rapidly and recent polls indicate that 20-25% of B school applicants are interested in starting their own business. Many applicants, including medical school and graduate school applicants already have, but feel they lack the business skills to start and scale their companies. Consequently, there are more Masters in Entrepreneurship programs sprouting up …
April 18, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
THE IDIOT SAVANT’S GUIDE to Becoming a Better Storyteller
Click here to listen (and view) my November 22nd webinar on storytelling in the workplace. Entertaining, mind opening, and practical. Hosted by the good people at PatSnap.
If you are interested in learning why and how storytelling is the ideal way…
April 18, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
How Experian’s Digital Transformation Brought Its Business To An Entirely New Level
When Barry Libenson first arrived at Experian as Global CIO in 2015, he knew that the job would be a challenge. As one of the world’s largest data companies, with leading positions in the credit, automotive and healthcare markets, the CIO’s role is especially crucial for driving the business. So he devoted his first few …
April 18, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Are You Ready to Run a Digital Business for the Digital Age?
In our digital age, all companies must change how they think, how they interact with customers, partners, and suppliers, and how their business works on the inside. Customer, partner, and supplier expectations have changed, and a gap is opening between…
April 17, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Uber’s Fatal Accident and the Future of Autonomous Cars
Any sufficiently disruptive technology brings risk before it brings promise. On Sunday, March 18, 2018, an Uber Volvo XC90 in autonomous mode, with a safety driver as backup, hit and killed a 49-year-old Tempe, Arizona, woman, Elaine Herzberg. The NTSB is investigating. No doubt you’ve heard that last year, an Uber in Tempe, Arizona, operating …
April 17, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
How to Fix Corporate Tech Strategy
A large defense contractor is in the process of revamping their technology strategy. They want to see more return on investment, which totals more than $1 billion annually across headquarters and its business units. This money is meant to deliver the n…