November 30, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Are You an Idea Addict?
There are lots of things in this world people get addicted to: alcohol, nicotine, heroin, sex, and iPhones, just to name a few. But perhaps the biggest addiction of them all is the addiction to our own ideas. Here’s how it works:
We think somethi…
November 30, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Just Say No to Cubicles
Whether it’s placing machine tools on the factory floor or designing work spaces for people that work at the company, the number one guiding metric is resources per square foot. If you’re placing machine tools, this metric causes the machines to be stacked closely together, where the space between them is minimized, access to the …
November 29, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Exploring and Exploiting for Innovation (Part 2)
If you are following along, I’m writing a series of posts about the opportunities and challenges with the way we think about and implement the concepts behind explore and exploit. In my first post I wrote a short introduction to the topic. In that post I looked at the history of exploring and exploiting, which …
November 28, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
How to build successful community open innovation networks
Everyone seems interested in getting the most impact out of their innovation efforts. Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) have mushroomed since the invention of the Internet and cheap mobile communications. Community based innovation and biomedical and health online innovation networks have the potential to speed new product development, offer alternative financing platforms for early stage ventures, provide education, …
November 27, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
3 Dimensions of Innovation: the 23 Capabilities your company needs to succeed
The image here is the list of exactly which capabilities your company needs to succeed at innovation. Read on to understand how it works and how to implement it yourself. Almost every business leader will tell you that they value innovation and that it is a positive & important factor for their company. In fact, […]
November 27, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
One Toxic Personality Every Innovator and Entrepreneur Must Avoid
You know you’re out to beat the odds, but being reminded of it is the last thing you need. You don’t like the norm; by definition, entrepreneurs strive to step outside of it. They break free of what’s typical and expected. Instead they venture into the unknown to create something that people don’t yet know …
November 26, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
What Do Top Corporate Innovators Get Right?
In our line of work, we get to talk with hundreds of leaders around the globe, and from virtually every industry. Most of them seem to intuitively understand the importance of innovation, but there’s still a lot of fluff, ambiguity and uncertainty regarding innovation as a topic. As a result, most leaders aren’t seeing the results they were […]
November 26, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Why Writing May Be The Most Important Skill Your Kids Need To Learn For The Future
Many say that coding is the new literacy. Kids are encouraged to learn programming in school and take coding courses online. In that famous scene in The Graduate Dustin Hoffman’s character was encouraged by a family friend to go into plastics. If it were shot today, it would have probably been computer code. This isn’t …
November 25, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
How University Collaborations Can Drive Private Sector Innovation
Innovation comes to businesses in many ways, yet one thing is for certain: It relies on a diversity of thought. After all, differing viewpoints have been known to encourage greater innovation. If diversity of thought is lacking, you’re left looking outside the company for varying perspectives — a likely reason why accelerators have grown in popularity. Take […]
November 25, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Innovation Intelligence – 4 Thinking Tools for Innovators
This continues on from an Innovation Excellence blog I wrote last month about how personality types can influence innovation capability. https://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2019/10/03/5-psychological-traits-of-highly-innovative-organizations/ While many of the ideas in that article could also be applied to personal development, the primary focus was on how we behave, develop and recruit innovation capability in a team context. But personality …
November 25, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
What’s in the CEO’s Innovation Playbook?
Recently I received an advance copy of “The CEO’s Innovation Playbook” – the latest white paper from Mastercard and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. For the effort they interviewed a dozen CEO’s highly innovative companies including Citigroup, Lyft and Coca Cola. The paper spends most of its real estate on captured quotes straight from the …
November 24, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
The Intrapreneurs’ Factory
Intrapreneurship is an employee(s) initiative for developing new business within established firms, somehow different from the core business. The value creation is far from an all-or-nothing game; it blossoms in many directions: Intrapreneurship sparks new business lines: consider that Gmail, The Facebook like button, or the Sony Playstation were unraveled by intrapreneurs; Concurrently, intrapreneurship fosters personal development …
November 23, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
ANTHEMS ON THE RISE TAKES OFF
Dominos delivers pizzas (547 million per year). FedEX delivers packages (3 billion per year). And Anthems on the Rise delivers custom songs (one, so far, this year).
One? Just one? Yes. But what a one it is — One Lit Candle (Song for Greta) — n…
November 23, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
The Value of Value Chain Analysis
Disrupting competitors or an industry essentially means doing something to take market share away from your competitors or get non-users to buy your product or service at at profit. There are many examples of sickcare entrepreneurs doing it and usually the tactic is to introduce new technologies. However, according to one researcher, most disruption comes from …
November 22, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Why You Need to Ask Why
Some years ago, there was a big problem at one of America’s most treasured monuments — the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC. Simply put, birds, in huge numbers, were pooping all over it, which made visiting the place a very unpleasant experienc…
November 22, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Fairness, Trust, and Innovation Culture
As noted in previous articles (You don’t have an Innovation Problem, You Have a Trust Problem! Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), trust is the foundation for a culture of innovation, and a culture of innovation is the foundation for innovation and the financial results from it. In this article, I will address one of …
November 21, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Ridiculous Deal on Co-Founder Braden Kelley’s Latest Book
Every so often something comes through your inbox that seems too good to be true. Today was one of those times when an email dropped into my inbox stating that Palgrave Macmillan, the publisher of my latest book Charting Change is offering it at a ridi…
November 21, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Innovation is a Lifestyle, Not a Bunch of Metrics
Far too many supposed innovation experts believe that measuring activities is critical to success. Maybe. Maybe not so much. At least for the big stuff. Innovation activities simply for the sake of doing something without context and insight from the measure may be in fact very misleading. Persistent growth, profit, ROI and NPV are the obvious measures, …
November 20, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
The Innovation Mandate
Recently I had the opportunity to interview Nicholas Webb, a world-renowned Business Strategist, Bestselling Author and Futurist about his new book The Innovation Mandate: The Growth Secrets of the Best Organizations in the World. As an Inventor, Nicholas invented one of the first wearable technologies, and one of the world’s smallest medical implants. He is …
November 19, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Please vote for me here as one of the best Innovation Writers of 2019
I have just been informed that three of my articles have just been nominated as the Best Innovation Articles of the year by The 2019 Business Innovation Brief MVP Awards And now I need your help (and votes) to help me win one of them. Please click this link to vote for me if you […]
November 19, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Dare to Think Differently
As many of my colleagues are aware, I am at heart, a maverick, an unorthodox or independent-minded person. Who is curious and inquisitive, and finds change and challenging the status quo exciting, fascinating and stimulating. I am also, considered, by …
November 18, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Here’s What Most People Get Wrong About Minimum Viable Products
Ever since Eric Reis published his bestselling book, The Lean Startup, the idea of a minimum viable product (MVP) has captured the imagination of entrepreneurs and product developers everywhere. The idea of testing products faster and cheaper has an intuitive logic that simply can’t be denied. Yet what is often missed is that a minimum …
November 18, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Innovation Follows Culture Follows Structure
Once in a while you run into ideas which are refreshingly thought-provoking, while at the same time seeming to be resonating with your own view. This holds for the key statements in “Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries”, a worthwile new book by theoretical physicist and …
November 17, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Experience Innovation is a Key Strategy for Service Businesses
Right now there’s a bit of a struggle going on in the UK and it’s not about Brexit. There’s great concern in the arts world that a wonderful picture, J.M.W. Turner’s ‘The Dark Rigi; The lake of Lucerne’ (1842) may disappear from the UK (where it is currently in a private collection) and find its …
November 17, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Don’t Hire For Culture Fit
You’ve probably heard the advice: “Don’t hire for skills, hire for culture fit.” The idea is that if someone is a good fit for your company culture, you can train them on the skills they need. But the reverse isn’t always true. No matter how much training you give them, you can’t really change someone’s …
November 15, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
The Right Use of LCS
Of all the techniques, Idea Champions has invented and taught since 1987, there is one that continues to be acknowledged as numero uno — LCS (Likes, Concerns and Suggestions).
LCS is a simple, effective, memorable, easy-to-use technique that has t…
November 15, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
Customer Requests are Signals not Signposts – Focus on the Problem
The best innovations solve real problems. They provide solutions that customers are prepared to pay money for. So it seems to make sense that we should listen carefully to customer requests. But this can be a mistake. In the famous words of Steve Jobs, “It isn’t the customer’s job to know what they want.” The customer …
November 14, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
If You Want to Get Paid to Speak – Here’s How
There’s all sorts of advice on how to be a better speaker, but advice on how to be a professional speaker is pretty dismal. Here are 8 steps for building a sustainable business as a professional speaker. I’ve been on the professional speaking circuit for the past 30 years. During that time I’ve developed an …
November 13, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
The Secrets to Effective, Efficient Ideation
We all want to win the never-ending race for great, effective, profitable new ideas. We want these ideas without a huge effort, without a huge risk and without a huge investment. We also want ideas with impact, that are rapidly actionable and ideally t…
November 12, 2019 | by Chris Kalaboukis
How to Be a Compensated Connector
It seems more and more people are becoming part of the gig economy, either part-time or full time, and 1099 docs are no exception. Building a network has a lot of tangible and intangible benefits. The most obvious intangible one is you get to make more…