Business Innovation on CNBC

CNBC has a new show called The Business of Innovation airing on Sundays at 9 PM PST/12 EST. I haven't seen the show yet but it looks like they have a good lineup of guests including the CEO of the NASDAQ, founder of Staples, CEO of eBay, and many others. The first two episodes are available for download as a podcast. Episode 2, Evolution to Revolution, featured Larry Huston, former VP of Innovation at P&G, discussing how companies need to realize that great ideas exist outside the walls of the firm.

Even the Economist wants to innovate

It seems that The Economist magazine is on the hunt for innovative ideas. They have set up a website called Project Red Stripe. I'm not quite sure what to make of the site yet. At the very least it seems fairly like a fairly interesting read. A few people have made some sarcastic submissions and there may even have been some good ones. So far they have received at least 140 submissions. I'm not so sure that I'll be sending them my valuable ideas (assuming I had any) but then again they are offering a six month subscription to the magazine as compensation.

The Future of Work

I'm currently taking an organizational design class with Professor Tom Malone. The class focuses on what future organizations will look like. His book, "The Future of Work," makes the assertation that the reduction of communication costs has been the driving factor in the development of new organizations such as Wikipedia and InnoCentive. This is a speech he gave in 2005.

http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail731.html

Clayton Christensen Speech

Take a listen to Clayton Christensen's keynote speech at the at the 2004 Open Business Conference. It runs 1:48:43 but you can download the file and listen to it on your iPod later.

http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail135.html

Customer Driven Innovation at Intuit

When I think of innovation Intuit always comes to mind. Visiting the company headquarters this past January only reinforced things as I got to see some of their customer interview rooms and also hear from their Chairman and former CEO Bill Campbell. Their innovation is primarily focused on solving customer pain points. To do this they obsessively listen to customers and watch them use the product. If you are interested in trying out some of their new products and features check out their innovation website.

http://innovation.intuit.com/

Harrah's Entertainment & Innovation

ZDNet has a great series of CIO videos. Recently they interviewd Tim Stanley, CIO of Harrah's Entertainment, on his new role as Chief Innovation Officer. As I've mentioned before, Harrah's is on the cutting edge of innovation in the gaming industry. They view innovation as a requirement for improving customer service. They are constantly looking to other industries to find new ideas and technology to improve the experience of the customers. Listen to the interview with Tim to hear more about the technologies they are looking at including mobile, RFID, etc.

http://video.zdnet.com/CIOSessions/?p=113

Building an Environment for Innovation

This semester I am working as a research assistant on a project with the Center for Information Systems at MIT. The project is headed by CISR research scientist George Westerman. We will be writing a series of short vignettes on innovation as well as some full length case studies. Check out the CISR website for more information.

http://mitsloan.mit.edu/cisr/r-main.php#innovation

In this project we will explore how IT leaders exert the necessary pressure to develop an organizational capability to innovate. Specifically, we will study how leaders in innovative firms reshape IT management processes and organizational culture to enable innovation. We will address the following questions:

How can IT leaders successfully suggest and implement innovative uses of IT?

How do innovation processes differ across firms with different strategies and/or structures?

How do IT management processes need to change to improve IT innovation?

What are the elements of an innovative organizational culture?

Cool Mobile Apps

Nokia is working on some new applications for mobile phones. Check out their site, http://www.widsets.com/. The application lets you add mobile widgets to your phone to track blogs, news feeds, online communities, etc. Currently it works with Flickr, Digg, Engadget, Meetup, Simply Hired, and many others.

While I was out in Vegas in January for CES I got to meet the co-founder of Soonr. The application lets you access any files and programs on your home computer through your phone. It also lets you designate shared files that others can access. The power of the application is that it can easily access programs like Skype or your Outlook over almost any phone. It could also be a great tool for sales people who need access to materials or want to share designated files with prospects. The company is backed by Intel Capital and the application is currently free. http://www.soonr.com/

Nokia at Sloan

Today Taneli Ruda a Director of Strategic Projects for Nokia spoke at Sloan. Taneli focused on Nokia's view of internet enabled phones. He brought with him the N95, N800, N76, and N8801. Nokia believes that an increasing value of the cell phone will come from social networking applications, location based services, and mp3 functionality. As consumers get increased value from their cell phones Nokia hopes to see a higher average selling price. They believe that the iPhone will be good for their business as it will increase user adoption of higher priced mobile devices. Although I agree with this I wonder if Apple's good customer service and innovative designs will give them a big advantage over Nokia. If I'm going to buy a $500 - $800 phone you better believe that I want to know that I can get good support and repair. Check out some pics of the N95 (retail price $800) on Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/26/nokias-n95-smartphone-goes-legit/