Some of the most innovative minds in business such as Steve Jobs, Reid Hoffman, Elon Musk and Larry Page are people who have created new business streams. They all had their own hobbies which helped them cope away from work such as Bill Gates’s passion for reading books. However business innovation does not occur in vacuum but when experts from different fields collaborate on something new. That is why children must adopt the mentality of children for innovation but work as a team. Children do not have inhibitions and explore newer things all the time, but this energy needs to be channeled in the right direction within an organization. There is an idea called “fail fast but fail forward” which implies that failure must be encouraged as long as they are intended to take the organization and society at large ahead.

Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisoncoleman/2017/05/14/for-brilliant-business-ideas-create-like-a-kid-innovate-as-a-team/?c=0&s=CuttingEdge#7664cf884d78

Uploaded Date: 20th May 2017

Just as the later period of the Italian Renaissance descended into mere mannerisms, similarly our age of technology seems to be diminishing into simply incremental or ornamental improvements. A classic example could be that of Juicero which has developed a juicing machine but on further testing it has been confirmed that it barely improves even basic manual processes. For this, it received a huge sum of funding which seems to have been wasted. Engineers like to automate things and their business innovations have improved processes drastically, yet we are approaching the limits of the same as experience by the relative failure of the Apple Watch. People do not want so many features from simple devices just as artificial intelligence is not necessarily easing people’s lives, but often complicating. Instead of criticizing engineering, users must simply suggest ways in which certain incremental switches could be put off so that the really essential automations continue to exist and flourish.

Source:https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/How-Much-Innovation-Should-We-Juice-Out-of-Engineers?

Uploaded Date: 16th May 2017

Charles Darwin may be yesterday’s legendary scientist, but his innovation lessons are still as relevant as they were then. The first such is the value of exploration. Darwin stuck to his beliefs and explored his heart out to prove the theories. Business innovation is a combination of several disciplines condensing together just as Darwin took inspiration from different fields of study then. Darwin proved that no theory however fool-proof its design is perfect. He set out to rectify an age-old fallacy. The same goes for management thinking, they are not water-tight. Darwin’s theory was complex, and it irked the then establishment just as new developments tend to disrupt existing business models or even get attacked by them in different forms.

Source:https://www.inc.com/greg-satell/4-things-innovators-can-still-learn-from-charles-darwin.html

Uplaoded Date: 16th May 2017

The Corporate Innovation Function is pointless without due timely measurements. Thus metrics have been derived for each function of business so that accurate trend analysis may be conducted. Management consulting giant McKinsey has segmented This funnel into three horizons. The 1^st Horizon consists of mature products, Horizon 2 about the ones displaying growth projections and finally Horizon 3 touches those at incubation stage. Operations metrics include the number of challenges organized for innovation. It also includes number and duration of corporate training workshops organized. There exist some training and engagement metrics as well such as number of employees attending such workshops and the subsequent percentage submitting innovative ideas. It also includes Innovation programmes that alumni get involved in. There are also funnel management metrics which can further be subdivided into ideation, validation and launch. Ideation simply segregates the number of ideas submitted on top or boot of funnel. Validation involves methods to book progress. It includes number of interviews conducted, type of experiments run, demos performed and quantity of pre-product sign-ups. Finally for launch important metrics are per day customer acquisition and active users’ growth trends. Repeat users also need to be tracked.

Source:http://innovationexcellence.com/blog/2017/03/03/innovation-metrics-in-outcome-based-culture/

Uploaded Date: 13th May 2017

In the present digital age, business innovation is no longer a matter of creativity alone, but a basic survival tool. This is due to the constant changes against which traditional models are being unable to cope up with. Data is playing a massive role as its analysis is revealing granular bits of information to benchmark performances. While stimulating an agile innovation culture, options need to be assessed against the scope of employees’ current capabilities to absorb. The firm’s culture needs to be likewise aligned accordingly. A diagnosis on this needs to be conducted prior to actual start. The data spoken of needs to be carefully analyzed using business analytics as measurement is essential. The index may be termed as Organization Growth Indicator (OGI) to come up with the proper forecasts. This OGI creates new value and enables agile adaption to change. In addition to such quantitative number crunching, a qualitative assessment must take place side-on.

Source:http://innovationexcellence.com/blog/2017/03/24/building-a-culture-that-thrives-on-innovation-agility/

Uploaded Date: 13th May 2017

A lot of senior executives have this bad habit of failing to live up to commitments, not out of any mal intention but simply due to forgetfulness. To rectify this, a senior executive at Microsoft with his team developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) aided software by which any commitments made would get reminded by Friday. This same feature has now got a facelift as it is being used in Microsoft’s digital assistant Cortana through its “commitments” feature soon to be rolled out. It took longer than envisaged earlier to launch this as several algorithms had to be re-jigged. In the future, such an offering could be used to track enormous amounts of data to eventually provide serious business intelligence for marketers.

Source:http://www.businessinsider.in/how-the-forgetfulness-of-one-of-microsofts-top-scientists-inspired-a-killer-new-feature-for-windows-10/articleshow/57067349.cms

Some predictions have been outlined on how the latest innovations will impact the business world and its culture this year. First of all, companies will disrupt their own products as they know that if they do not, a competitor will. Due to the breakneck speed of change, companies will want to develop revolutionary solutions rather than incremental ones. Some of the smartest companies will realize that innovation can stem from anywhere. The work culture of Silicon Valley based startups will be adopted by large organizations as well. The most successful of the latter however will fuse the best of these two worlds. Executive coaching and mentorship programmes will form an integral part of corporate training rather than conventional management maxims. In order to induce innovation, companies will bring together diverse cross-functional teams. Companies will increasingly leverage the potential of the self-driven internal entrepreneur. Business innovation will no longer be the domain of a few selected, but a constant process involve a specific innovation and will be fostered through collaboration. Such innovation will also combine efforts from internal teams and external consultants.

Source:https://blogs.cisco.com/innovation/ten-predictions-on-how-innovation-will-disrupt-business-and-culture-in-2017