Seeking out knowledge that feeds our innovations

Knowledge and learning 3The more we embrace change and recognize innovation demands more of our time, the more we must seek out knowledge that ‘feeds’ innovation. And the more we ‘push’ for learning, the greater chance we have of thriving in a challenging world.

The expectation ‘bar’ needs to be raised from those practicing innovation, I feel the constant need is for those working within innovation; they have this real need to raise their game significantly. Innovation needs organizing but it also needs a better understanding of its contributing parts.

Learning and Education should always start with us. Continue reading “Seeking out knowledge that feeds our innovations”

Deeper read or quick summary? Depends on the time we have.

researching_innovationI recently wrote a post “Finding knowledge and research to help you learn and adapt.
On reflection, I should have replaced the word “research” with “time”……time to help you learn and adapt.
Finding time is a real struggle and going that extra mile to read thought leadership views, long often drawn out reports or academic papers can be a step too far, I know but I can’t help myself, it is part of my job and certainly for me, many are really worth the read in a positive end result of new learning.
In that post mentioned above, I was recommending Deloitte and their thought leadership as a good place to visit. Now I’m not sure how many of you actually did so I thought in this blog, to pick out a couple of ‘choice pieces’ and make a posting summary of these, as ones that might be useful.
So I’ve chosen two that challenge and break ground.
Continue reading “Deeper read or quick summary? Depends on the time we have.”

Finding knowledge and research to help you learn and adapt

Learning and Knowleodge Sharing“The world has never been as complex, dynamic and uncertain as it is today and the pace of change will only increase.”
We hear this consistently, our continual problem is trying to make sense of it.
So much is coming towards us and to assimilate it and turn it into value, usable value, so we can adapt and respond to it in new ways of opportunity by adding further to the knowledge by turning this into new innovation potential.
Seeking out knowledge, and being proactive, partly helps as being consistently caught by surprise makes your world even more insecure.
To attempt to keep up to date we all need to invest increasing time in acquiring a better understanding, a deeper knowledge of all the interconnected parts. Even if we are “time-starved” we simply must try and keep moving along in this understanding.
As part of my job, advising others on all things swirling around innovation, I invest significant time in researching, learning and applying what I feel is important to others, so as to understand or at least to raise their awareness to change practices, thinking or approaches.
At times it all seems to come literally flooding in, overwhelming the senses, that I just have to wait and let it settle in my mind before I can attempt to process it and translate it into something of value to me, then eventually to my clients or readers.
  Continue reading “Finding knowledge and research to help you learn and adapt”

We need the engagement platform for translating big data learning

Knowledge BuildingBig Data is knocking very loudly on our door, how are you going to let it in and manage it?

How can we liberate that creative energy we have within our organizations, how can we achieve higher engagement?

How can we learn, share and transform the knowledge that is all around us, simply flooding in? How can we translate the data flowing in with the knowledge insights and innovation outcomes expected? How are we going to unleash the creativity that goes with new knowledge?

We need to actively encourage connected minds for value-creating opportunities and knowledge sharing for innovation to flow right across the organization. All the raw data needs connected and engaged minds.

“For this, we need to think about installing a modern engagement platform that has the knowledge and learning as its beating heart”

Continue reading “We need the engagement platform for translating big data learning”

Combining the higher-value impact points for innovation intersection.

ImpactTwo years can feel like a long time, exactly two years ago I wrote a post called “Making the appropriate impact” discussing my nine different impact points for innovation that needed combining.

I wrote at the time we can have a surprisingly strong influence on impact, as we are in a highly connected world. It is through our organizing and influencing abilities we can all partly determine our innovation future.

I suggested we have nine impact points to consider:
Continue reading “Combining the higher-value impact points for innovation intersection.”

Absorptive Capacity, Knowledge Management and Innovation



Source : Haas Leadership InitiativeLet’s start with some defining statements. Innovation is totally dependent on becoming aware of external ideas and the knowledge that is needed and then translated for it to become new innovation.

We can ‘fall over these ideas’ or we can find ideas or concepts through explicit search. Then to translate these and turn them into something new and different we need to have established some sort of diffusion and dissemination processes.

Having this established as a sustaining system provides an essential source to building organizations capabilities and competencies.

The more we work external knowledge the more we potentially enhance and multiply its value from a single idea into the potentials for multiple innovations. Having a systematic framework can be dramatic for generating new knowledge and gathering ideas for new innovation potential.

Throughout this post I’ll link into previous posts that you might like to explore but this is not necessary.

The issue is how we set about adopting and adapting new knowledge.

Continue reading “Absorptive Capacity, Knowledge Management and Innovation”

Innovation is simply in crisis near you.

Over the weekend I was enjoying my cappuccino and suddenly it started to taste bitter, not from the actual coffee but from what I was settling down to read of us being in innovative crisis.

I enjoy a lot of what Steve Denning writes and his series in nine parts on “Why Amazon Can’t Make a Kindle in the USA” (start here http://onforb.es/oK1Cxh ) has really hit home on the seriousness we are facing in Western countries over innovation capabilities.

He mentions the “decades of outsourcing manufacturing have left U.S. industry without the means to invent the next generation of high-tech products that are key to rebuilding its economy”, as noted by Gary Pisano and Willy Shih in a classic article, “Restoring American Competitiveness” (Harvard Business Review, July-August 2009).

The pursuit of profit is killing innovation Continue reading “Innovation is simply in crisis near you.”