In June, I had the pleasure to attend the EIASM International Product Development Management Conference in the UK. During the keynote, it occurred to me that we as innovation experts have a very particular view on innovation and I wondered if we are right. Are we perhaps blinded by our own expertise? The keynote by […]
Recently I had the pleasure to speak with Dennis Kennedy, the former Vice President and Senior Counsel at MasterCard, where he focused on information technology law. He is a well-known lawyer, author, blogger, speaker and podcaster who is considered among the most influential authority on the application of technology in the practice of law. He is widely-praised for […]
Especially on a gray rainy day, inspiration is always very welcome. Going to a conference or meetup, to me, is like coming out of a hole. It brightens my day and turns the future into an opportunity. While I don’t always like the networking part- that seems to be a must nowadays – I like […]
Knowledge workers –lawyers, clinicians, teachers, researchers, consultants etc.- have always operated under the paradigm of knowledge scarcity. Many years of education channeled information to them, enabling each to become an expert in their respective field. Once educated, professionals share their knowledge and expertise, but at a price. What happens to their professions when information is no longer scarce, but abundantly available?
Looking for innovation management advice? Interested in setting up innovation infrastructure, or looking for ways to improve your innovation performance? Searching the internet will give you 14.7 million hits when Googling for “innovation management advice”. What to look for? There are three issues to consider when establishing or improving your innovation process and output.
Products are not successful, it is the people behind the scenes that make these products successful. Hence the efforts of innovators is a better indicator of where the product is going than the product itself. Thirty years of research has not made us better in predicting innovation success. To be more innovative, we need more people engaged in innovation, and be more stringent in the efforts they put in to validate their ideas.
25% Of ideas your employees voice are never listen too. While on the contrary, you will likely be willing to listen to any expensive outside experts, who will kindly tell you what your employees already knew. By the way, the more you pay, the more likely you will listen. The Washington Blog post: “The troubling flaws in how we select experts”, gives interesting insights in why we don’t listen to our own people, but are willing to follow the advice of (less qualified) experts. Unfortunately, this article does not provide a solution to the problem. In this blog we explain where to start to address this issue.
It may takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, but fortunately, acquiring creative thinking and working skills takes less time. Unfortunately, these skill are rarely taught, and reading a book about creativity is unlikely going to make anyone more creative. The only way to learn creative thinking and working skills are by doing. Living and breathing these skills every day, is what makes an organization like IDEO so creative.
It takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, but do these 10,000 hours of learning also help you to be more innovative? Amabile found that creativity is linked to domain skills, creative thinking and working skills, and intrinsic motivation. Everything else equal, experts should thus be more creative, and creativity is the source of innovation, right?