5 Reasons to Invest in External Startup Accelerators – Even if You Have Your Own
Recently I was asked about the benefits of investing in external accelerators (startup accelerators not owned by the business investing in them). Though people understood the value in investing in … Continue reading
Drive Innovation by Leveraging Your Inexperience!
What makes someone truly qualified to work in information technology? In recent months, my news feeds have been teeming with passionate, and at times toxic, debates on the level of experience required for an IT career. These … Continue reading
Why Great Meetings Are Killing Your Productivity
There’s nothing like a bad meeting to ruin your productivity, and sometimes your day. Though, without a deliberate approach to collaboration, even great, productive meetings can be silent – and … Continue reading
To Innovate Successfully, Question Everything
In my experience, the people driving business transformation, creating new products or services, or innovating in any context, who are not deliberate about “questioning everything” throughout the entire lifecycle of … Continue reading
A Collaborative Approach to Escaping the Doom of Fanatical Process Orientation
“Why does fanatical process orientation seem an almost inescapable doom as an org/business grows? Is it possible to stay results-oriented?” This great question is not simply a perception based upon … Continue reading
What Musical Theatre Can Teach Us About Business Strategy
Musical theatre actors are amazing strategists. The similarities between the types of strategic decisions by a single actor in a musical and someone running a large organization are striking. Those … Continue reading
You’re Not Failing if You’re Learning
How “learn-fast” thinking can improve innovation and combat fear of failure “We’re a large organization. We can’t fail fast and break things!” It’s the type of statement I frequently encounter, … Continue reading
Even Angels Need a Guiding Light
Make your innovation program more effective by training its governing team During a recent Lean Entrepreneurship CIO Event in Atlanta I was asked a fantastic question: “Did you have to … Continue reading
Why Innovation Competitions Backfire
Understanding the evolution of breakthrough ideas can be the key to a successful innovation program. Why do innovation competitions — aimed at delivering breakthrough ideas and improving morale and engagement … Continue reading
What Wilderness Navigation Taught me About Lean Transformation
Lean approaches drive benefits far beyond their profit-driven, private-sector roots I hear it often. “This lean and agile stuff is cool, but it’s not really applicable to me.” “We’re not … Continue reading
5 Characteristics of Good Intrapreneurs
by George Watt My last post shared an intrapreneur’s (an entrepreneur who creates a new businesses within an existing company) perspective regarding the top 5 things that motivate them. I also … Continue reading
What Motivates Successful Intrapreneurs
by George Watt At a summit in Boulder, Colorado, I spoke with a group of founders about what motivated them to become an intrapreneur (an entrepreneur who creates a new … Continue reading
Four Signs Too Many Resources are Killing Your Innovation
How to spot the signs and what to do about it. Often when a new idea promises to be the next big thing, organizations will throw as many resources as … Continue reading
Five Innovation Killers and How to Stop Them
Want innovation to flourish at your company? Avoid these common problems. By George Watt Innovation is hard. Many of the hardest parts of the journey come long after an innovative … Continue reading
Innovation programs: the worst thing to happen to innovation
Why many innovation programs kill innovation, and what you can do to change that. In “The Innovative CIO” I wrote about several innovation killers ranging from interpersonal styles to unnecessarily … Continue reading
What opening an airplane exit door in flight taught me about design
Product and feature design thinking must happen early and must center on the human perspective. Recently, as I sat waiting for a flight’s boarding to complete, I noticed an unusually … Continue reading
What being half naked on an airplane taught me about innovation
How to tap the true power of innovation and avoid building new products nobody wants. You never forget being half naked on a fairly full airplane. But what can that … Continue reading
Supplier partnerships are a strategic weapon in the application economy
What being a cloud provider taught me about licensing and supplier relationships. “Please don’t make me count.” Just as we were celebrating that we had solved a tremendous business agility problem with … Continue reading
Security Becomes an Innovation Driver in the Application Economy
“Hi. I’m Al. I work in IT Security. My job is to suck the fun out of life.” That was how the instructor of one of the first security training … Continue reading
Increased Productivity Can be a Symptom of a Dysfunctional Culture
Though the many dire consequences are well known (low morale, lowered productivity, lack of creativity, decreased innovation, lack of motivation…) we still frequently encounter corporate and institutional “cultures of fear”. … Continue reading
Stop Innovation Loss! Prepare Innovation’s First Responders!
In today’s economy, and with today’s new business models, innovation is more than ever the lifeblood of business. Yet every day businesses let that lifeblood flow away. Every day countless … Continue reading
The You, Me and We of Innovation’s Managers
Have you ever seen someone assigned to a project they were passionate about, but they found themselves unable to bring that passion to the work? Have you ever seen someone … Continue reading
The 4 MYs of Cloud Computing and IT Transformation
It is often stated that technology is easy and people are hard. Whether or not you agree with that, the sentiment must be heeded. Otherwise, even the best technical solutions … Continue reading
The Innovative CIO: How IT Leaders Can Drive Business Transformation
I am excited to announce the publication of a book I co-authored with Andi Mann and Peter Matthews. You can obtain this book from popular book sellers. I have included … Continue reading
A Simple and Effective Acid Test for Innovation
Many believe innovation rarely happens by accident. That the eureka moment enshrined in popular culture is mostly myth. Certainly there are times when momentous insights and ideas pop into our heads as bolts out … Continue reading
Innovation and the Art of Inefficiency
“Walk more often; take more showers.” This spring I joined some colleagues in the Global Corporate Challenge. Participants in this 16-week health improvement challenge accept a goal of taking 10,000 steps every day. Think … Continue reading
Is Consumerization Blowing You Off Course?
What do a late morning canoe trip and the current state of consumerization and BYOD have in common? More than you might imagine. This summer as my ten year old … Continue reading
Cloud Computing: Have You Hugged a Rogue Today?
Embrace, Align, Assist, and Leverage Rogues… or Lose Them Forever Recently I participated as a panelist in a “#CloudViews” Twitter chat regarding Rogue IT. (A full transcript is available via … Continue reading
IT: Where Great Ideas Go to Die
“BYOD isn’t coming, it’s here“- @SimonBramfitt via @thelaurenfiles Recently I participated in a great Twitter conversation regarding how IT departments have gained a reputation as a place where good ideas go to die. Initially … Continue reading
Is Email Killing Innovation?
Or is it a harbinger of something worse? For quite some time now I have been asking whether email is still the productivity tool it once promised to be (and … Continue reading
Cloud Computing: The LAN That Time Forgot
Four caveats for those evaluating the costs and benefits of cloud solutions Recent announcements ranging from mergers and acquisitions, to movement of key personnel, to changes in licensing models have … Continue reading
Cloud Computing: When Life Gives You Lemons… “Go Mobile, Go Social”
What IT can learn from a lemonade stand Recently I had a very interesting conversation with an aspiring entrepreneur. She told me about the demands a changing environment had been … Continue reading
To Serve and Prevent: “Only those that can see the invisible can do the impossible”
Our greatest impediment to innovation often comes from within. A recent day of discussions with one of the U.S.A.’s largest corporations brought to mind some of the innovation related challenges … Continue reading
Cloud Computing: Keep your friends close, and the Finance Team closer
I agree, Dick Benton, a partnership with Finance is critical to private cloud success Dick Benton recently published a two-part article on “Calculating Cloud ROI” in which he states that … Continue reading
Cloud Computing: ‘Please check your egos at the door’
A pragmatic approach to cloud computing might eliminate the “Office of the C-I-No” I recently started reading David S. Linthicum’s book “Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise,” and … Continue reading
Innovation, Technology, and Life in the Cloud 