BQF Innovation BlogBQF Innovation BlogWe review business innovation issues. We discuss creativity, leaderhsip and innovation as part of a special interest group for the British Quality Foundation. Articles
The Inexorable Rise of Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing
2010-12-28 13:55:00 Imagine that you are planning a big surprise party. You want it to be entertaining, spectacular, memorable and different. You could plan and project manage every element of the party yourself: the theme, venue, music, food, drink, entertainment, games, diversions etc. Or you could involve a number of people to help you with their ideas ... More About: Open , Innovation
Take a Direct Line to your Customer
2010-12-19 13:49:00 In the early 1980s, if you wanted to take out motor insurance in the UK then you went to a high street insurance broker who took down all your details on various forms and sent them off to insurance companies to get quotes. The insurance broker insisted that it took all his skill and experience ... More About: Customer , Direct
Increase your Success ? become an Ideas Carrier
2010-12-07 16:45:00 You can increase your success in business if you can become an ideas carrier, someone who identifies, collects and communicates fresh ideas for other people’s business challenges. If you work in an office you can do this for your colleagues, your boss or the people who report to you. If you are a consultant or ... More About: Ideas , Success
Find a new way to reach your customer
2010-11-20 17:10:00 In the late 19th century people living in rural America had to go into town to their local store to buy the goods they needed. The selection was poor and the items were expensive. A young railway company agent, Richard Sears, decided to try a new approach. Together with a watchmaker, Alvah Roebuck, he set ... More About: Customer , Innovation , Find , Reach
Success can be the Enemy of Innovation
2010-11-16 16:09:00 When thing are going well we can become blinded. Success becomes a prophylactic against disruptive ideas. Why should we change a winning formula? Don’t mess with success! These are the sorts of things people say. And yet the business cemetery is littered with companies that were shooting stars – a brilliant success for a while ... More About: Innovation
Improv Theatre Methods Assist Creativity
2010-11-03 18:41:00 I often use improv theatre techniques in my workshops on creativity and innovation. They are little plays in which people have to spontaneously handle unexpected situations in front of an audience. Usually delegates approach these challenges with some caution but after a little training and practice they find them entertaining and liberating. The methods can ... More About: Theatre , Creativity , Methods
Sources of Insights and Trends
2010-10-25 17:41:00 How can you keep up to date with the latest trends and directions in your industry? There are so many sources of potential information that you can be overwhelmed. You should certainly watch, listen and learn from the following: 1. Your customers 2. Your frontline staff (sales, marketing and customer service in particular) 3. Your ... More About: Trends
Open Innovation Meeting
2010-10-15 11:03:00 We had a lively meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit at which David Simoes-Brown of 100% Open was the main presenter. You can see his slides here. He gave detailed advice on how to start with Open Innovation and discussed case studies including Lego, Virgin, IBM and others. He showed a fascinating current example at ...
Draw on the Expertise of Someone Who Works in a Completely Different Field
2010-10-08 19:14:00 If you are planning a creative thinking session around a particular topic then one way to help displace your thinking and inspire ideas is to bring in an expert from an entirely unrelated business. A company had an issue with its sales force. Morale was low and team spirit was poor. Sales people complained about ... More About: Works
Spend time with people who challenge your thinking
2010-09-24 12:34:00 ‘You are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with,’ says author Richard Koch. While this statement is not to be taken literally or mathematically it plainly contains a disturbingly large grain of truth. For most of us the people we choose to associate with reflect ourselves, our values, our ... More About: People , Time , Challenge
Challenge your Thinking by Defining your Ideal Competitor
2010-09-15 12:31:00 Try this management exercise. Take your group and divide them into teams of four to six people. The brief is simple. Imagine that an immensely wealthy corporation has decided to enter your business market and plans to create a powerful competitor that will use innovative approaches to seize your customers and wipe you out. It ... More About: Challenge
Three Imminent Innovation Events
2010-08-27 11:55:00 There are three upcoming innovation events that you can take advantage of. 1. Gaining Competitive Advantage through Innovation Workshop. To be held in London on Thursday Sept 16th. This is a one day workshop in which you practise and learn creativity and innovation methods. It will help you to develop new products and services. 2. ... More About: Events
Innovation tip ? look for remote as well as local opportunities
2010-08-17 11:16:00 Most businesses look for new opportunities in obvious places, adjacent to their current position. They typically ask two questions: 1. What new markets can we sell our existing products or services into? 2. What new products or services can we sell to our existing customers? These are perfectly valid questions. You should ask them and ... More About: Innovation , Local , Opportunities
Workshop on Open Innovation
2010-08-10 19:41:00 The next meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit will take place on the morning of Tuesday 5th October in central London. It will focus on Open Innovation and it will be interative and instructive. It will be led by David Simoes-Brown of 100% Open, a consultancy that focuses on Open Innovation. Topics include Open Innovation ... More About: Workshop
Assess your Innovation Capability with a Healthcheck
2010-07-27 16:42:00 Just how innovative is your organisation? What is holding you back from being truly agile? The BQF Innovation Healthcheck is a proven method of improving innovation. It examines key indicators, determines strengths and weaknesses and identifies ways of improving innovation throughout the organisation. The healthcheck is undertaken through a web-based survey followed by a one-day ...
Book Review ? The Open Innovation Revolution
2010-07-23 14:06:00 Stefan Lindegaard is recognised as a leading writer and thinker on innovation. In this book he takes on the hot topic of Open Innovation (OI) which he defines as bridging internal and external resources to make innovation happen. The early chapters are excellent. He clearly explains the need for OI and how to approach it. ... More About: Books , Book Review , Review , Book
Why does Roger Federer serve Double Faults?
2009-12-09 10:05:00 Why does Roger Federer serve double faults? Every double fault is a failure – it gives a precious point to his opponent. He could easily cut out all double faults by slowing down his second serve to ensure that it lands safely in the service box. Yet in most long matches Federer, like most other ... More About: Double
Allocate Time for Innovation
2009-12-02 11:43:00 One of the commonest barriers to innovation is lack of time. People are just too busy doing their day job to spend time trying new things. The common assumption is that working hard and working long hours are good things and sufficient for success. The mantra is ? ?Focus on delivering this quarter?s results.? It is ... More About: Time , Innovation
Innovation across Central Government
2009-11-21 13:40:00 There is an informative investigation by the UK National Audit Office entitled, Achieving Innovation in Central Government Organisations. It draws on evidence from specific innovation cases in the public sector to assess government productivity and effectiveness at innovation. Among the findings are ‘Compared with leading commercial organisations, there is potential for departments to develop more innovation ...
Let Suggestions bypass the Line Manager
2009-11-19 10:22:00 Whatever suggestion scheme or idea initiation events you implement, it is important to ensure that there is a facility for individuals to bypass their line manager if necessary. Line managers can be resistant to ideas from their own people for a variety of reasons. They might fear that the person making the suggestion might be taken ... More About: Manager
Suggestion Schemes are the engine for your Innovation
2009-11-15 20:35:00 Does your organisation have an effective employee suggestions scheme? An increasing number of organisations in the both private and public sectors are finding that they can drive innovation and reduce cost by moving their suggestion box from the office wall to the intranet. Siemens Automation and Drives is a good example. They employ 400 people in ... More About: Innovation , Engine , Suggestion
Splitting Extroverts and Introverts in Brainstorms
2009-11-03 20:01:00 I was asked at a recent workshop on creativity whether I had ever tried separating extroverts from introverts in a brainstorm. I had to admit that I had never done this and the idea at first seemed strange. After all, diversity is one of the key elements for success in brainstorming – so why split ...
Focus on What went Right
2009-11-02 11:19:00 In trying to improve quality and looking for improvements we tend to focus our attention on what went wrong. We try to fix problems. A typical management meeting consists of a group of people who are looking at what is not working and trying their hardest to come up with ways to put ... More About: Focus
100 Ways to get Ideas
2009-10-26 09:13:00 Ideas are the seedcorn of innovation. We need a large supply of them. Are you sometimes stuck for ideas? Here is an interesting blog by Steve Aitchison in which he gives 100 ways to generate ideas for articles for a blog. The principles work for almost any other requirement to generate ... More About: Ideas
Innovators trust their intuition
2009-10-20 15:04:00 BA students are taught to treat business in a rational, scientific way. They analyse situations, develop financial models, critically examine management decisions and logically examine different scenarios. When they emerge from the hallowed halls of academia they are often surprised to find that businesses run much less on logic and much more on ... More About: Innovation , Trust
Diehards die hard
2009-10-08 20:04:00 Some people are so set in their ways that they resist innovative ideas even when their benefits are demonstrable. At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City Dick Fosbury amazed the audience when he did something revolutionary - he went over backwards. The traditional way of jumping was to use the straddle. Fosbury won the gold medal but ... More About: Hard , Die Hard
How Innovation thrives in a Crisis
2009-09-17 14:05:00 In this article on the Harvard Business Site Scott Anthony explores how and why innovation is thriving in the recession. He asks, ‘How could companies prioritize developing innovation programs in the face of very real questions of fundamental survival?’ In a strange way, the scarcity forced on many companies has been a hidden accelerator of efforts to ... More About: Innovation , Crisis
Put Your Best People on Innovation
2009-09-14 13:30:00 Many businesses make the mistake of giving innovation projects to junior executives. It seems natural to hand innovation opportunities to enthusiastic and promising upstarts. But generally it is the experienced heavyweights who can overcome all the process and political obstacles that will occur. In September 1999 Lou Gerstner, CEO of IBM, read a line buried deep ... More About: People , Innovation
?Good Enough? Innovation
2009-09-02 20:00:00 There is an interesting article on Wired by Robert Capps in which he describes innovation that is just good enough. ‘Cheap, fast, simple tools are suddenly everywhere. We get our breaking news from blogs, we make spotty long-distance calls on Skype, we watch video on small computer screens rather than TVs, and more and more of ... More About: Innovation , Good
Daily Reviewer Award
More articles from this author:2009-09-01 13:10:00 We recevied an award as one of the top blogs on innovation. BQF Innovation Top innovation blogs More About: Daily , Award 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
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