Author Archives: Eugene Ivanov

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About Eugene Ivanov

Eugene Ivanov is a business and technical writer interested in innovation and technology. He focuses on factors defining human creativity and socioeconomic conditions affecting corporate innovation.

Get it right: how to help startups succeed

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

Given the increasingly important role startups and other small businesses play in today’s economy, supporting them should be considered a policy that will have a profound positive effect on the global economy. From this perspective, pinpointing factors casing startups fail is … Continue reading →

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Fashion guru Tim Gunn on crowdsourcing

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

Tim Gunn is a prominent fashion consultant, TV personality and author. He’s best known as the Emmy Award-winning co-host of the reality show Project Runway; he’s also the author of four bestselling books. Now, I have to admit that I … Continue reading →

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When it comes to (some) startups, ideas do matter

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

The rate of startup failure remains depressingly high: 55% of startups close before raising $1M in funding, and almost 70% of them die having raised less than $5M. So the question “Why do startups fail?”–or succeed, if you prefer a … Continue reading →

Posted in Startups | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Big Brother Loves You

Posted on January 11, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

By contributing to economic growth and creating jobs, small businesses play an important, perhaps, increasingly important, role in the global economy. Moreover, as the cradle for novel technologies and business models, small companies serve as the engine of the innovation … Continue reading →

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The dawn of the “craft economy”?

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Eugene Ivanov

In a 2012 Harvard Business Review article, Maxwell Wessel made an interesting point. He argued that the corporate scale had ceased providing large companies with the same competitive advantage as it used to in the past. Being bigger doesn’t guarantee … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Innovation, Innovation, Startups | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Investing in culture of innovation

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Eugene Ivanov

Everyone would agree that the rational risk-taking–and acceptance of failure as a likely outcome of any exploratory project–represents one of the most crucial components of the bona fide culture of innovation. What is missing in our endless talks about establishing … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Rewards and Recognition | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

The beauty of crowdsourcing

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Eugene Ivanov

Last week, I spoke with Paul Arnold, a seasoned business writer and BBC alumnus. The topic of our conversation was crowdsourcing: how companies use it and why they’re often disappointed with the results of their crowdsourcing campaigns. The full text … Continue reading →

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Want the correct answer (and perhaps to be a millionaire too)?

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Eugene Ivanov

Over the past few months, I’ve been preaching the virtues of crowdsourcing to young entrepreneurs and startup (co)-founders. Perhaps, I’m not a good preacher, but very often, my message is being met with a visible skepticism. Why would I approach … Continue reading →

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Are We Faking Innovation?

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Eugene Ivanov

Let me begin with a couple of quotes. “Innovation is like teenage sex; everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it!” (Cris Beswick, Founder … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Can we make crowdsourcing available to small companies?

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Eugene Ivanov

Crowdsourcing is a powerful open innovation tool allowing organizations to tap on the collective wisdom of their own employees (internal crowdsourcing) or pools of external talent around the world (external crowdsourcing). Internal crowdsourcing (usually managed through Internal Innovation Networks) can be … Continue reading →

Posted in Crowdsourcing, Innovation, Internal Innovation Networks, Startups | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment