Category Archives: Innovation

Chief Decision Maker

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

This blog has a recurrent theme: I’m interested in corporate policies that organizations may try to foster the culture of innovation. The only requirement for making the cut is that this policy must be specific and actionable (i.e., not just … Continue reading →

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Cloudy Vision, Cloudy Execution

Posted on April 14, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

  As every high-quality report on innovation, Accenture’s 2015 U.S. Innovation Survey is a mixed bag of news. On the one hand, responses provided by “500 managers and executives with roles in innovation at large U.S. companies” paint a bright … Continue reading →

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I Love You, I Love You Not… (Our short-lived romance with Chief Innovation Officer)

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

Oops! It turns out that we don’t love a Chief Innovation Officer anymore. Just a short time ago, Chief Innovation Officers (CINO as per popular abbreviation) were heralded as a new frontier in innovation management. Considered a missing link between … Continue reading →

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Don’t Fire Me: I’m Innovating

Posted on March 6, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

It is election season here in the United States, and the stump speech–a standard, boring and short on substance pitch delivered by the acting and aspiring (and often uninspiring) politicians–is back in vogue. Recently, I recognized what the stump speech … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Rewards and Recognition | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

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 →

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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 →

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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 →

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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

3 Ways to Improve the Efficiency of the “Idea Generation” Process

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Eugene Ivanov

In my previous post, I compared the efficiency of two approaches to corporate innovation: “bottom-up” and “top-down.” The former approach relies on ideas that are first generated by a company’s employees and then channeled up to the company’s senior management. … Continue reading →

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What Do Numbers Say About Different Models of Innovation?

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Eugene Ivanov

I’m not a fan of the “idea generation” model of innovation. This approach, which I call “bottom-up,” puts the focus of innovation on ideas that are generated by employees on the ground and then channeled upwards to senior management. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Crowdsourcing, Innovation, Innovation Service Providers | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments