News

Fri, Apr 15th 2016
customer insights for innovation form in the brain.

Qualitative, quantitative, big data... With so many customer data sources to draw on for your innovation programme, things can start to feel overwhelming.

You want to review the data and make use of it, but your don’t want to get ‘analysis paralysis’ or slow your innovation process down unnecesarily. Above all you crave ‘insight’ – not data.

With this in mind we’ve put together 5 tips to speed you on your way.

Fri, Nov 12th 2010

This year’s winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics made their breakthrough discovery of super thin flakes of carbon while ‘mucking about’ in their lab. This continues a long list of discoveries, insights and inventions from over the years that have been attributed to ‘organisational slack’, or employees having the time and space to pursue their own areas of interest creatively. Have you got enough ‘slack’ in your organisation to innovate? Or is it something else that’s stopping you from innovating?

Fri, Nov 12th 2010

Feeling gloomy about innovating in the current climate?

It wouldn’t be surprising. Many managers are short on time due to headcount controls or in the aftermath of redundancies. Some have had their innovation budgets slashed in the belief that the current portfolio has to remain the main priority.

It’s easy to think that innovation and recessions don’t mix... but think again, could recession be an innovation oppportunity?

Fri, Nov 12th 2010

Have you ever wondered whether the ‘management science’ approach to business; data driven, with deductive analysis and rational argument, is the only way? Perhaps you’ve wondered about creativity and what you need to do to ensure that it exerts a greater influence on your whole business? If so, Creative Strategy might be the book for you.

Mon, Sep 13th 2010

Intrapreneurship is one of the ‘buzzwords’ of 2010. We’re finding growing numbers of business leaders are keen to explore how to bring the spirit of entrepreneurship alive in big companies.

So, what can you do to encourage intrapreneurship and help it succeed in your organisation?

Mon, Sep 13th 2010

Most of us at some stage have been encouraged to ‘reframe’ failure as learning or feedback. But to what extent do individuals, teams and organisations actually do this?

Now, new research from the University of Colorado Denver Business School confirms that we can grow our ability to innovate through learning from our failures.

Mon, Sep 13th 2010

Who of us would not include Steve Jobs in our top three innovators? Indeed, wouldn’t many put him at number one?

After all, Jobs is the CEO of Apple, the company that has customers queuing up overnight to be the first to get their hands on the latest product launch, be it the I-phone or the I-pad.

So what are the ingredients in Jobs’s particular brand of innovation pixie dust? A new book The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo promises to reveal all.

Mon, Jul 5th 2010

When a company is performing well, one of the key challenges for its leader is to get everyone sufficiently motivated to look to the future and to innovate.

Despite the best intentions and encouragement, everyone’s focus often remains on current operations. Any efforts to innovate may be limited to process improvement and to taking cost out without adversely affecting the value proposition.

However, scenario planning is a tool that can play a key role in getting teams motivated for innovation.

Mon, Jul 5th 2010

Product design and service design are often seen as separate disciplines with different ‘rules’ and distinct processes. Now, a new piece of research has been undertaken at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) into the potential impact of the sense of touch. The findings of this study are relevant to both product designers and service designers.

Mon, Jul 5th 2010

Made in Brunel is the brand by which the school of Design and Engineering at Brunel University in the UK showcases its graduate talent. In June 2010 Made In Brunel presented an exciting exhibition at the Business Design centre London. There is also a high quality, stimulating and inspiring companion hardcopy book called 250 Innovative Ideas.

Tue, May 11th 2010

Actress Katy Perry’s dress lit up the Costume Institute Gala Benefit in New York the other night. Her stylish gown showed off her great figure - but there was more. When the lights went down the gown 'lit up' !

Was Katy’s dress just a gimmick – or is this the look of clothes to come?

Our bet is on the latter – and that’s because Katy’s dress is ‘bang on trend.’  We don’t just mean fashion trend though. Katy’s dress is consistent with TRIZ Evolutionary Trends – part of a toolset that can help innovators with successful product and service innovation.