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social networking from any phone

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Finnish Sibesonke —a spinoff from Nokia Siemens Networks is using SMS and the USSD text-based browsing protocol, both of which are part of the GSM technical standard to enable social networking or polls participation to users on any phone. Sibesonke has the first project in South Africa, where users only hs to dial *120*686# to establish a data call that gives them a text screen on their phone. From there, they can access job ads, buy-and-sell services, health information, social connections… Continue reading social networking from any phone

innovation, innovatorsLeave a comment

inno+swiss

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Nice concept for Swiss innovation platform inno+swiss. Here’s what they say about the site: “Inno-Swiss is the first social media platform fully dedicated to promote Swiss innovation and entrepreneurs on the international scene. Our objective is to increase the interaction and visibility of Swiss based innovators and entrepreneurs, accelerating their reach to potential stakeholders, from partners to investors.” Continue reading inno+swiss

business, creativity, innovation, innovation event, knowledge, managementLeave a comment

course on creativity and innovation

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I’m just back from first course on Innovations and Creativity. It was a day and half long course on creative thinking and innovation. I got great feedback from participants and I’m sure that in future I will go on with this course. As I expected attendees are the most interested in the creativity examples such as some thinking techniques and pointing out the examples, like coincidental inventions. But, also the chapter “Open Innovations” was very interesting for them as they didn’t know nothing about it. Open Innovation Web-Sites like Innocentive was the complete novelty. New website created (Croatian) which supports … Continue reading course on creativity and innovation

business, creativity, innovation, managementLeave a comment

innovation culture barriers

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Have you heard your friend, father or uncle how he make fun of his boses or to management in his factory because they are doing something „stupid“, and when you ask him „why won’t you propose a solution?“, the answer is: „they wouldn’t listen to me, they dont care for my thoughts“ or „let them do whatever they want!“. This barrier between employee and the firm, or call it ‘learned helplessness’ is the spirit when the employee don’t need to think and it’s the example which kind of culture should be completely changed. This kind of examples can be heard … Continue reading innovation culture barriers

ideaLeave a comment

what an idea – toytraveling

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There are sometimes silly ideas on the horizont and you can say: what’s next? But this is an example of a sweet&funny idea –> send your toy(teddy) to Prague and get it’s pictures from there. That’s not all, you can get photo album, e-mails, facebook/twitter profile and you’ll be updated with all of it’s movement. Other services include aromatherapy, massage and certificate 🙂 it’s brilliant! So, here is the link: http://www.toytraveling.com It seems that the service will be soon expanded to other cities. Continue reading what an idea – toytraveling

campaign, idea campaigns, innovation, innovation event, open innovationLeave a comment

ireland starts new open innovation contest

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Last year Ireland had interesting open innovation program which shown good results (ideascampaign). This year contest looks nicer 😉 and it has prizes, also they took Brightidea software to support it. I think that they learned from last year and this knowledge is keeping them on right track. Certanly, the right track is open innovation. You can find it on:  http://www.yourcountryyourcall.com These concept could be the example for other countries, specially to countries which have large diaspora(like my country – Croatia). Continue reading ireland starts new open innovation contest

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book reviews

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exploiting chaos by jeremy gutsche Interesting and easy-to-read book which gives you examples of innovation success stories and the guideline for creativity. Useful for everyone not just for the persons involved in work with ideas. Culture of revolution ad trend hunting is the topics that you won’t see in other books 😉 It looks trendy & “sexy” and it’s the book that everyone that have it on the bookshelf, will go back over and over. idea book by fredrik hären Book about creativity with blank pages for reader’s notes and ideas. It’s a sort of creativity handbook for anyone interested … Continue reading book reviews

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culture of collaboration – thoughts on int.article

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Again, very interesting article in Business Week: How 3M Forged a Culture of Collaboration Some excerpts from: “What can executives learn from 3M’s approach to collaboration?“ “Support networks. Build Web-based social networks that help employees with a problem find those with an answer. Support grassroots networking initiatives such as 3M’s TechForum—an employee-run group that organizes speaker events to stimulate thinking and also serves as a kind of mixer, where scientists from different labs or divisions can connect in person. Encourage curiosity. 3M allows employees to spend 15% of their time on projects of their choosing, giving them permission to develop … Continue reading culture of collaboration – thoughts on int.article

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faster innovation

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I’ve just read Wall Street Journal article: “The New, Faster Face of Innovation” and there are two very interesting quotes: “Five years ago, for instance, a leadership team might have reviewed two or three “big” innovation proposals from consulting gurus; executive teams today might compare the outcomes of 50 or 60 real-world experiments to decide which ones to act upon.” – the innovation process becomes faster. “And there’s a subtle shift in how people view innovation. People don’t talk about running experiments months into the future—they’re into immediacy, because they see that they can test ideas right away, and the … Continue reading faster innovation

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innovation process article

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I’ve just read interesting article on Business Week: about Whirpool’s innovation process that evaluates and screen thousands of ideas. Whirlpool’s three-pronged definition of innovation: “It must meet a consumer need in a fresh way; it must have the breadth to become a platform for related products; and it must lift earnings.“ The final section of the article: “What can executives learn from Whirlpool’s approach to screening ideas? • Define Innovation A brief, concrete definition of innovation will help employees evaluate new concepts at the front end, screening out those that just don’t fit. As a concept progresses, keep returning to … Continue reading innovation process article

creativity, innovation1 Comment

innovation providers

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Here is the list of firms that are providing help in innovation or creativity. They have innovation management trainings or they offer tools for running innovation process. Pumacy (Germany) – http://www.pumacy.de/en.html – knowledge mngmt, proces mngmt & innovation mngmt. Brigthidea (USA) – http://www.brightidea.com/ – innovation & idea mngmt + webstorm tool OVO innovation (USA) – http://www.ovoinnovation.com/ – innovation & idea mngmt CREAX (Belgium) – http://www.creax.com/ – creativity&innovation + great inspiration site: http://www.moreinspiration.com IdeaManagement (Germany) – http://www.ideamanagement.com/ – creativity Fleishman-Hilard Innovation (USA) – http://innovation.fleishmanhillard.com/ – innovation & creativity I-Nova (France) – http://www.i-novasoftware.com/ – idea management Nosco (Denmark) – http://www.nosco.dk/index.html – idea … Continue reading innovation providers

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groupthink

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Cynthia Baron Rabe in her book “Innovation Killer” is speaking about Groupthink as: ” a well documented and often detrimental human tendency to go along with decisions that the majority of a group will accept.” Sometimes is enough to keep your mouth shut during the group conversation and it will mean that your think like others in the group, which can lead to problems later. Groupthink must, for sure, be avoided in brainstorming sessions, as it can destroy it. Shortly, groupthink is the opposite to innovation & innovation culture. Continue reading groupthink

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communities and open innovation

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A week ago, I made T-shirts with logo of my web-site(on picture) and offer it for free to my columnists and forum visitors (my football club web-site). Soon they wanted to go to drink with me, and I took the t-shirts there. We had nice discussion as we had common interest – our football club. When you build that kind of community, ideas are jumping out of every corner, and except to that we had many remarks on how club is organized, and that it has poor results in last years, we have great ideas how to make it better … Continue reading communities and open innovation