When I was a child (20-25 years ago), I was thinking about the 21st Century, as a time of living like in SF movies. Me and my friends expected flying cars, robots in every house... 
Excerpt from book: Mashup Corporations: The End of Business as Usual: "Understand that you have capabilities outside your IT department, and use them! Shadow IT is not new and exists in every company. It’s been there, lurking just out of sight of your support teams, not necessarily hidden, but implemented by workers who need new tools, procedures, and workarounds that are not yet acknowledged by IT policies. They use their innovations every day to get their jobs and personal tasks done. With every class of graduating students, a more tech-literate labor force emerges. This labor force is creatively innovating both on and off the offi cial clock. They bring with them new methodologies and models for working that line up directly with service orientation.... Failure to embrace and support Shadow IT in the long run means wasted resources, an inability to maximize the value of your company’s collective candlepower, and lost opportunities."
I created a website seven years ago with content about my favorite football club: NK Osijek. Few months ago it was transfered to new domain www.bijelo-plavi.com and new guestbook, forum and gallery was added with re-design of web-site. I hope, that it's an example how small contribution can make a difference. My half an hour or hour per week is generating a content which is viewed from a large number of club's fans.
Web-site with presentation of today and future's supercities.
Yahoo created an offsite incubator called Brickhouse infuse itself with startup energy,(BusinessWeek, Feb. 26). Its job is to shorten the time it takes to bring new ideas to market. "The goal is to take the idea, develop it, and make sure it's seen by senior management quickly. They need to iterate, see customer reactions, and launch fast. The idea for the service, which launched last year, came to founder Kristian Jeffrey out of sheer frustration. Jeffrey explains: "I run several small online businesses, and was searching for cost-effective advertising to attract consumers to my sites. My potential customers were walking around me every day, and it was when I was walking through the dirty streets of London that the idea came to me: why not take advertising literally to the street? Having experimented with several different methods, we wanted to apply a technique that was not just eye-catching and effective but also friendly to the environment. What could be more natural than water?"
I can do it, but catching an hour or two of sleep sometimes can be very useful thing. It's surely refreshing and Margharet Thatcher, Winston Churchill were masters of catnap, as it's also Richard Branson - I took this from his book(Screw it, let's do it).
One example of process innovation is spanish fashion label Zara. They don't spend money on commercials, because they are spreading their 'brand' with verbal communication between customers and with their label on little bags.
Zara has the possibility to quickly respond on market demands, from their factory in La Coruna. They have innovative manufacturing proces, which allows them to be quick in responding to market demand and to send clothes which are selling good to their shops, and they also do some re-designing in that time. Only 15-25% of clothes are produced before the season and 50-60% in the start of the season. All other clothes is produced during the season according to customer wishes.
They are producing 12.000 different model of clothes per year, that's 4-6 more then competitors.
Design which has no good responce is withdrawn, and new design will be in shops in 3 weeks.
If we had ask people 20 years ago, do they need cell phone, we will get an answer in most cases "Why would I need it?". If we had ask teenagers 20-30 years ago, do they need a music television, they wouldnt know the answer. The consumer don't know what they need, so MTV has become an icon for teenagers and the success of cellphone is well known. Companies that are successful innovators and which are able to sustain innovation over time are the ones that create a culture in which innovation can happen at any level at any time. They create a Culture of Innovation.
Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future says managing innovation “…means cultivating an environment where lightning can strike twice.” So how does a company do this?
What these successful companies discover is that they need to embrace the act of attacking their cherished beliefs and traditional ways of doing things in order to take their products, services and customers to the next level. Saffo says, “Failure is the foundation of innovation”.
Posts
All Comments
