local idea hero in organization

Main roles for the person selected as innovation-driver in organization:

1. well-known in organization as innovation-driver and open for any kind of questions

2. running innovation system and improving it

3. be sure that everyone knows about idea process(how to submit idea)

4. taking care for ideas that waits for any decision for long time

5. knows about each submitted idea and keep an eye on innovation metrics, such as no. of submitted ideas, no. of realized ideas and other metrics + creating new inno.metrics if needed

Other roles such as connecting intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs with innovators, can be the part of innovation system and be managed by other persons.

mousehunt

I'm addicted to the facebook application = game Mousehunt. This is one of the best applications on facebook and it's very popular.
The firm who launch it is canadian Hitgrab. It's interesting to see following sentence on their web-site:
"I woke up from a dream-like state and had the image of a mousetrap-type game for facebook", says co-founder of HitGrab Inc, Bryan Freeman.
--> It looks like a classical innovation story!

Limits to software & business methods patents in USA?

I must share a link. It's the text about changes in patentibility of software and business methods in USA.
Link

cnbc - the business of innovation

New series was started yesterday on CNBC, so if you can, try to catch it! Last year this show had 5 episodes with great examples & thoughts about innovation and I really enjoy to watch it.
More information & TV schedule: link

50 most innovative companies in the world

New list with the world's 50 most innovative companies done by businessWeek and BCG, link

Only surprises in top10, are 6th and 7th placed TATA Group & Nintendo. Apple is holding number 1, Amazon.com and IBM are out of top 10. 3M is only 22nd and Siemens only 38th.

Looking through regional perspective doesn't give too many changes

link

google office in zuerich

It's really important to have innovative climate inside the company. This can be ensured with the long management routines, but one of the ways is also to have innovative atmosphere like in this office. After seeing this pictures, everyone wants to work in that office.

link

what's the problem with innovations in big company?

Well of course, it's a big company - people are coming in such companies to be safe and in a mass. They are not keen to make something disrupting.

Of course, some employees would be happy to achieve a success with their innovation, but it's not easy at all - because it's a big company...

Big companies have rules and the hierachy (birocracy), so it's not easy that the right idea would be heard from right people.

Right way is surely building of innovation climate in every department and assuring the continues presence of innovation news to employees.

Next issue is, that's not easy to spot an innovator in large firms - because they would be in a mass where most of people aren't innovative.

Essential thing is that in big companies, not everyone will be closely connected with the customer. Thatswhy this part of manpower will have less opportunity for ideas, or to even know for which kind of ideas are his/her company looking for? Here the solution is to link customer-connected employees with at least innovation manager, who can propagate the customer wishes to innovative power of every company - it's employees.

cultural map of the world

Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World marks the nations by 2 main factors. First is importance of religion (traditional/secular-rational values), and second factor is transition from industrial to post-industrial society (Survival/self -expression values).

Countries are positioned in a way you can see the difference between certain parts of world, but what more interesting - also beetwen certain parts of Europe. Ex-communist Europe is still glued together, with Chech Rep. and Slovenia (maybe also Croatia) looking good.

This Map shows that most innovative countries in the world (also in EIS - European Innovation Scoreboard) are at the top right corner: Japan & Sweden).

link&map

innovative leader

I've yesterday run in to a book 'Innovative Leader' from Paul Sloane. I've read it in a three hour trip on the train from Zagreb to Osijek. This describes how fluently it is written, and how interesting it was. Ok, I knew a bunch of techniques and examples shown in this book, but some things were really new to me. This is really a welcoming book to every new innovation manager or leader.
More about Paul Sloane on his website: http://www.destination-innovation.com