Managing innovation
Welcome to another edition of our regular newsletter with updates on ideas, insights and useful resources around the theme of managing innovation. (You’re receiving this because at some stage you’ve indicated interest in my work, via the website, LinkedIn, etc. If you’d like to continue to receive this Newsletter please subscribe via the button)
Contents
Ideas and insights
Pathways to scale - taking an innovation from a small-sized success story to something which delivers value at scale is not an easy one. The Holy Grail of impact has a lot in common with that elusive quest pursued by King Arthur’s knights, taking them along strange paths, meeting with dragons and disasters and lasting a long time. Similar odds of success too.
Choosing your preferred pathway to scale is a key first stage on the journey; fortunately there’s a wealth of experience available from previous attempts and some important lessons on which we can build. In particular we need to see the choices available as lying on a spectrum where we trade off additional external involvement with giving up a degree of control. (Video here/ Podcast here/ Blogpost here)
Grow up fast - not a heartfelt plea by parents of teenagers but the title of a great book by Zach Rattner, founder and CTO of Yembo which captures some powerful learning about innovation and entrepreneurship We talk a lot about learning by doing in the agile innovation process, especially in the context of start-ups. But it’s hard to capture that learning as you go along when so much else is happening as you desperately try to find your way through the fog of uncertainty. Which is why it’s really valuable to have someone who runs a successful start-up which is now scaling well to share their insights. (Video here/ Podcast here)
Start-up success - or not? In this interview with Faisal Abid we explore some of the do’s and don't's of trying to launch and grow a new venture, drawing in particular on his experience in founding and growing a number of businesses including AI start-up zoom.ai and his current work with Eirene Cremations where he is trying to disrupt a long-established and very traditional industry. (Video here/ Podcast here)
Playing with innovation Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it….. Well, I’m not sure about the last one but someone somewhere has probably done some research on the topic. We humans certainly do it, especially when we’re young. This piece isn’t about falling in love but about extending Cole Porter’s observations to a different world, something up there in terms of importance — playing. Play may be fun — but it has a serious purpose. Our ability to imagine and create lies at the heart of our emergence as a successful species, whose main gift is not in size or strength but in our ability to adapt to hostile and uncertain environments. We innovate, find solutions and alternatives if our first options are blocked off. This post explores that world and links to the GAMIFY project (see below), the results of which are now available in an open-access book. (Video here/ podcast here/ blogpost here)
Interviews and perspectives
Scaling successful innovations - a webinar broadcast by the United Nations Innovation Network as part of its work to bring together a community of practice around the challenge of scaling innovation
Embracing Generative AI in Innovation Management Education, a webinar organised by ISPIM and delivered by Katharina De Vita which delves into the responsible integration of generative AI to enhance teaching, learning and assessment within the context of Innovation Management.
Research and recent publications
From supply chain learning to the learning supply chain - a Special Issue of the International Journal of Operations and Production Management which I co-edited, containing many useful articles on interorganisational innovation
Creativity for innovation management, Ina Goller and John Bessant, Routledge Publishers– this new edition of our book exploring the challenges of creativity and how we can develop and deploy these skills
The Future of Learning Playbook - a practical guide to navigating the changing landscape for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, John Bessant , Olga Kokshagina and Kyriaki Papageorgiou. Drawing on the VISION project this playbook explores the challenges faced in enabling the skills and capabilities we’ll need to mobilise creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship (CIE) to deal with our challenging future. It provides a rich set of easy-to-use canvases, specific examples, and invites readers to begin a journey of reflection to design their own futures.
Gamification for Innovators and Entrepreneurs - Using Games to Drive Innovation and Facilitate Learning, Henning Breuer, John Bessant and Sune Gudiksen, De Gruyter Publishers. This open access book reports on the GAMIFY project, an EU-funded Knowledge Alliance combining the experience and insights of combines the knowledge of four HEIs (HHL, HMKW, Complutense University of Madrid, Design School Kolding), the expertise of six industry partners (Deutsche Telekom, Danske Bank, 3M, Kamstrup, Lufthansa Systems, Generali Deutschland AG), the dissemination capacity of ISPIM and the quality assurance competence of ASIIN accreditation agency
Practicing Responsibility in Business Schools - Implications for Teaching, Research, and Innovation, Edited by Bjørn T. Asheim, Thomas Laudal and Reidar J. Mykletun, Edward Elgar - I’ve contributed a chapter to this excellent open access collection of cases and perspectives looking to explore what and how we teach the next generation of organizational leaders
Additions and updates to the resource bank/supermarket
(check out this link to find these and other resources)
Introducing entrepreneurship - my new series of short videos introducing key themes in developing entrepreneurship capabilities
Downloadable open access resources from the GAMIFY project looking at the use of games in innovation management and the VISION project, looking at the changing landscape for learning and skills/capability development around innovation
The Humanitarian Innovation Guide, a rich suite of resources to support innovators working in the humanitarian and development space
Other news
There’s so much being written and posted these days about the challenges of ‘digital transformation’, especially now that the superheater of AI has been switched underneath the discussion. Two voices with consistently helpful and well-researched perspectives on this are Alan Brown with his ‘Digital economy dispatches’ and Marek Kowalkiewicz with his blog
This is a useful McKinsey piece on organizations growing through innovation
Another thought-provoking post by Greg Satell on the need to take a more evidence-based approach to innovation adoption
An excellent interview by Robyn Bolton exploring the challenges of psychological safety and their implications for managing innovation
Ethan Mollick on the future of organizations is worth a read, not least for its fascinating history of organization charts
Petra de Weerd-Nederhof’s professorial lecture offers some fascinating insights around innovation and resilience
Watch/ listen/ learn with me
I’ve written quite a few books and articles over the years but these days I’m also working hard at developing other channels. So if you’d like to watch more of my stuff, please click here for my YouTube channel
And if you’d like to listen, I’m podcasting here and you can find me on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other major sites
I’ve also been developing some online courses so click here to explore those
Feedback
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