July, 2014

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Honing Your Research Skills Through Ad-hoc Contextual Inquiry

Boxes and Arrows

'It’s common in our field to hear that we don’t get enough time to regularly practice all the types of research available to us, and that’s often true, given tight project deadlines and limited resources. But one form of user research–contextual inquiry–can be practiced regularly just by watching people use the things around them and asking a few questions.

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Leveraging New Ventures for Innovation

Integrative Innovation

As pointed out in a recent post , teaming up with startups provides an opportunity for established firms to drive innovation without risking major interference with their core businesses. Particularly, with regard to radical or disruptive innovation, investing in startup incubators, accelerators or corporate venturing increases the chance to get access to promising novel technologies and business models.

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There Are No 'Kodak Moments'

Bill Fischer

Hang around with executives in industries as diverse as: automobiles, book publishing, telecom networks, wrist-watches, personal computers, digital cameras, postal services, cigarettes, credit cards, smartphones, steam-irons, oil & gas and even laundromats (among many others) and you'll undoubtedly hear reference to their determination to avoid what has come to be [.

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Driving Corporate Innovation: Design Thinking vs. Customer Development

Steve Blank

Startups are not smaller versions of large companies, but interestingly we see that companies are not larger versions of startups. I’ve been spending some time with large companies that are interested in using Lean methods. One of the conundrums is why does innovation take so long to happen in corporations? Previously Hank Chesbrough and I have written about some of the strategic issues that impede innovation inside large corporations here and here.

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Peak Performance: Continuous Testing & Evaluation of LLM-Based Applications

Speaker: Aarushi Kansal, AI Leader & Author and Tony Karrer, Founder & CTO at Aggregage

Software leaders who are building applications based on Large Language Models (LLMs) often find it a challenge to achieve reliability. It’s no surprise given the non-deterministic nature of LLMs. To effectively create reliable LLM-based (often with RAG) applications, extensive testing and evaluation processes are crucial. This often ends up involving meticulous adjustments to prompts.

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Arrogance, Risk, and Resources (Or, How to Avoid Unpleasant Surprises)

InnovationLabs

There was recently a small article in The Economist highlighting the growth of Airbnb, the residential room-sharing service, that like Lyft and Uber, is disrupting a traditional industry. The short piece explores how Airbnb is growing, and discusses how much of a threat this may become to hotel chains. The signals to date are mixed, […].

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Stop Dropping the Ball

CorporateIntel

I get called frequently to help companies with their brands. Usually this involves helping identify the competitive advantages in products and services, articulating the unique selling proposition around innovations that constitute a customer promise, and then devising a sustainable communications strategy around that promise. That’s the hard part.

System 42

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How Roche Pursues Patient-Centric Innovation

Innovation Leader

Sheila Babnis offers an inside look at how the Swiss pharma giant’s innovation function was created and how it operates today, including tight partnerships with business units.

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There Are No 'Kodak Moments'

Bill Fischer

Hang around with executives in industries as diverse as: automobiles, book publishing, telecom networks, wrist-watches, personal computers, digital cameras, postal services, cigarettes, credit cards, smartphones, steam-irons, oil & gas and even laundromats (among many others) and you'll undoubtedly hear reference to their determination to avoid what has come to be [.

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Cognician’s Path to Innovation Came from Personal Interaction

BPI Thought Leadership Commentary

Today’s E-learning systems do not take full advantage of the Web’s interactive nature. “If you're looking at video lectures, it's a one-way medium where you listen to the lecture fairly passively and absorb some of the information,” says Barry Kayton, CEO of Cognician Inc., a web-based e-learning platform.

Video 40
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Fantastic: Parallel or Sequential VC and Crowdfunding for Start-ups and Older Start-ups!DISRUPT | INNOVATE | LEAD

Linda Bernardi

The article, Crowdfunding Isn’t Just for the Little Guys, by Katherine Rosman in the Wall Street Journal recently really sparked great thoughts in my mind. So, in this shorter than usual blog I wanted to share some thoughts with you. Initially, crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo were primarily designed for super-early-stage startups.

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From Data to Decisions: Maximizing Retail Potential with AI

Speaker: David Azoulay, Marc Stracuzza, Román Tejada, and guest speaker Sucharita Kodali

Imagine a retail landscape where every interaction is personalized, every decision informed, and every opportunity maximized 🤔✨ Join us for an exploratory journey into the heart of AI-driven retail innovation. We’ll unveil the transformative potential of AI and data analytics in shaping the future of omnichannel personalization and e-commerce.

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Persona Grata

Boxes and Arrows

'In my experience as an interaction designer, I have come across many strategies and approaches to help increase the quality and consistency of my work, but none is more misunderstood or misused than that of the persona. Personas have been in use since the mid-1990s and since then have gained widespread awareness within the design community. As for adoption, many say they use personas, but few designers I’ve met actually use them as a part of their core creative process.

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Why Lockheed Martin Bet Big on Large-Scale 3D Printing

Innovation Leader

Execs at Lockheed Martin are demonstrating that 3D printing isn’t just for prototypes — they’re already producing parts for real-world projects like NASA’s Juno spacecraft…

Project 40
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Why Audi of America is Hiring Robotic Repair Advisors

Innovation Leader

Audi of America is rolling out telepresence robots at 18 of its highest-volume U.S. dealerships, in an effort to accelerate repairs and improve customer satisfaction.

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GE’s Chief Marketing Officer on Opening up to Innovation

Innovation Leader

Beth Comstock talks about how GE pursues speed and growth through partnerships: investing in startups, crowdsourcing, & inviting inventors to use patents…

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How Mature Companies Are Scaling Transformational New Businesses

Scaling transformational innovations in large companies is challenging due to ‘Company Fit’ issues, which arise when the resources, processes, and priorities (RPPs) of the core business are not aligned with the needs of the new business. Many companies have learned how ambidexterity—the ability to both ‘exploit the present and explore the future,’ can help them address these issues for ideation and incubation of new innovations, but scaling transformative business innovations remains a challenge

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Advice: Should Innovation Teams Strive to Impact Revenue/Costs?

Innovation Leader

A new innovation leader in the utility industry asks: "Should our team aim to quantify the impact we have on revenues, or reducing costs, at our company?

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Why Lowe’s Innovation Lab Hired Sci-Fi Writers to Guide Strategy

Innovation Leader

Kyle Nel of Lowe’s Innovation Labs explains why the home improvement retailer created a comic book to help executives evaluate possible future scenarios.

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Innovation Matures from Skunkworks to True Partner

Innovation Leader

Aaron Proietti explains how his group’s mission has evolved, shifting from an isolated “skunkworks”s to more of a consultancy to the business units…

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Have the Tech Giants Stopped (Seriously Slowed Down) Meaningful Innovation? And Why?DISRUPT | INNOVATE | LEAD

Linda Bernardi

For the last 16 months in my blog posts, we have been touching upon the many reasons that disruption and innovation is so complicated in large enterprises, which also include the tech giants. Michael Malone’s June 2nd article in WSJ titled: An Innovation Slowdown at the Tech Giants, prompted me to share the following thoughts […].

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How Automation is Driving Efficiency Through the Last Mile of Reporting

Speaker: Jamie Eagan

As organizations strive for agility and efficiency, it's imperative for finance leaders to embrace innovative technologies and redefine traditional processes. Join us as we explore the pivotal role of digitalization and automation in reshaping what is commonly referred to as the “last mile of reporting”. We’ll deep-dive into why digitalization is no longer a choice, but a necessity for finance departments to stay competitive in a fast-paced environment touching on: 2024 trends for the Office of

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How Beech-Nut Innovated Within a ‘Category in Decline’

Innovation Leader

In 2012, Beech-Nut acknowledged that it had a problem.