If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Speed. Age. Glocal. Uncertainty. Innovation. I hear business leaders actively talking about these trends as separate entities. But it is clear to me that they are interrelated and must be taken as a whole to sustain profitable growth in this new age.
Whether figuring out how to fix a problem around the office and then realizing you could fix the same problem for many, or taking a product that is working and making it just the slightest bit better, it is the entrepreneur with an idea and the willingness to take a chance that helps bring ideas to life.
What's clear from the last year in business is that companies that achieve high, or even healthy growth, have the ability to focus, perceive all the options, choose one or several realities with great market appeal, innovate around them and continue to do so persistently.
There is just one innovation that has withstood the test of time, fought off wars and conflict, stood tall in the face of adversity and adapted itself to the different means by which it is conveyed. This is the power of story itself.
It was not an accident that Newton formulated his theory of gravity while relaxing under an apple tree. And, speaking of Apples, it was not a coincidence that Steve Jobs' casual interest in calligraphy stimulated his world-changing technological innovations with a typographic design focus.
Groupon has lost its pizzazz, its currency and feels absent from the webisphere, except when it spams with unsurprising deals. Groupon needs to get back in touch with what made it a phenomenon in the first place.
The pace of the technological innovation has been accelerating. The Web -- current humanity's store of information -- is growing at an exponential rate. The winner of this exciting change and uncertainty is the individual.
A CRTC hearing took place last week, where a draft code of conduct to protect cell phone users was broken down, debated, and negotiated. Up for discussion were contract length, automatic renewals, notifications of overages, caps on fees, device unlocking, and much much more. Now if you think a week of telecom hearings would be dull, you'd be dead wrong. There's a lot at stake as Canada falls behind the rest of the industrialized world in many things digital. After years of being lobbied by big telecom and all but shutting citizens out, policymakers are just starting to take note of the problems Canadians are facing.
I am going to show you how one GE exec (at GE HealthCare Hungary) figured out how to instill a sense of creative freedom among the employees that led to a real burst in innovation.
Taken together -- innovation and the approach of looking at the cost competitiveness through the eyes of a private equity company -- thought leaders at our recent conference gave CEOs an important new perspective to achieve sustainable profit growth.
Increasingly, thinkers become ever more specialized in every field and so we need people who can traverse different fields, or at least translate between them, to find the non-obvious combinations that are ideas and innovation. Collaboration will drive big new solutions.
For the past two days I've called attention to the shocking demands by business groups to legalize spyware by permitting the secret installation of computer programs to monitor activities of Canadians suspected a potential contravention of the law. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce's key concern is the very foundation of the law: opt-in consent.
It's a great disservice to everyone that the stories that we hear about the most accomplished entrepreneurs sound so effortless. The truth is just the opposite. Even visionary, creative success stories must be willing to be imperfect and make mistakes.
Many readers will recall that nearly one year ago, the U.S. government launched a global takedown of Megaupload.com. Last week, an Ontario court rejected a request to send mirror-imaged copies of 32 computer servers to authorities in the U.S., indicating that a more refined order is needed.
The new meme is that the robots are coming, and while they are not the Arnold Schwarzenegger "life terminator," they are the jobs terminator.
Does the lack of a breakout product signal the beginning of the end for CES or the digital revolution, overall? Nah, we're likely just taking a bit of a pause before the next wave of product innovation. That said, on behalf of consumers, I say let's enjoy it.
