Categories: Innovation

Innovative Entrepreneurship: Can it be Taught?

Posted by: Reena Jana on November 03

A recent survey developed for the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy by researchers at New York University’s Stern School of Business and NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and…

Can Innovative Entrepreneurship be Taught?

Posted by: Reena Jana on October 13

A recent survey developed for the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy by research at New York University’s Stern School of Business and NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and…

George Lucas says art drives innovation

Posted by: Reena Jana on October 07

George Lucas, the film-maker behind such hits as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, shared some uplifting thoughts on artistic passion and technological invention at the World Business Forum…

Coca-Cola’s Freestyle, Dean Kamen, and More

Posted by: Jessie Scanlon on September 30

Yesterday, Coca-Cola gathered key partners and limited press to AMC Parkway Pointe, a movie theater in Atlanta, Georgia. Officially, the event kicked off the theater’s beta test of the beverage…

Rules stifle innovation, says Microsoft Research’s Rick Rashid

Posted by: Helen Walters on September 29

The fallout over the Washington Post’s new rules on social media has been insightful on a topic that’s vexing many today, the place of tools such as Twitter within the…

For Innosight, disruptive innovation begins at home

Posted by: Helen Walters on September 24

Innovation watchers will be familiar with Scott Anthony, President of Innosight, some time BusinessWeek contributor and author of books such as the recent The Silver Lining. A sharp thinker on…

Obama’s Strategy for American Innovation

Posted by: Helen Walters on September 22

“Innovation is more important than ever,” declares President Barack Obama in a white paper released yesterday. A Strategy for American Innovation: Driving Towards Sustainable Growth and Quality Jobs doesn’t exactly…

Hewlett-Packard Taps Fashion for R & D: A long-term innovation strategy?

Posted by: Reena Jana on September 14

This weekend, Hewlett-Packard proved that it is committed to tapping the design world as a rich resource for technical innovation, and not merely aesthetics. On Saturday night in New York,…

Augmented Reality: What Should Businesses Expect From This New Tech?

Posted by: Reena Jana on September 10

The concept of Augmented Reality, or overlaying the real world with text or images seen via a mobile phone’s camera or a Web cam on a PC, has gained a…

Symphony Services: Orchestrating Innovation

Posted by: Michael Arndt on August 12

This is a guest blog by Venessa Wong, who joined BusinessWeek’s Innovation+Design team in June. I’ve recently had several conversations about outcome-based outsourcing for product development with Gordon Brooks, president…

Jonathan Ive on the ethical implications of Apple’s business

Posted by: Helen Walters on August 11

There’s been quite a flurry of excitement in the online media-sphere of late, after entrepreneur, CEO, some time journalist (and BusinessWeek columnist) Jason Calacanis published The Case Against Apple—in Five…

Innovation Lessons from Alessi

Posted by: Reena Jana on August 10

Recently I met with Matteo Alessi, Trade Marketing and International Development Director at Alessi, the maker of beautiful and functional housewares. He was in New York to unveil his (family’s)…

The Next Hot Entrepreneurs: Science PhDs

Posted by: Reena Jana on August 05

Biotech is the industry that is attracting the most venture capital dollars, according to the latest stats from the National Venture Capital Association. So wouldn’t it make sense that science…

Microsoft, Amazon, IBM: Do M & As affect innovation?

Posted by: Reena Jana on July 29

“What role do mergers and acquisitions play in your company’s innovation strategy?” We asked this question in our annual Most Innovative Companies survey this year, conducted with Boston Consulting Group…

Smart Talk at Smart Design

Posted by: Reena Jana on July 22

Smart Design is a consultancy that’s helped design the OXO Good Grips line of kitchen tools, the popular Flip digital camcorder, and the Fusion dashboard for Ford. Last week, we…

Earnings, Culture and the Lesson of Caterpillar

Posted by: Jessie Scanlon on July 21

No one was expecting good news to come out of Caterpillar’s earnings report today, but it was better than expected, as I wrote in this piece about the company’s new…

The Biggest Challenges to Innovation

Posted by: Jessie Scanlon on July 20

How do you innovate? What’s your process? What innovation methods work, and which are just hot air? What are the biggest hurdles? As many readers of our Innovation & Design…

How to Find the Next Twitter

Posted by: Reena Jana on July 09

Investors are always searching for the next hot start-up, the next hot technology. Wouldn’t it be great to have a tool that could help identify entire “micro-industries” built around new…

How to build an innovation culture

Posted by: Helen Walters on June 12

How to embed innovation in an organization must be one of the most discussed, little agreed-upon topics of our time. This week, it was the topic of a panel event…

Why Private Companies Are More Innovative

Posted by: Michael Arndt on June 08

This is a guest blog by Venessa Wong, who joined BusinessWeek’s Innovation+Design team in June. Do privately held companies have an edge when it comes to long-term innovation? At least…

The Four Horsemen of Innovation

Posted by: Michael Arndt on May 16

Corporate innovators come in four types, says Robert Wolcott, founder and executive director of the Kellogg Innovation Network at Northwestern University. Wolcott identifies them in his upcoming book, Grow from…

Companies are not immortal, nor should they try to be immortal

Posted by: Helen Walters on May 05

Today was the first day of the World innovation Forum, held at the Nokia Theatre here in New York City. There were three keynote speakers, the noted futurist and Stanford…

YouTube’s Symphony at Carnegie Hall: 21st Century Classical Music

Posted by: Reena Jana on April 16

YouTube’s Symphony Orchestra played at Carnegie Hall last night. The members were chosen from audition videos uploaded to YouTube, and the results were impressive. There were several innovative additions to…

Are Apple and Google still “the most innovative companies” in the world?

Posted by: Reena Jana on April 13

BusinessWeek and the Boston Consulting Group have just released the 2009 ranking of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Apple is # 1 for the fifth year in a row. Google…

Economics bloggers don’t think much of R&D as a catalyst for innovation

Posted by: Helen Walters on April 03

Last month, the Kauffman Foundation held a seminar bringing together some 40 economics bloggers from across the political and economic spectrum. Their goal: to discuss the state of the nation….

Revolutionary Ideas and Innovation

Posted by: Reena Jana on April 02

This week, I spoke with Joshua Cooper Ramo, managing director at Kissinger Associates and author of the new book The Age of the Unthinkable. The slim, elegantly written volume isn’t…

Lessons from Guy Kawasaki

Posted by: Reena Jana on March 30

One of the great privileges of being a journalist is getting to meet some of the world’s most influential business thinkers and doers. And an even greater privilege is sharing…

Taking Risks Is More Important than Stability Right Now

Posted by: Reena Jana on March 19

More BusinessWeek readers believe that taking risks is more important than stability right now. That’s clear from the latest survey results from our online poll on BusinessWeek.com on the state…

Customer-funded Innovation

Posted by: Jessie Scanlon on March 11

How will the economic crisis affect the way innovative start-ups raise money? That’s the question that prompted this post, and that led me back to this June 2008 article by…

Mac vs. PC: “Most Innovative Companies” Edition

Posted by: Reena Jana on March 05

I’ve been busy working on the Most Innovative Companies special report and exclusive ranking, to be published on April 9, along with the team here at BusinessWeek. It’s based on…

In conversation with Lynda Resnick, vice chair, POM Wonderful

Posted by: Helen Walters on February 27

Earlier this week, Lynda Resnick, the author of the upcoming book, Rubies in the Orchard, came in to BusinessWeek, to chat about her varied career running companies such as POM…

Is the United States asleep at the wheel?

Posted by: Helen Walters on February 25

Is America asleep? It is according to Rob Atkinson, president of the Washington-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a non-partisan thinktank looking to promote innovation both nationally and internationally. Atkinson…

The Lesson of Coraline

Posted by: Jessie Scanlon on February 20

Coraline, the animated fantasy movie directed by Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and others), has brought in almost $40 million since it opened last week…

Hot Off The Press: The Blogspaper

Posted by: Michael Arndt on February 11

By now, we all know that the Internet is tomorrow and the printed media are yesterday. So when, to borrow from Lost, is Joshua Karp? Karp, a 36-year-old former consultant…

Amazon.com at the Morgan Library: A Kindle among the Gutenberg Bibles?

Posted by: Reena Jana on February 08

Tomorrow, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos will hold a much-anticipated press conference in New York at The Morgan Library and Museum, and the choice of venue suggests that an intriguing narrative…

Philippe Starck on Design, Invention, and Branding: Recession Advice

Posted by: Reena Jana on January 28

I recently sat down with Philippe Starck, one of the world’s most well-known designers, to talk about the connection between design—so often misunderstood as mere cosmetic flourish—and innovation. He was…

Why Xerox’s Erasable Paper Isn’t On the Market (Yet)

Posted by: Reena Jana on January 21

At least since 2006 or so, Xerox has heralded its invention of “erasable” paper, but it hasn’t yet hit the market. And the company hasn’t said when it will. I…

The New Contrarianism: Less for Less

Posted by: Helen Walters on January 07

I recently chatted with Michael Raynor, co-author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, author of The Strategy Paradox, and currently a Distinguished Fellow at Deloitte Research. We recorded a podcast, which you…

Teens Don’t Think Scientists are Nerds

Posted by: Reena Jana on January 07

Today’s teens don’t see scientists as “nerdy,” according to a new study from the Lemelson-MIT Program, a non-profit based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology devoted to recognizing exceptional inventors….

Sparking Innovation: A Patented Alternative

Posted by: Michael Arndt on December 07

I’m participating as a fellow in a five-day program on innovation sponsored by the Salzburg Global Seminar in Austria. The title: New Models of Intellectual Property: Predictability and Openness as…

What Apple Learned from Kodak

Posted by: Helen Walters on December 05

Currently Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, Bill Buxton writes a regular-ish column for the Innovation channel here at BusinessWeek. In the process of working on a new piece, we…

What Are the Five Traits of Highly Innovative Companies?

Posted by: Michael Arndt on December 04

I recently had a chance to talk with Rajesh Chandy, a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management and co-author of a new study on corporate…

IBM Predicts the Next Five Innovations to Watch in the Next Five Years

Posted by: Reena Jana on December 02

IBM has just released its third annual “Next Five in Five” list of innovations to watch. These are based on research done in Big Blue’s own labs, as well as…

Have any Questions for Malcolm Gladwell?

Posted by: Reena Jana on November 18

Again, following the lead of my dear friend and colleague Helen Walters, I’m using the NEXT blog to ask you for questions that you might want to ask author Malcolm…

Apple or IBM…?

Posted by: Reena Jana on November 04

Like you, I’m pre-occuppied by the election. But here’s an innovation-related dilemma for you. I’d be curious to read your opinions. Have you been watching the drama between IBM and…

Booz & Company’s Annual Innovation Report Out Today

Posted by: Reena Jana on October 21

The fourth annual survey on the top 1000 corporate R&D spenders from Booz & Company is out today—and it includes some nuggets that offer insight on how the US measures…

What do you want from T-Mobile? Deutsche Telekom’s head of innovation and product development answers your questions

Posted by: Helen Walters on October 06

Hamid Akhavan, head of mobile communications, innovation and product development for Deutsche Telekom — and the man in charge of T-Mobile International for most of Europe — is coming to…

Investing in Innovation…Now?

Posted by: Reena Jana on September 30

I had a couple of conversations in the past week of major economic turmoil that addressed how the pursuit of innovation might be affected by the looming recession. Craig Barrett,…

Cisco CEO John Chambers on Speeding Up Innovation

Posted by: Matt Vella on September 24

Yesterday morning, Cisco Systems’ charismatic Chairman and CEO John Chambers addressed the World Business Forum taking place this week in New York. After taking the crowd of CEOs and senior…

Can America Stay Competitive?

Posted by: Helen Walters on September 24

As many of my colleagues have mentioned, Intel chairman Craig Barrett visited BusinessWeek recently. His acidic tone and frustration and discontent with the state of America were palpable. I…

How to define—and execute— “innovation” in investment banking?

Posted by: Reena Jana on September 15

Walking to work each day from the subway station to my office, I pass the headquarters of Lehman Brothers. Usually, there are tourists outside, taking home videos of the eye-catching…

SAP Invests in InnoCentive

Posted by: Reena Jana on September 09

Today at 10 AM, SAP, the business software provider, announced that its SAP NetWeaver Fund will invest in InnoCentive, the Web site where people post engineering and design problems to…

Innovate, baby, innovate!

Posted by: Helen Walters on September 08

That’s the chant Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wishes he’d heard people at the RNC chanting instead of “drill, baby, drill.” The chorus of calls for U.S.-centric, government-sponsored…

Gore’s “Capability Center”

Posted by: Helen Walters on July 18

A little while ago, I spoke to Gene Castellano, Project Director of W.L. Gore & Associates. Gore, of course, makes fluoropolymer products for various manufacturing and electronics industries as well…

Nau was then… and is Nau again

Posted by: Helen Walters on June 26

Back in early May, Innovation writer Ernest Beck wrote about the demise of the hip green clothing label, Nau, which had launched with such promise a few years earlier but…

McKinsey’s new article on open innovation

Posted by: Reena Jana on June 23

I just read the McKinsey Quarterly’s just-published article, “What’s New in Open Innovation?” — it’s available online. Most of the article features an overview of what’s been going on in…

Flower Power

Posted by: Helen Walters on June 18

I think this might simply prove that I don’t get sent flowers very often, but I did today. And as I blushed and mumbled and felt all self-conscious, I…

Step back, look around, peer ahead: Bill Buxton’s philosophy of innovation

Posted by: Helen Walters on May 13

Yesterday, we published an article by Bill Buxton, currently Principal Scientist at Microsoft (MSFT) and someone who has been at the forefront of technology innovation for years (he was involved…

A truly alternative motorcycle design from Branko Lukic

Posted by: Helen Walters on May 07

I’m a big fan of the work of designer Branko Lukic. Having spent many years at consultancies such as Frog and IDEO, he branched out in 2006 to found his…

What makes a good design leader?

Posted by: Helen Walters on May 05

I was in London last week, and attended a breakfast meeting at the Design Council, the UK’s “national strategic body for design”, which is funded by the government and which…

CK Prahalad: The New Age of Innovation

Posted by: Helen Walters on May 01

I’m racing through a copy of “Bottom of the Pyramid” guru, CK Prahalad’s new tome, the hefty book: The New Age of Innovation: Driving Co-Created Value through Global Networks. CK’s…

Neutron and Stanford’s Survey of Wicked Problems

Posted by: Helen Walters on April 09

Chatted to Marty Neumeier, president of the design think-tank Neutron last week, and we discussed a new list he and some colleagues at Stanford University put together of “wicked problems”…

Steelcase teams up with CEOs for Cities

Posted by: Reena Jana on March 17

Carol Coletta, the dynamic chief executive of CEOs for Cities, a Chicago-based nonprofit that brings together mayors of blighted urban areas (Detroit and Buffalo, for example) and executives to brainstorm…

P & G’s plans to cut staff, new product initiatives: how will this affect innovation and design?

Posted by: Reena Jana on February 25

With Procter &Gamble’s announcement that the company will cut 10% to 20% of “initiative development,” i.e., new product development and related marketing programs both globally and regionally, it seems as…

A New Test For Breast Cancer Examines Hair Follicles, Not Breast Tissue

Posted by: Reena Jana on February 18

For the Feb. 25, 2008 issue of BusinessWeek magazine, I filed a short news piece on an innovative new medical company called Fermiscan. (Here’s the link to the story, but…

Google-Tube’s on the rise — and so is online video viewing in general

Posted by: Reena Jana on January 17

Yes, comScore just sent out its Video Metrix report this morning, citing online video viewing in November 2007. The report says that more than 75 percent of Americans watched a…

Is innovation a product of culture more than any other factor?

Posted by: Reena Jana on January 12

I just read the “from the editor” page in the current (January/February 2008) MIT Technology Review, by Jason Pontin—and enjoyed it. He began by discussing the so-called “innovation economy,” went…

Does the data overwhelm the idea?

Posted by: Helen Walters on January 11

Don’t know if you caught Jon Stewart the other night. Writerless, “The” Daily Show has downgraded and is now “A” Daily Show, but Stewart is as on point as ever….

The music industry in freefall. Or: The lesser-noted point about Radiohead

Posted by: Helen Walters on January 07

One thing that should be noted which seems to have been missed in all the excitement about Radiohead’s pay-what-you-will experiment, is that the band hasn’t eschewed the music industry altogether….

The Bhutto Assassination — Are There New Ways to Protect Public Figures?

Posted by: Reena Jana on December 28

Recent events in Pakistan bring to mind how we can possibly use innovative new technologies to better protect public figures at risk of assassination, kidnapping, or other dangerous threats. I’m…

Toyota’s Projected Growth — And the Context of Booz Allen Hamilton’s Recent Innovation Survey

Posted by: Reena Jana on December 26

Last year, as my brilliant colleague Jessie Scanlon wrote on BusinessWeek.com, the annual Booz Allen Hamilton survey on the top 1000 spenders on research and development concluded that “money simply…

Zaha Hadid. Hong Kong. The Innovation Tower

Posted by: Helen Walters on December 21

Zaha Hadid’s off to Hong Kong. The renowned, London-based designer just got the nod to build the Innovation Tower at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (one of the schools featured…

A Preview of What Intel is Showing at CES in January 2008—with a Green Twist

Posted by: Reena Jana on December 15

On Friday I went to a small gathering in New York — at Frank Gehry’s IAC building — where Intel gave a sneak peek at what the company will be…

Award season is here: BMW announces its “Passion for Innovation” winners

Posted by: Helen Walters on December 11

Tis the season for announcing science and innovation awards. The Tech channel recently ran a round-up of the winning women who swept the board in the Siemens Competition in Math,…

Cisco’s Lessons on Learning from Start-Ups

Posted by: Reena Jana on November 26

When I was researching the current cover story of IN: Inside Innovation, on how HP is infusing its corporate culture with start-up-style creativity, I spoke to executives at other tech…

If in the Bay Area, check out the UC Berkeley Conference on Innovation

Posted by: Reena Jana on November 16

If I were out on the West Coast, I’d be heading to UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business on November 17 for the first Haas Innovation Conference, which is called…

John Kao’s Pocket Primers

Posted by: Reena Jana on November 15

John Kao’s recent book, Innovation Nation, has been garnering media attention, but Kao’s self-published how-to booklets on innovation are also a must-read. And they’re harder to find, as Kao hands…

Target’s Holograms: The Innovation Angle

Posted by: Reena Jana on October 30

On Wednesday, big-box retailer Target will begin running ads about the world’s first “model-less” fashion show in New York on November 6 and 7, featuring a holographic illusion of three-dimensional,…

McCracken vs Anderson

Posted by: Helen Walters on October 16

Fascinating bust up taking place over on MIT anthropologist Grant McCracken’s blog. He took issue with the ‘fallacy’ of The Long Tail, and a slightly hurt sounding Chris Anderson, to…

New Areas of Innovation: Healthcare, Education, Products for the Ageing, Mega-cities

Posted by: Reena Jana on October 15

Back from the Collaborative Innovation Summit in Providence, RI, the third annual conference held by the Business Innovation Factory. The lineup was impressive: from Clay Christensen, Harvard professor and author…

Off to the Business Innovation Factory Summit + Conferencing Twittering, Anyone?

Posted by: Reena Jana on October 09

Tomorrow I’m off to attend the sold-out Business Innovation Factory’s annual summit in Providence, RI. This year’s topic is “collaborative innovation” — and should be intriguing as “collaboration” is certainly…

Director of Design London announced

Posted by: Helen Walters on September 19

A while back, I touted the launch of a new venture between the Royal College of Art, Imperial College and the Tanaka Business School in London. The director’s just been…

Measuring Innovation in the 21st century economy

Posted by: Helen Walters on September 18

One of the comments to a piece I wrote on the US Department of Commerce’s formation of a group of high profile business leaders to look at effective ways to…

Creative Capital: A Resource for Imaginative Ideas

Posted by: Reena Jana on September 12

When we were putting together our annual Cutting Edge Designers series for BusinessWeek.com — which also appears in condensed form in the current issue of IN: Inside Innovation within BusinessWeek…

BCBG at Bryant Park: What’s New with a Fashion Label That’s Creative on the Business Side?

Posted by: Reena Jana on September 05

This morning I popped by Bryant Park to catch the runway show of BCBG Max Azria, part of the bi-annual Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week line-up. Why this show? The company, which…

Literally Cool Laptops

Posted by: Helen Walters on August 15

Interesting report from Purdue University, where researchers have been working with Intel on a new technology to improve computer chip cooling. In a completely unscientific survey of one, I can…

Water, water, everywhere

Posted by: Helen Walters on August 09

Digital water isn’t a new concept, but this new project, due for completion in June 2008, pushes the limits of what is possible — and uses the technology on…

Much Ado About Tudou

Posted by: Reena Jana on August 02

Have you checked out Tudou.com, the Chinese video-sharing site? Yeah, yeah, the “Chinese YouTube.” Its name means “potato” in Mandarin – as in “couch potato,” according to the company’s boilerplate…

India’s “Second Tier” Cities: Where Innovation is Happening

Posted by: Reena Jana on July 27

Two days in a row this week, I coincidentally found myself in conversations on innovation in India’s second-tier cities. These areas are quickly attracting forward-thinking businesses and are home to…

Mixing Biz with Tech: Profitable Management Mash-Ups

Posted by: Reena Jana on July 05

Companies can move beyond simply being innovative and toward becoming more agile, resilient, and profitable by creating a management mash-up of their business and technology teams.

It’s all about Nokia

Posted by: Helen Walters on July 03

Sometimes companies, themes or trends just keep assaulting your radar. Today it’s the turn of Nokia, which for no particular reason is turning up everywhere I look. Piers Fawkes of…

new opportunities and new voices

Posted by: Jessi Hempel on June 28

Meanwhile, Reena Jana will be joining Next. Alone with Helen, she’ll continue to bring you thoughtful sentiments on the intersection of business and design - and everything related. Cheers

Measuring innovation

Posted by: Helen Walters on June 27

I went to lunch with IBM, Innosight and APQC and a whole host of innovation types yesterday. The topic of conversation: why do innovation efforts so often fail, how can…

Consistency is Key

Posted by: Helen Walters on June 18

The democratization of data provided by technologies (including the Web and its seemingly infinite capabilities) initially struck fear at the heart of professionals from industries across the board. By understanding…

The Sopranos takeaway

Posted by: Helen Walters on June 12

The Sopranos caused a furore with its finale. There are lessons to be learned here

The system is overloaded

Posted by: Helen Walters on June 04

Dealing with the deluge: the modern curse of instant communication

Linux vs. Wikipedia

Posted by: Jessi Hempel on June 01

Crowds are not wise. Nor are they ignorant. The intelligence, or lack thereof, resides in those of us who are trying to capture their momentum.

BusinessWeek Innovation & Design channel

Posted by: Helen Walters on June 01

What would you like to see more (or less) of on the Innovation & Design channel?

On Prizes, Genius and Impact

Posted by: Jessi Hempel on May 31

Can prizes create genius, encourage existing genius or merely reward it?

Politics in the age of social networking

Posted by: Jessi Hempel on May 29

No, I’m not an Obama supporter. I’ve yet to make up my mind about candidate or party. But, I think business should be looking to the presidential campaigns to…

Crowdsourcing: Who is hot?

Posted by: Jessi Hempel on May 21

Give us your recommendations for the sites that best harness the so-called wisdom of the crowds.

I heart my chair

Posted by: Jessi Hempel on May 17

“Chairs are fundamental to any discussion of design,” says Jeremy Brown from innovation strategy firm Senser Worldwide. “But they’re also really useful. People use them and love them.” So he asked folks to send in photos of their favorites and he compiled a book.

Strategy for the Strategy Conference

Posted by: Helen Walters on May 17

The IIT organized Strategy Conference in Chicago — a preview

d.School Rocks…literally

Posted by: Jessi Hempel on May 16

d.School student Gus Bitdinger rocks the campus with his design-thinking ditty. No, really.

NEXT Signing On…

Posted by: Jessi Hempel on May 15

The shape of things to come on the NEXT blog