The Power of Strategy Innovation
Bob Johnston, a former Synector, collaborates with Synecticsworld on projects on the intersection of Innovation and Strategy. Bob is the author of a book, The Power of Strategy Innovation, which outlines his process. We recommend reading Bob’s book to anyone who is looking to build powerful strategies (and if you are a fan of Synectics). You will appreciate the synergies between Bob’s Strategy Innovation approach...
Lasting Impact of Synectics
Bill Teague reflects on working on a project with Synecticsworld–and how the experience continues to affect his professional life more than a decade later. Read his article Focus group? I learned more from the facilitator on LinkedIn.
Three Articles Concerning Healthcare
By Leo Boudreau I have recently read some very interesting articles about the intersection of creativity/innovation and the healthcare industry that I thought would be of interest to many of you. Oscar The first article is from the New York Times describes an emerging new firm in the healthcare field – Oscar. Strictly competing in the NY market right now, Oscar comes at...
Five Synectics Principles for Strategic Off-Sites
Download five principles for successful strategic off-sites from Synector Connie Williams.
How does your business kill innovation?
By Joe Giordano If there is one common thread that weaves together my experience in the field of innovation, it is hearing on a weekly basis, how frustrated people are about how their organizations kill innovative solutions. Innovation murder doesn’t happen on purpose. Typically the perpetrators believe they are helping innovation, not hindering it. They are innocent in spirit, if not in action. The proverbial bulls...
A New Kind of Health Plan
By Connie Williams There’s a great new benefit area to consider adding to your health care plan. It’s reasonably priced and pays a lifetime of benefits. It contributes to better wellbeing overall. People sleep better. They feel like they have better control over their lives. They have hope and self-reliance, even if they experience a mental health problem or some type of anxiety, life gets...
Incubation: Bridging The Gap Between Idea and Implementation
By Joe Gammal I’ve noticed, over the last few years, that the old adage, “I wish I’d thought of that!” is increasingly being replaced by, “I thought of that! I wish I had done something with that idea!” This shift has largely been missed in the corporate boardroom, however. Most companies seem to still focus only on the pursuit of new ideas, when they should really...
Crafting a More Productive R&D & Marketing Innovation Partnership
By Connie Williams This article first appeared on PreScouter. Does your organization’s innovation feel like “In this corner, Marketing, in this corner, R&D”? If it does, that’s because R&D and Marketing work in very different ways, often seeing the world and opportunities very differently. The old, traditional way of working, with R&D and Marketing in their separate corners working on innovation opportunities, has to be...
How To Assemble Your Team For Innovation
By Leo Boudreau One of the most crucial tasks related to a successful innovation effort is assembling the appropriate team. A team focused on innovation has very different requirements from a team with an operational focus and a number of different factors need to be taken into consideration and different qualities and characteristics are sought after. The first question you need to answer is...
Beyond the Survey: Small (Data) is Beautiful
By Connie Williams Big Data is the rage. Consulting companies are advising left and right on how to get amazing results; new start-ups are leveraging the power of Big Data to bring new products and services to market, especially in technology. If not leveraging truly Big Data, led by advancements in massive computing power, then data analytics or data science is key to today’s business...
What does Collaboration REALLY Mean?
By Connie Williams Collaboration is a hot topic these days. CEO’s are talking about it. Schools are emphasizing collaboration skills. Social media and intranet technologies are described as a foundation for collaboration. “The Collaborative Economy” is a term Jeremiah Owyang and others are using to describe innovations involving sharing of goods and services from Zip Car to Uber to Airbnb. Time magazine entitled it “Today’s...
5 Creative Ways to Leverage Big Data
By Connie Williams Big Data is one of the top business terms of the last couple of years. Of course, it refers to data that is too big to fit on single servers or spread sheets that is beyond the reach of conventional analytics. It has become the province of a new breed of “data scientists” and big consulting firms have jumped on the bandwagon....
Alignment is not the same as Buy-in.
By Paul D. Roberts One of the consistently destructive forces we witness at all levels of the organization is the concept of buy-in masquerading as alignment. What is the difference? Buy-in is trying to convince someone that your idea is what they should do i.e. they should green-light what you see as the needed change; cast in stone and not open to change. It is the...
Innovative Ideas Need a Story to Survive
By Chipp Norcross One of the biggest challenges that good ideas have is making the jump out of the original inventor’s head into the mind of the first person she shares it with. Explaining your idea in all of its richness and glory so that others will understand it is not an easy task, and a lot of good ideas will never successfully make the...
Optimal Decision-Making and Doing More with Less Time
By Chipp Norcross I read an eye-opening article about the mathematical challenge known as “The Marriage Problem.” In this challenge, a person, let’s call it a man, is faced with a conundrum of deciding which person, let’s call it a woman, to marry. The man has a list of a finite number of women, and after he has met each one he must to decide whether...
A 6 Word Innovation Novel by Kyle Hermans
An innovation novel by Kyle Hermans “Gathering dust, breakthrough innovations, never implemented.” Are you sitting on a wealth of ideas internally that are yet to come to fruition? Harness them! Get in touch if you need help to turn your ideas into reality. This was inspired by the famous 6-word-novel attributed to Ernest Hemingway “For sale: baby shoes, never worn” What is your 6 word Innovation...
