Innovation in the News

The Battle For Breakthrough Innovation

MediaPost.com (May 7, 2008) - With increasing pressure on innovation spending during the down cycle, companies are at risk of over-relying on a pipeline of short-term idea extensions that at best deliver lackluster brand extensions while, in most cases, cannibalizing existing business. If they want to be out front at the upturn or want to continue to inspire emerging market opportunities, senior innovation marketing managers need to keep pushing for real, incremental growth from innovation. To be successful, you have to focus closely on what goes into the innovation pipeline and how you inspire and manage "Upfront Innovation."

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Folding your arms may help you to be a better problem solver, study shows

Canada.com (May 5, 2008) - The mere act of folding your arms increases perseverance and activates an unconscious desire to succeed, new research shows. University students randomly assigned to sit with their arms crossed spent more time on an impossible-to-solve anagram, or word scramble, in one experiment, and came up with more correct solutions to solvable anagrams in another than those told to sit with their hands on their thighs. The study is the first to show that arm crossing affects people's thinking without them being consciously aware of it.

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Scampering for Innovation

MarketingProfs.com (May 3, 2008) - You've probably heard the expression, "There are no new ideas." It suggests, rather, that there are new ways to look at things. How do you look at something different? One method is a set of creative thinking techniques called SCAMPER.

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Women are better managers, innovators, study finds

News Australia (May 5, 2008) - Women are more effective in nearly all aspects of business management, with men superior in only two areas, a study has found. According to research, which collected data from over 1800 Australian female and male CEOs and managers, women scored higher than men on the key issues of strategic drive, risk taking, people skills, aesthetics and altruism, and innovation.

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HP Labs Opens Research Opportunities to Academia

Centre Daily Times (May 7, 2008) - HP today made it possible for colleges, universities and research institutions worldwide to participate in joint research with HP Labs, the company's central research facility, through an open and competitive process. The new HP Labs Innovation Research Program invites the worldwide academic community to submit proposals related to current research in the areas of information explosion, dynamic cloud services, content transformation, intelligent infrastructure and sustainability.

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InnoCentive Raises $6.5 Million for Innovation Network

Xconomy.com (May 7, 2008) - Today, Innocentive announced that it has raised $6.5 million in new venture capital, which it will use to upgrade its platform and expand its network of "solvers," people who submit solutions in hopes of winning awards that range from $10,000 to $1 million.

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Mind Maps: A guide for business decisions

The Beacon News (May 5, 2008) - Consider using mind maps as a new communication, decision making, and learning tool. They also can be used to supplement what you may already be doing. For example, a basic mind map may enhance a report or a presentation.

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MindMeister wins Red Herring 100 Europe Award

Verivox (May 5, 2008) - After having been shortlisted as a Finalist of the Red Herring 100 Europe award the collaborative mind mapping site MindMeister (www.mindmeister.com) was selected as winner of the prestigious prize which is annually awarded to the top 100 private technology companies based in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region.

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Roger von Oech on Releasing our Mental Blocks

IdeaConnection.com (May 5, 2008) - We need to be aware that we have "mental locks," which Roger von Oech describes in A Whack on the Side of the Head as being especially hazardous to our thinking. In this interview, the author of this best-selling creativity book explains how to release them and be more creative.

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IBM Taps Hollywood for New Ideas

CNNmoney (May 1, 2008) - For decades Hollywood has looked to science for inspiration. Now IBM researchers are looking to Hollywood for new ideas too.

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