research

Why Encouraging Childlike Creativity is Essential in Business

Kids are naturally creative. If left to their own devices with crayons, paint—even a cardboard box, wonderful things often blossom. So what happens as we get older? Many people think kid “lose” that creativity. However, it’s really the grownups who take it away from...

Do You Spot a Difference?

Yes, yes! Apart from the fact that they are pictures of two different Presidents and their wives during their respective inauguration, what is a striking difference between the two? The first picture with President Bill Clinton seems more uptight and bureaucratic with...

Board of Directors = Enemy of Innovation?

  (reposted from 15 Inno) I recently provided five reasons why executives do a poor job on innovation and although this makes it difficult for innovation leaders to do their job, I am glad to say that things are changing for the better. A new generation of...

Why Crowdsource?

Why Crowdsource?

In 2006, Jeff Howe coined the term crowdsourcing and he defined it via his Wired Magazine as the “act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of...

The Rise of Disintermediated Crowdfunding

One Friday morning a few months back, the creators of Lockitron, an innovative deadbolt system controlled by your smartphone, were rejected by the folks over at Kickstarter. The following week, the Lockitron team formed a plan: they would launch Lockitron on their own...

Crowd Empowered Microfinance

  Below is a preview of a chapter I wrote on Crowd Empowered Microfinance in the forthcoming book Microfinance in Developing Countries, edited by Jean-Paul Gueyie, Ronny Manos, and Jacob Yaron. Microfinance is a multi-billion dollar industry with a rich history...

Latin America: Five Startups Leveraging the Power of the Crowd

My first cross with crowdsourcing was more like a collision, brought on by a friend’s (considerate) attempt to help out and my (persistent) aversion to social-media-overshare. I had made the decision to buy a smartphone and asked a friend I considered tech-savvy for...

Innovation Depends on Trust, Diversity and Knowledge Networks

"…knowledge diversity facilitates all types of contributions to open innovation projects" When we talk about interactions between companies and its exterior stakeholders, we can say that the knowledge or cultural diversity or even diversity with experiences is key to...

Crowdfunding is Propelling Social Innovation

Social innovation refers to new strategies, concepts, ideas and organizations that meet social needs of all kinds — from working conditions and education to community development and health — and that extend and strengthen civil society. Social media and the internet...

GE: Industrial Internet Will Connect Data, Machines and People

At the Minds+ Machines Conference in Silicon Valley, November last year, GE's CEO Jeffrey Immelt hosted an event to address a room full of innovators in San Francisco. He touted the "Industrial Internet" as the next frontier in innovation. What is the Industrial...

Do You Have The Courage to Follow?

We are always being taught to become great leaders. But how often have you see information or tips to become a great follower? What makes a pioneering follower. You will agree with me that a movement cannot be created with just a bunch a great leaders. We need an...

Crowdsource Your Customer Acquisition and Business Development

Using a crowdsourcing site for referrals can be a big time-saver as well. Anyone who owns or runs a business is always trying to maximize his limited time, and online crowdsourcing is very efficient. There is no travel involved, and conversations are limited to the...

Be Competitively Unpredictable!

Re-published from 15 Inno Can open innovation help your company become competitively unpredictable? Well, in this video, I start out by talking about John Conoley, a CEO at Psion, who said that this objective was one of the key reasons for him to pursue open...

Crowdsourcing Week Announces First Global Conference

Crowdsourcing Week Announces First Global Conference

via press release Crowdsourcing Week announces the first global conference on crowdsourcing, open innovation and crowdfunding in Singapore, June 3 - 7, 2013. This international 5-day curated event will focus on how "a crowd of people" can make outstanding...

Astronomers Welcome All to Identify Stars in Andromeda Galaxy

Astronomers are inviting the public to search Hubble Space Telescope images of the Andromeda galaxy to help identify star clusters and increase understanding of how galaxies evolve. The new Andromeda Project, set to study thousands of high-resolution Hubble images, is...