Overview: Innovation Strategy

While aimed at news organisation leaders, a lot of these insights apply to any organisation in the content creation business today: "When your mother lectured you that “actions speak louder than words,” she was giving important advice for culture change... if the leaders aren’t setting an example of change, don’t be surprised if change is slow or…

An organisation which cannot remember cannot learn; an organisation which cannot learn cannot improve.

Th@e new Guardian Visuals team will bring together ... the graphics desk, picture desk, interactive team and parts of the digital design and multimedia teams... it's hard to assemble teams that are cross-disciplinary ... and have the right combination of designers, developers, graphic artists, photographers." - Guardian forms new editorial teams…

"A newsroom typically contains reporters, editors, data journalists, developers, designers … But traditionally they work in separate departments, unable to seamlessly collaborate together. That’s why silos don’t work. Instead, there should be a horizontal of these newsroom archetypes to truly integrate the journalism with the tech." - J-teams, le…

"some skeptics in the organization feel that innovation is an overhyped buzzword that doesn’t justify being a separate function. So, what can you do in your first 100 days to set things off on the right track?" - The Chief Innovation Officer’s 100-Day Plan - Scott Anthony, and Robyn Bolton - Harvard Business Review

"Why is it so hard to get platforms on which people can help each other solve practical challenges or understand strategic directions better to take hold in our organisations? I reckon it comes down to the fear of being judged... Being found wanting by your friends is one thing but being judged by your peers or your boss represents a whole differ…

As I mentioned in my previous post, the past couple of years have seen a lot of innovation in online content strategy, coupled with growing disenchantment with "Big Internet".

Enjoying this excellent guide to ideation by Krysta Curtis. Something for the weekend: admit it, you won't have time for this much fun during the week: - Paint-by-Idea — Medium

"We couldn't understand why people without technical knowledge had to tell programmers "what" to do and, furthermore, they had to supervise "how" programmers did it." At last. Someone said it. And also quite a bit more about the timesucks that are meetings, email and commuting. These guys avoid all of them, work 4 days/week and are growing …

Sounds encouraging, but what would "a leading scholar of labor markets" really know about where IT's headed? "Autor argues that even as computers have gotten better at rote tasks, they have progressed far less in applying common sense... this weakness leaves plenty of opportunities for humans to serve as intermediaries of sorts between incre…

Seeing more stuff on robots & AI this year than in previous 3. "In many cases, their algorithm clearly identifies influences that art experts have already found. For example, ... Klimt is close to Picasso and Braque ... the influence of Delacroix on Bazille, ... Munch’s influence on Beckmann and Degas’ influence on Caillebotte. The algorithm is …

(and why I joined a technology company, not another comms agency): "...organizations that had software engineers and Web enthusiasts in the room when big decisions were made navigated the seas of change more successfully than those that didn’t... When you think about how news and entertainment have been delivered over the internet so far, four m…

“Horses aren’t unemployed now because they got lazy as a species, they’re unemployable. There’s little work a horse can do that do that pays for its housing and hay.” Are you next? Probably. - Humans need not apply

Excellent insider's view of both theory & practice... "My first holacracy meeting made me want to quit my job. One year later, ... I can’t imagine going back to our old way of working.... a holacracy eschews titles and instead builds a chain of command based on the work that needs to be done. The group decides to distribute tasks. Those responsi…

"Recent research confirms that entrepreneurs inside large, established organizations ... largely follow the same act-learn-build logic as new venture entrepreneurs, but ... have few colleagues (and sometimes no one) to talk to, explore ideas with, or gain emotional support from." - Internal Entrepreneurs Don't Have to Be Lonely - Len Schlesinger,…

"... envisions a Yahoo that’s as ubiquitous as computers seem destined to be. Phones, watches, public terminals, brain implants — Yahoo wants to be able to deliver content to all of them... Yahoo Labs’ biggest focus appears to be on machine learning... a dedicated machine learning group based in New York; ... “hardcore science and some theory,…

Just listed to HBR's podcast interview with Pentland. Will probably get this book. Typically good roundup by Greg Satell: "Pentland’s research has found that the most important predictor of success in a group is the amount—not the content—of social interaction. It is exposure to peer activity that drives learning and changes in behavior.... in …

Altimiter study finds that while 80% of companeis surveyed said they were "undergoing digital transformation": "... only 25% had actually mapped out the digital customer journey. It’s unfortunate that so much time and resources are going toward programs that may or may not hit the mark." That's a lot of money being wasted. "While the word “digi…

"incumbent players [must] expand the horizons of their leadership team beyond the next quarter or next year ... challenge key assumptions... resist the temptation to deny that [disruption] exists." - Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: The Disruption Debate - What's Missing?

Wow, that's timely: "Q1. What is disruption? Disruption happens when the strong are defeated by the weak....

Fascinating account of a leading scientist's decades-long investigation into creative genius and mental illness. creative people are better at recognizing relationships, making associations and connections, and seeing things in an original way... creative people have shown stronger activations in their association cortices ... This pattern h…

A whole bunch of reasons why the wrong consultants are hired for the wrong reasons: "When we don’t know much about somebody, we ... think about people in over-optimistic ways...what normal individual can stand up against an outsider or expert made up of pixie dust and rainbows? ... when we go looking for a better expert ... we tend to find them…

A good framework from @briansolis: "how do you innovate or take chances when the management imperative dictates an invulnerable stance? It starts with business goals and objectives. It's brought to life through a culture of intrapreneurialism and employee empowerment.... Intrapreneurialism ... promotes creativity, imagination and experimenta…

@digitaltonto weighs in on the LePore v Shristensen debate on Forbes: "Yet Lepore veers off course by essentially affirming the consequent.... In her fervent desire to critique, she conflates. Disruption, innovation and disruptive innovation are, in fact, three distinct entities.... there is more than one way to innovate, what’s really important …

Two Weekly Review posts on the subject of innovation.

'Innovation' threaded its way through a lot of the resources added to my TumblrHub last week: from innovation-friendly management through to innovative Content Management Systems for tomorrow's newsmedia business models and personal productivity tools.

Part 2 of my second weekly roundup, where the overriding theme is innovation.

5 principles for any organisation seeking to innovate digitally. Most cover the role of management and organisational structure (flat vs hierarchical structures, cross-silo interdisciplinarity, etc.), but the one that resonated most for me was cultural: "...one of the main cultural challenges [to innovation]... focus on optimising current proce…

Great read on intrapreneurs and innovation. Thinking the @bloggingportal reboot probably qualifies ... "When you treat something like it's stupid, you have fun with it, you don't put too much structure around it. You can enjoy different types of success... no one is watching you and there are no expectations... The best thing a startup can d…

A Review of the State-of-the-Art and an Emerging Research Agenda. "This special issue focuses on the relationship between innovation and open data, while the second special issue emphasizes research on open data related to transparency and open data policies. To realize the practical benefits of this transformative practice and to develop theor…