BIF Speak - Technology and Science
Best Practices in Social Networking: Best Buy's Blue Shirt Nation
Steve Bendt and Gary Koelling are two of the more unusual change agents you’re likely to come across. Laid-back hipsters with modest demeanors, they shatter the myth of typical change agents who are aggressive, decisive and demanding.
Yet somehow this duo managed to create something most established companies only dream of: real and informed employee engagement that cuts across boundaries, silos, departments and disciplines.
Bendt and Koelling are the creators of Blue Shirt Nation (BSN), a robust community of Best Buy employees who convene regularly to share knowledge, best practices, frustrations, aspirations and a few jokes. Community members include everyone from recent high school graduates to semi-retirees.
Best Practices in Social Networking: Best Buy's Blue Shirt Nation
Steve Bendt and Gary Koelling are two of the more unusual change agents you’re likely to come across. Laid-back hipsters with modest demeanors, they shatter the myth of typical change agents who are aggressive, decisive and demanding.
Yet somehow this duo managed to create something most established companies only dream of: real and informed employee engagement that cuts across boundaries, silos, departments and disciplines.
Bendt and Koelling are the creators of Blue Shirt Nation (BSN), a robust community of Best Buy employees who convene regularly to share knowledge, best practices, frustrations, aspirations and a few jokes. Community members include everyone from recent high school graduates to semi-retirees.
Changing Business Models: Clay Shirky on why media is a triathlon
Last weekend I was watching Costas NOW on HBO and heard a tirade against blogging like no other. Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights unleashed a fury against Will Leitch, editor of the popular sports news site DeadSpin.com. From bloggers' writing skills, to their ethics deficiencies to their lack of credentials, Bissinger believes our moral fiber is in jeopardy because of the dearth of consumer-produced sports media. “I think blogs are dedicated to cruelty, they’re dedicated to dishonesty, they’re dedicated to speed,” Bissinger said.
Design and the Elastic Mind
Follow-up to a blog entry a couple of weeks ago about the innovation and design exhibit at MoMA. Paolo Antonelli, the exhibits curator, appeared on the Charlie Rose show last week. Antonelli is an Italian-born, self-described "generalist." Watch the interview and you'll realize quickly how insightful she is too. During the hour-long talk, she descibes the bridging of science and design (developing comfort and trust between both parties is key) as well as the changing face of scale in 2008, the relationship of architecture and nanotechnology and the need to push designers toward "pragmatic intellectualism."
John Wolpert Joins BIF's Research Advisory Council
I'm thrilled to announce that John Wolpert has joined our research advisory council. He will also be a storyteller at the BIF-4 Collaborative Innovation Summit in October. John is an experienced practitioner of innovation having led IBM’s “Extreme Blue” business & technology incubator in Austin, Texas. Most recently, he was engaged by the Australian Industry Group to build an organization that helps innovators in different companies work together. Through John's stewardship, the InnovationXchange (IXC) evolved into a global organization with operations in the UK, the US and Australia.
An Artful Wink at Innovation + Design at NYC's MoMA
If you're in the area, New York City's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has a new exhibition about the future of innovation called "Design and the Elastic Mind."
The exhibition highlights many examples of successful translation of disruptive innovation, examples based on ongoing research, as well as reflections on the future responsibilities of design. Of particular interest is the exploration of the relationship between design and science and the approach to scale."Designers stand between revolutions and everyday life," explains the exhibition's introduction.
Meet a pioneer in surgical robotics and telemedicine: Dr. Richard Satava
I spent the holiday weekend with a close friend from Minnesota who is a physician. I happen to have a BIF-4 flyer lying around (ha-ha) and mentioned to my friend that Dr. Richard Satava was going to be one of our storytellers at the summit in the fall. Initially, the name didn't mean anything to her. Then I said he co-developed the first surgical robot. That's when her eyes lit up: "that's a serious game-changing surgical technology," she said.
I've profiled many storytellers over the years. Satava is prone to neither hyperbole nor rhetoric - but honestly, it's hard to tame down his story.
Irving Wladawsky-Berger on the LIfe-Cycle of a Business
This is well worth a read:
A Delicate Balance by Irving Wladawsky-Berger
Irving just wrapped up his first semester teaching at MIT and managed to succinctly condense thirteen, three-hour seminars into a nice post. The seminar was about technology-based business transformation and he examined how companies can leverage emerging, major technologies to significantly transform a business or even a whole industry. There are so many factors that go into developing a business based on technologies as broad and complex as the Internet and in his post Irving talks about the delicate balance that exists within the life-cycle of a business:
Rhode Island's Bid to Become Technology Hub
Staff reporter Carolyn Porco of the Boston Globe wrote a great article last week on Rhode Island and its emergence as a hub for technology and innovation. I have to give her props - she uncovered activities here in the state that I wasn't even aware of - which furthers our rationale that Rhode Island as a high-tech hub is more than just an aspirational goal, it's quickly becoming reality.
Meet MIT Tech Review's Innovator of the Year: David Berry
I first met BIF-4 storyteller David Berry last fall during a ‘Green Design’ symposium at the offices of Continuum in Boston. David is a principle at Flagship Ventures, a company well known for funding clean and environmentally sound technologies and he shared some mind boggling possibilities for the future. His firm is looking at everything from carbon nanotubes to solar quantum dots to synthetic biology. David is more than just a venture capitalist – he’s also an innovator with 44 patents under his belt. His talk highlighted some of the many untapped possibilities in the future of living green.
The TopCoder Business Model: Collaboration by Competition
When Dan Pink first introduced the concept of a free agent nation back in 1997, I wonder if he imagined a world where testosterone-driven, competitive collaboration would be the engine for a new free agent business model.
BIF-3 storyteller Jack Hughes is the founder and president of TopCoder, a Connecticut-based company founded in 2002 that has institutionalized programming competitions. These software competitions are a novel way to both showcase programmers from around the world for companies seeking top-flight talent, while at the same time develop computer applications for blue-chip clients who recognize TopCoder’s ability to tap a global talent pool.
Ringing in the new year with Anpan-man
Before the holiday, I wrote a blog entry about John Maeda's appointment as RISD's next president. John has maintained a blog for quite some time. And if you go back and read some of his earlier entries, you can tell he's been thinking a good deal about what it takes to be an effective leader. I want to share a portion of his entry from November 17th, Always keep a stock of spare heads which tells a delightful story of Japanese comicbook hero Anpan-Man.
Alph Bingham Joins BIF Research Advisory Council
Alph Bingham was one of my favorite storytellers from the BIF-2 summit. I'm so happy to announce that he has been appointed to our Research Advisory Council. Alph is the co-founder and President/CEO of InnoCentive, a Web-based community launched in 2001 that matches companies facing R&D challenges with scientists who propose solutions. His experience in developing new R&D organizational structures and new approaches to harnessing human intellect will be a tremendous benefit to our BIF community.
Clay Shirky Joins BIF Research Advisory Council
I'm thrilled to announce that Clay Shirky has joined our research advisory council. Clay is a writer, consultant and teacher who has spent years talking about the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. He teaches New Media as an adjunct professor at New York University's (NYU) graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). His courses address, among other things, the interrelated effects of the topology of social networks and technological networks, how our networks shape culture and vice-versa. His current course, Social Weather, examines the cues we use to understand group dynamics in online spaces and the possible ways of improving user interaction by redesigning our social software to better reflect the emergent properties of groups.
Memo to Established Companies: It's OK to Rewrite the Playbooks
Within the cubicle environments of most large organizations, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing change is difficult or that the rule book can’t be adjusted. In 2003, amidst the backdrop of corporate scandals like Tyco and Enron, Vice President of Corporate Communications David Yaun was part of an IBM Corporation management team driving a massive, company-wide dialog to identify the company’s core values.
The Hidden Tyranny of Transparency
"Every truly great accomplishment is at first impossible," said U.S. Homeland Security Under Secretary for research and development Jay Cohen to an audience of innovators at BIF-3 on October 11th. Prior to his post with Homeland Security, Cohen was head of naval research. His directive was very clear: make the navy more innovative. "When I took over naval research, it was an organization with 232 years of tradition unhampered by progress," he said.
Walter Mossberg and Jason Fried: Why are we stuck with bloated software crap like Outlook?
by Lois Kelly
That was Walt Mossberg’s opening question to 37 Signals founder Jason Fried at today’s BIF-3 Collaborative Innovation Conference. “I’ve never seen a software company figure out how to deal with feature creep,” said Mossberg. “Even Quicken has become a complete mess because a small percentage of enthusiasts keep demanding more and the software companies listen to them.”
Alexander Tsiaras, understanding the human body through novel understandable means by Adrian Chernoff
Wearing jeans, a suit coat, ...he likes things equally dramatic.
His breakthrough in thinking was to see into the body and not be fixed on the surface of the body. To get there he started learning programming languages to create 3-D spaces in the body, to see more into the body.
Jason Fried, Software biz kid talks about becoming a better cook by Adrian Chernoff
He begins with a quote from Thomas Edison “There ain’t no rules here, I’m just trying to accomplish something.”
Jason continues with, “I don’t build stuff that is real. I work in pixels. What I work with has no mass or weight.” That’s why he took on learning about how to cook.
IBM’s David Yaun Joins BIF Research Advisory Council
I'm thrilled to announce that David Yaun has joined our research advisory council. He will also be a storyteller at the BIF-4 Collaborative Innovation Summit in October.
David is Vice President, Corporate Communications at IBM and directs their global internal and external communications programs related to innovation and technology leadership. He’s also the lead executive responsible for the company’s annual Global Innovation Outlook (GIO) program. Launched in 2004, it was under David’s leadership that IBM took the unprecedented step of opening up their annual technology and business forecasting processes to the world. By gathering the company’s top researchers, consultants and business leaders, and arming them with the latest insight on emerging technical trends and socio-economic shifts, GIO is a platform upon which IBM’s entire ecosystem joins together to surface new and unforeseen opportunities for innovation.
BIF Research Advisor John Wolpert's Top Three Innovation Books
During the course of a recent conversation, BIF research advisor John Wolpert offered his top three innovation books of all time: Open Innovation by Henry Chesbrough, Radical Innovation by by Richard Leifer, Christopher M. McDermott, Gina Colarelli O'Connor, and Lois S. Peters and, probably most intriguing Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie. John calls it a "beautiful little book on innovation." Written by a Hallmark Cards executive, Orbiting the Giant Hairball is a first-person account of the continual tension between creativity and corporate inertia.
Thanks to the Men and Women Who Serve
Memorial Day is an important day of reflection for me. Baseball and barbecues aren’t bad either. I am grateful that so many American men and women choose to serve our country by serving in the military. We owe each of them our gratitude, respect, and support. I recently had the opportunity to see the amazing dedication and heart of our U.S military up close and personal. I was asked to participate in the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference (JCOC 75). It was an experience I will never forget.
Friday Linkage from our BIF community
Following are a few noteworthy blog entries from members of our BIF community reflecting processes of innovation which I don't think get enough attention these days: talent and trust.
Podcast with Communispace CEO Diane Hessan Now Available
Last month we were fortunate to welcome BIF research advisor and Communispace CEO Diane Hessan to our office for a memorable event with more than 50 friends of BIF to talk about the role of community in the social media landscape. In this edited podcast, Diane draws upon her own experiences. Since 1999 her company has created and managed more than 300 private online communities for clients such as Hallmark, GlaxoSmithKlein and Hewlett-Packard. Diane purposefully sidesteps the technology platform questions and instead provides us with unexpected insights into the development of Communispace. How do you build purposeful networks that foster strong relationships and long-term engagement? Some of her advice might just surprise you.
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