The Innovation Ultimatum


Book Description

Prepares leaders for the 2020s—an accessible guide to the key technologies that will reshape business in the coming decade Most businesses identify six key digital technologies—artificial intelligence (AI), distributed ledgers and blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous machines, virtual and augmented reality, and 5G communication—as critical to their relevance and growth over the coming ten years. These new disruptive technologies present significant opportunity for businesses in every industry. The first businesses to understand automation and these transformative technologies will be the ones to reap the greatest rewards in the marketplace. The Innovation Ultimatum helps leaders understand the key technologies poised to reshape business in the next decade and prepare their organizations for technology-enabled change. Using straightforward, jargon-free language, this important resource provides a set of strategic questions every leader will need to ask and answer in order to prepare for the impending changes to the business landscape. Author Steve Brown shares his insights to help leaders take full advantage of the next wave of digital transformation and describes compelling examples of how businesses are already embracing new technologies to optimize operations, create new value, and serve customers in new ways. Written for anyone that wants to understand how automation and new technology will fundamentally restructure business, this book enables readers to: Understand the implications of technology-driven change across industrial sectors Apply important insights to their own business Gain competitive advantage by implementing new technologies Prepare for the future of work and understand the skills needed to thrive in a post-automation economy Adopt critical digital technologies in any organization Providing invaluable cutting-edge content, The Innovation Ultimatum is a much-needed source of guidance and inspiration for business leaders, board members, C-suite executives, and senior managers who need to prepare their businesses for the future.




Innovate the Future


Book Description

A Proven, Step-by-Step Method for Consistently Creating Revolutionary Products, Services, and Processes When it comes to entering, creating, or dominating markets, disruptive innovation is the most powerful tool you have. Unfortunately, most companies find disruptive innovation difficult to achieve and virtually impossible to replicate. In Innovate the Future, renowned technology innovator David Croslin helps you solve this problem once and for all. Croslin introduces a proven process for consistently creating inventions, technologies, and methods that are truly transformative. Drawing on his unsurpassed experience leading innovation in organizations ranging from start-ups to the Fortune® 20, Croslin identifies structured steps for optimizing the entire innovation lifecycle. Then, using real examples and case studies, he shows how to apply these steps to Innovate from Scratch: Identify a new market, and invent and deliver a successful product Innovate to Dominate: Maintain a position of market dominance Innovate to Conquer: Replace a current leader Innovate to Disrupt: Use new inventions to power your way into emerging markets Innovate the Future is an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to drive more strategic value and profit from innovation: CxOs, strategists, entrepreneurs, R&D leaders, product and line of business leaders, and investors alike.




Iconic Advantage


Book Description

Modern business gurus all cry for the need to innovate, to disrupt, and to act like a startup. It’s hard to argue with that kind of thinking. It’s sexy and exciting. But it’s wrong. Too many businesses become enamored by shiny new objects and end up overlooking the value locked away in their existing products. Maybe your business is one of them. Iconic Advantage® is a different approach that allows companies to leverage what they already have to create lasting differentiation and deeper relationships with their customers. It generates disproportionate levels of profit and protects you against market fluctuations. Many of the world’s most successful brands have been using it for years. Now, you can benefit from reaching iconic status, whether you’re a Fortune 500, local pizza parlor, or an aspiring Unicorn startup. “Soon has an uncanny ability to take mysteries and turn them into heuristics. He’s done it on innovation and design, and now with Iconic Advantage.”—Roger Martin, author of Playing to Win and Former Dean of the Rotman School of Business “This book explains why some brands are built to last and others seem doomed to perish. It’s a framework that every marketer can put into play right away.”—Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option B with Sheryl Sandberg




From Incremental to Exponential


Book Description

“This timely book reminds us that innovation is agnostic about where it's created.” —Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft Over and over, we see big legacy businesses getting beaten to the punch by energetic little start-ups. It seems like innovation can come from only the bottom up or from the outside in. But tech experts Vivek Wadwha and Ismail Amla are here to tell you that “big equals slow and stodgy” is a myth. Based on decades of experience working with both the world's leading brands and disruptive start-ups, this book explores the opportunity legacy companies have to create new markets, supercharge growth, and remake their businesses by combining the mindset and tool belt of start-ups with the benefits of incumbency: boatloads of customer data, decades of brand equity, robust distribution channels, enormous financial assets, and more. Wadhwa and Amla go deeply into why the pace and dynamics of innovation have changed so dramatically in recent years and show how companies can overcome obstacles like the Eight Deadly Sins of Stasis. Equally important, they provide a playbook on how to use their insights in your own company, team, or career. This fast-paced, anecdote-rich story rethinks modern innovation—a book every manager, executive, and ambitious employee will want to read.




Hacking Leadership


Book Description

Hacking Leadership is Mike Myatt's latest leadership book written for leaders at every level. Leadership isn't broken, but how it's currently being practiced certainly is. Everyone has blind spots. The purpose of Hacking Leadership is to equip leaders at every level with an actionable framework to identify blind spots and close leadership gaps. The bulk of the book is based on actionable, topical leadership and management hacks to bridge eleven gaps every business needs to cross in order to create a culture of leadership: leadership, purpose, future, mediocrity, culture, talent, knowledge, innovation, expectation, complexity, and failure. Each chapter: Gives readers specific techniques to identify, understand, and most importantly, implement individual, team and organizational leadership hacks. Addresses blind spots and leverage points most leaders and managers haven’t thought about, which left unaddressed, will adversely impact growth, development, and performance. All leaders have blind-spots (gaps), which often go undetected for years or decades, and sadly, even when identified the methods for dealing with them are outdated and ineffective – they need to be hacked. Showcases case studies from the author’s consulting practice, serving as a confidant with more than 150 public company CEOs. Some of those corporate clients include: AT&T, Bank of America, Deloitte, EMC, Humana, IBM, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, PepsiCo, and other leading global brands. Hacking Leadership offers a fresh perspective that makes it easy for leaders to create a roadmap to identify, refine, develop, and achieve their leadership potential--and to create a more effective business that is financially solvent and professionally desirable.




Collaborate Or Perish!


Book Description

Shares field-tested, streetwise advice by an NYC and LAPD police commissioner and a Harvard professor on how to share information and collaborate across groups, businesses and industries, outlining strategic arguments on the benefits of effective networking in today's connected world.




Engineering a Better Future


Book Description

This open access book examines how the social sciences can be integrated into the praxis of engineering and science, presenting unique perspectives on the interplay between engineering and social science. Motivated by the report by the Commission on Humanities and Social Sciences of the American Association of Arts and Sciences, which emphasizes the importance of social sciences and Humanities in technical fields, the essays and papers collected in this book were presented at the NSF-funded workshop ‘Engineering a Better Future: Interplay between Engineering, Social Sciences and Innovation’, which brought together a singular collection of people, topics and disciplines. The book is split into three parts: A. Meeting at the Middle: Challenges to educating at the boundaries covers experiments in combining engineering education and the social sciences; B. Engineers Shaping Human Affairs: Investigating the interaction between social sciences and engineering, including the cult of innovation, politics of engineering, engineering design and future of societies; and C. Engineering the Engineers: Investigates thinking about design with papers on the art and science of science and engineering practice.




Innovation and Economic Crisis


Book Description

The recent financial and economic crisis has spurred a lot of interest among scholars and public audience. Strangely enough, the impact of the crisis on innovation has been largely underestimated. This books can be regarded as a complementary reading for those interested in the effect of the crisis with a particular focus on Europe.




The Designful Company


Book Description

Part manifesto, part handbook, THE DESIGNFUL COMPANY provides a lively overview of a growing trend in management–design thinking as a business competence. According to the author, traditional managers have relied on a two-step process to make decisions, which he calls “knowing” and “doing.” Yet in today’s innovation-driven marketplace, managers need to insert a middle step, called “making.” Making is a phase in which assumptions are questioned, futures are imagined, and prototypes are tested, producing a wide range of options that didn’t exist before. The reader is challenged to consider the author’s bold assertion: There can be no real innovation without design. Those who are new to Marty Neumeier’s “whiteboard” series may want to ramp up with the first two books, THE BRAND GAP and ZAG. Both are easy reads. Covered in THE DESIGNFUL COMPANY: - the top 10 “wicked problems” that only design can solve - a new, broader definition of design - why designing trumps deciding in an era of change - how to harness the “organic drivetrain” of value creation - how aesthetics add nuance to managing - 16 levers to transform your company - why you should bring design management inside - how to assemble an innovation metateam - how to recognize and reward talent From the back cover: The complex business problems we face today can’t be solved with the same thinking that created them. Instead, we need to start from a place outside traditional management. Forget total quality. Forget top-down strategy. In an era of fast-moving markets and leap-frogging innovations, we can no longer “decide” the way forward. Today we have to “design” the way forward–or risk ending up in the fossil layers of history. Marty Neumeier, author of THE BRAND GAP and ZAG, presents the new management engine that can transform your company into a powerhouse of nonstop innovation.




Innovation Strategy


Book Description

Innovation Strategy: Seven Keys to Creative Leadership and a Sustainable Business Model provides a blueprint for success in leading an innovation renaissance in your industry and organization. This book introduces the Six Step Collective Intelligence system and the Idea Accelerator software, ground breaking tools that will prepare you for the role of Innovation Strategist in the new global economy. This book reveals strategies for becoming a creative leader, developing an innovation ecosystem, and winning the future using best practice case studies. You will learn how to intentionally create disruption, inspire creative intelligence, design a sustainable business model, and harness the creativity of your stakeholders using collaborative technology. These tools will help you craft strategic foresight studies, commercialize technology, create new ventures, or reinvent your business model in a way that is attainable for organizations of any size, from small mom and pop businesses to the largest corporations and government agencies.