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Innovation's Nine Critical Success Factors

Harvard Business Review

a Boston-based innovation management collaborative. Your organization won't innovate productively unless some underlying factors are in good shape. A compelling case for innovation. Unless people understand why innovation is necessary, it always loses to core business or the performance engine in the battle for resources.

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Who is the 21st Century CEO?

In the CEO Afterlife

That’s because success for Page and Jobs hinged on the strategic choices they made – primarily which products and applications to bet on. Looking to the next 10 years of the 21 st century, there is no question that the business, social, political, economic and technological environment will be very different.

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Four Questions to Ask Before Scaling Your Business

Strategy Driven

I’m a big fan of scaling up innovative ideas and making sure they have as much impact as possible. A shockingly large percentage of startups fail because they fall in love with their technology or innovation and miss the fact that it doesn’t solve a problem for the customers described in Question 2.

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What Executives Don't Understand About Big Data

Harvard Business Review

Is big data there to provide a more innovative signal or a comfortable redundancy? A commitment to a desired business outcome is the critical success factor. Amazon's transformational recommendation engines reflect Bezos' focus on superior user experience rather than any innovation emphasis on repurposing customer data.

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The First Two Steps Toward Breaking Down Silos in Your Organization

Harvard Business Review

When we ask executives, What is the number one innovation killer at your company? , But it's bad when you're trying to innovate across departments and divisions. Innovation is the Trojan Horse that can be sent in to break down silos. Let's start with creating the compelling case for innovation. It gets things moving.

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Invest in Digital Marketing to Control Your Destiny

Harvard Business Review

His "Obama for America" fundraising , analytics and "get out the vote" operation was a masterpiece of agile electoral innovation and entrepreneurship. The Obama campaign's techniques, tools and technologies deserve detailed and dedicated attention from every organization that takes data-driven decisions seriously. They're right.

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A Tool for Balancing Your Company’s Digital Investments

Harvard Business Review

Note that whether the technology used is “leading edge” is secondary. They are essentially R&D investments in unproven ways to use digital technologies. They are driven by novel ideas or perhaps a new technology. For example, it might be a new business model shaped by digital. Implementation criteria.

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