Are you struggling with where you can create a first mover market advantage in 2012? Before you choose, consider reading Booz & Co.’s newest “Global Innovation 1000″ report. It debunks the myth that there is a direct correlation between R&D spending and higher levels of innovation. These findings will help you determine where to invest your resources and grow.
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Dr. Al Vicere had an outstanding webinar last week. And the dialogue with Howard Morgan was fascinating. (We’re planning to post some of those questions and answers in weeks to come.) If you missed this valuable event, or would like to listen to it again, you can still register for a streaming feed of the recording. Al’s presentation began with a discussion of the incredible amount of societal change and economic pressure we’re encountering today. Socially, we’ve entered an era of frugality. Households, governments, and organizations are spending less. The US share of GDP is going to fall in the future. All of this has tremendous implications for business. At most organizations, leaders are tightening the belts, focusing on efficiency, trying to stabilize during terrible conditions, and also, preparing for the upswing to come. For leaders, it can be incredibly difficult to straddle those two directions at once. A theme emerged, one that would be emphasized over the next 90 minutes. Over at the Times a pair of bellwether articles. First, the news that Microsoft is shelving Encarta, its CD-Rom encyclopedia. After eclipsing the bound encyclopedia that was once a major purchase of striving families, the CD-Rom has itself succumbed to the search engine and dynamic sites like Wikepedia. Second, the news that Facebook is going open-source with the tools it makes available to members. The weakness of any networking site is that it binds members to its location – people and ideas outside of that realm don’t exist in a networking sense. Facebook is reading the tea leaves correctly. People want flexibility in their devices and their virtual communities. We wonder whether organizational learning strategies are keeping up with the spirit of the times. It may not seem as noteworthy as two railroad giants merging in the late 1800s, but we did see an interesting move in digital publishing yesterday:
Alas, the competition between the two services seemed promising, but Amazon probably recognizes better than most that when it comes to digital content, consumers want a good e-reader, but they also want flexibility to move between devices. Stanza and Kindle can actually sync your bookmark even when you use your iPhone and your Kindle to read the same book. This NYT article profiles Bradley Inman, a rare entrepreneur who combines Silicon Valley and New York publishing experience. His Vook.tv is a platform for embedding video and twitter feeds with text, a melding he thinks will be the natural evolution of the digital reader. Although many thrillers seem “film ready” even on the page, we’re less sold on the idea that fiction should be merged with video and other communication tools. But the idea of turning a business book into a box containing text, online tools, video-cast lectures, and Facebook-style interaction seems not only plausible but exciting. Open the book and the author pops out, along with a social network of other readers with whom you can share and exchange ideas.
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