Hutch Carpenter
VP of Product at Spigit. Father of two young 'uns who misses running marathons. Living in San Francisco, CA, Hutch blogs @ I'm Not Actually a Geek.
On the Utility of Thinking in Terms of Jobs-to-Be-Done
In a recent post examining the future of retail, I used the jobs-to-be-done approach to break down the industry. And I’ve been using it more in other ways. It’s quite useful as a basis for innovation. The premise of the jobs-to-be-done approach is that it provides a much better basis for innovation. The focus is [...]
5 Social Business Truths
Meritocracy trumps hierarchy: Companies don’t get a “pass” on Wall Street or the London Exchange becauswe they’re been around way before new companies. Political candidates aren’t immune from beingf being upended when they don’t perform. Why should work be any different? Companies that focus on the meritocracy are focused on growth. Those that pay too much attention [...]
Four Innovation Insights Customers Provide
Customers, properly, have been having a renaissance of sorts in terms of business thinking. Peter Drucker famously espoused a very customer-centric business philosophy. Nowadays, social CRM represents the return of a customer-first orientation. Last year, Altimeter published the 18 use cases of social CRM. Included in those use cases were several that relate to innovation. [...]
Innovation Culture Eats R&D for Breakfast
Research and development is a mainstay of the innovation strategy for companies. And with good reason. R&D can invent new products and technologies that redefine markets. Think electricity, telephones, airplanes, semiconductors, the Internet. R&D can pave the way for whole new industries. Exciting, for sure! But there’s a problem. Too many companies treat R&D as [...]
Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 2011: Idea Management Enlightenment
We’re movin’ on up…. Last year, Gartner released its Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 2010. Idea Management, included in the analysis, was placed at the latter part of the Trough of Disillusionment. Tough name, although not as dire as it sounds. Rather, a transitional stage in the market evolution of a technology. Still, that part [...]
Is Google+ More Facebook or More Twitter? Yes
Quick, what existing social network is Google+ most likely to displace in terms of people’s time? Another Try by Google to Take On Facebook Claire Cain Miller, New York Times This isn’t a Facebook-killer, it’s a Twitter-killer. Yishan Wong, Google+ post A hearty congrats to Google for creating an offering that manages to be compared [...]
Getting Innovation Results from Our Cognitive Surplus
What is an organization’s most underused, most under-appreciated asset? Its brand? No, that’s well-utilized and appreciated. Its customers’ loyalty. Some would argue for that one, but it’s not a pervasive issue. Its distribution network? Not really. Its cash? No, CFOs take care of that. It’s their employees’ cognitive surplus. The stuff between their ears that [...]
Four reasons enterprise software should skip native mobile apps
The desire to “consumerize” mobile apps for their own sake is stoking today’s outsized enthusiasm with device-specific enterprise mobile apps at a time when HTML5 is right there staring us all in the face. Tony Byrne, Enterprise 2.0 B.S. List: Term No. 1 Consumerization The runaway success of the iPhone app store has demonstrated that [...]
Innovation Thrives between the Lines of Chaos and Control
Innovation killer #4: Create an obstacle course for ideas. Guaranteed way to kill the innovative spirit? Model your processes on Kafka’s The Trial or your typical parking clerk’s office. CIO Magazine, July 24, 2007 On the heels of the SpigitFusion release, I’ve had the opportunity to hear from a number of people on the topic [...]
Will Quorans Develop Enough Spine to Ensure Quality?
On Quora, this question was recently asked: Is the upvote bias towards more popular answerers a threat to quality on Quora? One answer caught my attention, and it’s one with which I wholeheartedly agree: I would say it’s very important for Quora users to use those voting powers to downvote answers by A-listers that are [...]
Three Pluses, Three Minuses of Quora as a KM System
Knowledge Management (aka “KM”) is a field that I don’t have personal experience in. It’s supposed to be practices, processes and systems where valuable knowledge of workers is collected and made available for others. KM continues to be an important topic for enterprises these days, but it also freighted with many failures and disappointments. Without [...]
Three Reasons Google Should Acquire Delicious from Yahoo
So the news is out. Yahoo plans to shutter Delicious, the largest social bookmarking site. Which is shocking, particularly among the tech savvy and socially oriented. Delicious is iconic for its application of social sharing and collective intelligence. Hard to believe Yahoo wants to shut it down. But wait…this doesn’t have to be the end. [...]
Have any companies successfully deployed game mechanics in enterprise situations?
Game mechanics are a popular subject these days. With good reason, as they have an important role in the future of participation and work. Which was covered here previously in Reputation and Game Mechanics Are the Future of Social Software. Seeing the uptick of game mechanics in leading edge consumer apps, curiosity not surprisingly turns [...]
Model for Employee Innovation: Amazon Prime Case Study
As more organizations expand the innovation mandate throughout their workforce, creating and maintaining an ongoing employee innovation program is critical. Sustainable innovation requires a process, not a haphazard, random luck approach. To that end, a useful model to follow is: The different activities address important aspects of innovation, from eliciting tacit ideas inside people’s heads… Read More
Using Open Innovation to Be Competitively Unpredictable
During a Twitter Q&A organized by open innovation thought leader Stefan Lindegaard, Psion Teklogix CEO John Conoley posted this: @johnCEOatPsionJohn Conoley we decided to embrace open innovation at #psion to be faster and comeptitively unpredictable September 2, 2010 5:08 am via TweetDeckRetweet How interesting is that? Using open innovation to be “competitively unpredictable”. I love [...]
