Innovation & Trends

Amazon's Bezos enters space race

By AFP. Cape Canaveral, Florida - The commercial space race got a little more crowded on Tuesday when the aerospace company Blue Origin, headed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, said it will begin launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, later this decade. After losing a bid in 2013 to lease a historic launch pad - where US moon missions lifted off in the 1960s and 1970s - t...

How marketing will change in 2015 - a creative forecast

 Jeff Beer, Co. Create: It's a new year and time for prediction and anticipation. How much mobile-first, e-commerce-driving engagement will you be programmatically integrating into your 2015 360 strategy? Marketing has made real, beyond-buzzword shifts over the past year in terms of recognition of the mobile, multi-device consumer, and the importance of creating compelling content, of ...

6 Ways to create a culture of innovation

Soren Kaplan. Reward employees with time to think, while providing them with the structure they need. Every organization is designed to get the results it gets. Poor performance comes from a poorly designed organization. Superior results emerge when strategies, business models, structure, processes, technologies, tools, and reward systems fire on all cylinders in symphonic unison.Savvy leaders sha...

The best 'Simple Innovations' by consumer products companies

Dan Gross. The consumer products industry has a lackluster track record for using technology in scrappy ways to help enhance the consumer experience. While there are some great examples of consumer companies using technology to enhance the product itself (e.g. Beyond Meat uses technology to replace animal protein with plant protein), or traditional CPG companies that have released products that in...

Samsung to focus on innovation - unveils six products

Itishree Samal. Korean electronics major Samsung, which on Friday unveiled six new products here, said it would focus on providing innovating technology."Innovation should be for everyone," said BD Park, president and chief executive officer of (Southwest Asia), Samsung, addressing the media at the third Samsung Southwest Asia Forum today."Relentless innovation and discovery are the key principles...

The drivers of innovation

Bruce Anderson. When we think of the word 'innovation,' the first concept that comes to mind is advances in technology. But how can innovation - in terms of better solutions, better products and better processes - be encouraged in any workplace? Innovation is a key lever for growth - a top strategic priority for many organisations as they shift from crisis mode to recovery mode. As economic and co...

Challenging open innovation

Robert F. Brands. Open Innovation is an effective method for gaining ideas from outside an organization, but in order to achieve long term sustained innovation, companies need to establish a structured repeatable process. Breakthrough innovations still have to come from within the company through hard work and consistent efforts. A great example of this is Procter & Gamble Co., which succ...

How innovative leaders maintain their edge

Hal Gregersen and Jeff Dyer. This issue marks our second year collaborating with Forbes to rank the world's most innovative companies based upon an innovation premium. Since last year's inaugural list was published, we're often asked: "Why are some companies able to create and sustain a high innovation premium while others don't?" While still in the early stages of an in-depth analysis of high- ve...

Canadian Innovation Commercialization Program

Bernadeen McLeod. The Canadian Innovation Commercialization Program (CICP) is a permanent government procurement program that is currently in their two-year pilot program. This Canadian Government support program will help businesses who are actively looking to commercialize their innovative products and services, thus bridging the pre-commercialization gap while supporting Canadian businesses. Th...

Sustainable innovation

Peter Cook. Alan South leads Solar Century, a company dedicated to bring novel and sustainable solar energy products to the world. He has a background working for IDEO, perhaps the foremost design innovation company in the World. I wanted to know how he has created a climate of innovation at Solar Century and his thoughts on creativity, design and the role of leadership in building an innovative e...

Microsoft Surface and innovation in the technology sector

Kayode Yusuf. The technology industry is in a constant state of flux and innovation is the key to survival in this sector; companies that want to stay on top of the game must constantly come up with innovative products, services and solutions that meets and exceeds the customer's expectations. Microsoft is the latest to do this by unveiling its new product, Microsoft Surface.Surface is a tablet wh...

America's lunchtime is changing

The Lempert Report. Lunchtime is evolving in diverse ways - shaping consumer behavior and affecting the sales approaches supermarkets may have to take.In workplaces, lunchtime is getting shorter and more on-premise so people can save time and do more.  Yet research has shown that eating at one's desk or in the company cafeteria or break room, carries its own germicidal risks:  HealthDay ...

4 Tips for gamifying your marketing plan

Darren Steele. The hype around gamification is fairly new, but the idea has been around for some time. In fact, badges and leader boards could be considered the new sweepstakes and loyalty rewards. And gamification is not just for major consumer brands and their tech-savvy 18-to-34-year-old demographic. There are examples where gamification in marketing has worked spectacularly for 50-year-old rur...

Apple faces tablet branding dilemma

The Associated Press, New York. Apple is on the verge of doing what few others have: change the English language. When you have a boo-boo, you reach for a Band-Aid not a bandage. When you need to blow your nose, you ask for Kleenex not tissue. If you decide to look up something online, you Google instead of search for it. And if you want to buy a tablet computer, there's a good chance there's only...

Nine business trends that aren't going away

Scott Ginsberg, NametagTV.com. Last time I was in Florida, I passed a woman on the beach wearing a shirt that read: "Pregnant is the new skinny." While the shirt itself was pretty ridiculous, it inspired me to look around for other new trends and how they relate to business. Today we're going to explore a collection of trends that are here to stay.1. Inspire is the new motivateYou can't motivate a...

"The Wide Lens" explains how to innovate successfully

Nancy Weil, IDG News Service. For years, Ron Adner has heard about the same problems from clients with the same questions for him as an innovation consultant, chief among them being the age-old puzzle of why some seemingly great products fail while others succeed.How was Apple able to succeed with the iPod when other music players whose designs were just as interesting and that did all the same th...

Innovation sparks success

New Hope Media. Nutracon and Engredea, two focused ingredient and supply chain events in the U.S. nutrition industry, posted record attendance  last week (5/03/2012) at the Anaheim Convention Center. Nutracon and Engredea, co-located with Natural Products Expo West, are events devoted to innovation and next-generation product development across the healthy food, beverage, dietary supplement, ...

Toyota knocked off top spot

AFP. General Motors reclaimed its title as the world's biggest automaker on Thursday 19 January 2012, successfully emerging from its 2009 bankruptcy woes to overtake German giant Volkswagen and Japanese Toyota in the race to the top.The US giant sold 9.03 million vehicles globally in 2011, up 7.6 percent from a year ago, as it cashed in on a recovery in the north American market which delivered a ...

12 Marketing predictions for 2012

Brian Goffman. In 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype; Facebook's and Twitter's advertising platforms gained momentum; Google joined the social networking party with Google+; social became a mainstream component within search-engine results pages (SERPs); and Congress called for increased disclosure by companies providing location-based services.As 2012 follows on the heels of such events, what digital...

The Alan Knott-Craig MXit interview

Charl Norman. Alan Knott-Craig is likely the most talked about local Internet entrepreneur at the moment. After his tenure as MD of wireless Internet provider, iBurst, Alan moved to Stellenbosch and started a mobile applications investment company. Enter World of Avatar, consisting of approximately 14 mobile related businesses, some of which were launched and incubated from within WOA while others...

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