There seems to be a great alternative: Work from Anywhere.
The world is changing dramatically — the pandemic and the subsequent lock-down enforced the rapid adoption of digital technologies bringing a direct impact on core aspects of work and life: education, learning, communicating, shopping, and, most importantly, working. The lock-down enforced new ways for people to provide services to companies (and to each other) — and most of these changes, are here to stay.
Until recently, working together in the same building for a fixed nine-to-five schedule has been simply the accepted norm — due to a number of reasons including convenience, easier monitoring and management of employees, and the lack of effective, mature collaboration technologies. Moreover, a certain corporate culture and managerial attitudes questioned the efficiency of ‘working from home’ — most of the companies wouldn’t encourage their employees to systematically work remotely. …
This month, in the Innovation Machine: A practical guide on how to empower the Innovation Function of your company during the lockdown. Also, a method to accelerate your ideation processes — by adopting a simple ‘idea model’ — and the key traits of Digital Product Leaders.
Innovation in Times of Crisis
How and why to accelerate innovation in times of crisis. I recently had the opportunity to speak to RGI in their first online innovation summit, where I shared my thoughts on ‘innovation in times of crisis’. In this article, I am summarizing the key points — and sharing the actual deck.
Accelerating the ideation process with the ‘Idea Model’
When ideating at scale, it is important to capture ideas using a shared, compact format. This article presents the Idea Model along with various examples of how to write effective executive summaries for your product or business concepts.
The 9 traits of a digital product manager
What makes a great product leader? What are the key qualities that lead to inspired teams and products that people love? …
How and why to accelerate innovation amid the pandemic.
I recently had the pleasure to speak to Really Good Innovation in their first online innovation summit, where I shared my thoughts on ‘innovation in times of crisis’. Here are the summary points — and the actual deck embedded in the following.
Why invest in innovation during times of crisis?
1. To increase your opportunity discovery bandwidth.
The world is changing rapidly and the ability to spot high-potential innovation opportunities, early enough, becomes a survival trait for businesses.
2. To improve the ‘state of mind’ of your company.
Innovation can strengthen the connection among employees and teams, it can fix the morale, the shared attitude.
How to empower innovation in times of crisis?
1. Make it more ‘available’
Provide all the innovation resources via digital means; make your innovation channel always-on.
2. Make it more ‘flexible’
Remove bureaucracies; Make your innovation process simpler, faster, and asynchronous. …
How Might We use the latest digital technologies to tackle the ‘Fake News’ problem?
Fake news and misinformation is a major problem of the modern, connected world. Although various forms of propaganda have been around for ages, digital ‘fake news’ is becoming a major threat, partly due to the ease of creating, diffusing, and consuming content.
False or misleading stories can be easily created and diffused via the global online networks — in a matter of a few clicks. Fake stories become part of the personalized, endless feeds that people consume on a daily basis. …
A chain of ideas ‘written in stone’ on blockchain — in the context of Open Innovation. A global platform for publishing ideas, empowering collaboration, and contribution.
I genuinely believe in ideas. Great ideas energize and inspire people; they can transform teams, products, companies, or even societies; they can bring fresh views to complex problems; they can reshape strategies and shed light on unexplored areas.
Yes, ideas alone cannot change the world or build business empires. In practice, even the boldest of ideas can be forgotten, abandoned, or fail due to poor framing and/or execution. To drive results and bring impact, great ideas also need exceptional execution which usually involves a massive effort and collaboration across various teams and, in some cases, organizations.
However, every initiative starts with ideas. It is some great ideas and their potential that inspires individuals, businesses, scientists, and the entire world to move further. And this was the source of inspiration for a new kind of sharing platform: a place where people can articulate and share their concepts, in search of ‘attention’ from the ecosystem — other innovators, businesses, the startup world; communities, and the market. …
When ideating at scale, it is important to capture ideas using a shared, compact format. This article presents the Idea Model along with various examples of how to write effective executive summaries for your product or business concepts.
The problem with ideas in an innovation context is that they usually come in a wide range of formats and varying levels of detail and sophistication: Sometimes an idea is ‘expressed’ on a sticky note and put on the wall for ‘evaluation’. Often, ideas are documented and presented through lengthy and difficult-to-consume decks, that usually receive limited attention and engagement.
Ideators need a standard, compact way for articulating ideas quickly while innovation leaders need a stream of consistent, standardized ideas, expressed in a comparable way. …
A simple, yet powerful model for capturing and sharing business ideas — the ‘Idea form’.
Reflecting on more than two decades of innovation work, the weakest points of innovation programs usually refer to the lack of solid innovation definitions and tools. Innovation is often perceived differently depending on the point of view and the background of the observer. In the typical corporate environment, ideas flow in as lengthy decks or documents with no standard structure and associated processing mechanisms.
Ideators often have a hard time explaining their ideas with clarity — due to lack of time, tools, or due to limited experience and lack of guidance.
The following form — the Business Idea template- empowers innovators to articulate their draft ideas quickly, in a standard format. This consistent, short summarization also simplifies the circulation of ideas within the company — sharing, discovering, and consuming ideas within and between teams. Ideas that come in this form are far easier to attract attention by the right stakeholders and trigger meaningful business discussions. …
What makes a great product leader? What are the key qualities that lead to inspired teams and products that people love?
What are the key leadership qualities that inspire teams to build amazing digital products?
Building great products is a difficult and complex job — but also fascinating. It requires a bold vision and, at the same time, a strong connection with reality: successful Digital Product Managers are both visionaries and pragmatists — they are strategic thinkers and have the ability to see product opportunities when others are ‘lost’ in ambiguity.
In fact, I prefer using ‘leadership’ over ‘management’ in the context of digital product development: True Product Leaders don’t just manage a product; they envision great digital products and features out of the blue; they spot those critical differences between a superior product and an average one; they know how to build a software product from scratch — how to handle ambiguity and shape the scope; where to focus and how to prioritize features in a smart and strategic way. …
Large office buildings and corporate HQs will gradually lose their importance; they will be replaced by a network of smaller offices offering core services and allowing remote workers to occasionally get together, collaborate, and reinforce their business bonds; when they need to do so.
The lockdown accelerated (or even enforced) the adoption of digital technologies and impacted multiple aspects of modern life: education, learning, communicating, shopping, and, most importantly the ways of working. It is now proven that at least knowledge workers can work from anywhere — online teams can collaborate efficiently across a range of activities, tasks, and projects.
Assuming the right setup is there — technology along with a good team culture and communication practices — the actual work can be done at least as effectively as with the ‘on-premise model’. People often praise ‘remote work’ for allowing them to better focus on complex tasks by avoiding the noise and ‘randomization’ of the open-plan office space. …
How to Transform Your Organization into an Innovation Powerhouse
After years of conceptualizing, designing and synthesizing, my first book, The Innovation Mode, is now publicly available. The book takes a holistic view of corporate innovation — by examining the role of people, culture, technology, and processes: Innovation is seen as a fully integrated function that is powered by people and streamlined by technology. While it emphasizes the importance of culture, “The Innovation Mode” also presents how modern digital technologies can redefine the ways companies innovate.
PREFACE
At the time of writing, it is estimated that there are 4.5 billion active Internet users along with 30 billion connected devices. We live in an era of unprecedented access to knowledge, talent, and digital resources. Our modern times are characterized by a massive, ongoing transformation that impacts every aspect of human life — from education and healthcare to entertainment, travel, and transportation. In the business world, digital technology drives an equally dramatic impact by changing the way we work, how we build products, and operate services. …
