World record for the most innovations in a single experience?
A YouTube clip of Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page playing a slow soulful country music version of a classical Chopin prelude with jazz-style backing at London’s Royal Albert Hall accompanied by a giant church organ. He was using a guitar internally modified so that you could bend its B string by pulling down against its shoulder strap peg in 1983
Game-changing technology, no venture capital
Tractors, farm equipment, built at around one eighth the cost. Industrial equipment too. Superior design. Handmade quality. Problem? Investment. Solve it, and Jakubowski becomes a household word. That might just happen anyway.
How can we work like designers when we create business models?
Googlers get taught how to think more creatively about exploring business models. We mere mortals can sit and watch while guru Alex Osterwalder talks us through the ideas in his bestselling book
iij Top Ten Startup Weekend Videos
I had to work my way through an enormous number of clips to put this together, but I still only scratched the surface. I had to do it now, because soon, there are going to be just too many to even attempt this with any sense of purpose.
Extreme uncertainty over startups as a solution to everything
Startups attempt innovation under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Is it possible that we can find new ways to solve the world’s biggest problems using ‘extreme uncertainty’?
Unemployment, social media addiction and startup proliferation
What are the differences in social media activity when comparing employed and unemployed people? Would you take on a job that was underpaid and unattractive, start or join a fun but non-paying, penniless startup, anything so as not to have fewer social experiences to share online?
The iij Top Twenty Upcoming Social Media Books
What is the range of subject matter in our ‘spring collection’ of (weighty and in some cases expensive) Social Media volumes? Integration, culture, storytelling, journalism, transmedia, immersion, law, enterprise, strategy, teaching, meaning, creativity, identity, invention and belonging
The iij Top 10 Upcoming Agile Books
These titles aren’t available yet, but you may need to move quickly once they are. Agile software development may be rapidly moving into the mainstream, but that doesn’t mean the innovation in that field is slowing down
Banking: what’s coming next?
Where in the world are the next systemic bubbles? Can we conceive of interventions which might genuinely mitigate the risks? Are the biggest challenges to banking innovation technological, cultural, governance related, or socio-geographic?
Which UK universities offer innovation management degrees?
Management may be a ‘Cinderella issue’ in the innovation news space, eclipsed by social media, entrepreneurship and mobile technology. Nonetheless, academia is responding to growing industry demands for accredited innovation management capability
Customer Development. Trendy Phrase. Gimmick?
It doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia article yet (as at 2nd of February 2011). It came from someone called Steve Blank and a book from 2005, and yet it’s the hottest thing at all the top business schools. This video interview explains why
The most inspiring introduction to Open Science. Ever.
The video never went viral, probably because it has an unexplained ‘interlude’ after 42 minutes 57 seconds which makes it seem to end at a random point. This bizarre showstopping moment didn’t deter your intrepid iij innovation hunters (it actually resumes after about a minute of onscreen weirdness) from recognizing a gem and it certainly shouldn’t stop you watching it
The iij Top Ten Startup Books for the start of 2011
Shame on us for not managing to get a top ten startup book list out at the end of last year, but most of these titles are barely a month old. Some are obvious choices, but others are quite specialised and deserve more attention than they’ve received
Choosing Tech Careers: Biotech vs. Consumer Tech
Most of the consumer technologies of 20 years ago seem ludicrously primitive today, whereas, for many diseases, current biotech leaves us almost as powerless to prevent the suffering and death of millions today as we were generations ago. However, it still offers the tantalising prospect of unlocking nature’s technology, and potentially rendering all our diseases and current consumer tech obsolete
Clash of innovation news titans
An epic transatlantic on-air wrangle over Google’s future. Veteran BBC innovation investigator Peter Day vs. US prediction guru Mark Anderson. They each put up a characteristically robust performance. But who won? Whatever, it was riveting radio.
Criticism of the iij? Too many solutions, not enough new unsolved problems
Far too often, we only present problems when someone wants to talk about their solutions. So here’s a seriously problem-rich, solution-craving topic: The Economic Impact of Biodiversity
Corporations to integrate social into business in 2011
So says respected social media researcher Jeremiah Owyang. And he’s got the facts and figures to back up his claims. He also advises how to do it, how not to do it, and how to make money helping others do it.
The apps creators are on fire
So many ideas, all coming at you at once. Don’t expect these people to pour anything onto the flames but gasoline. iPad (and tablet) apps from a content creation perspective
We’re universities and we’re being globalized
The developing world has an insatiable hunger for everything our best universities have to offer. Are those universities doing enough to address this?
Who IS this guy?
Never heard of Oliver Kreylos? You will. He’s just transformed the Kinect from a hands-free game controller into a holographic camera. The demo blew many minds, quickly getting a million YouTube hits. He didn’t think it was that impressive: check out what he’s working on now
Next year’s innovation books
A carefully selected (but woefully incomplete) list of some fascinating titles that you can’t buy yet
Would replacing some bankers with meteorologists have prevented the crisis?
It wasn’t greed after all. Neuroscience shows that experts make illogical decisions when confronted with unprecedented circumstances, because experience can force you to unconsciously override logic in favour of your established beliefs. Experts in entirely unrelated fields need to be brought in on crucial decisions
Major study shows that most research is wrong
Question. Where would you expect to find an article with the title: “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”? Answer. On a US government website that publishes research findings.
Stop! Too much solar power!
Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic explosion. The grid can’t take it.
Tomorrow’s digital licensing: what are the issues?
If you bought into all the hubris about the ‘inevitable’ demise of charging for content, you might imagine that debating the future of licensing was pointless. Or just dull. Watching this might change your mind
Competing with Apple: what’s it like being Nokia?
Apple may have reinvented themselves as a phone company, but that doesn’t mean that Nokia can’t try to reinvent themselves too, so the question is this: what do they want to become?
Beyond incubation: the competence centre
Is this the answer to investor worries about incubator failure?
So you think you’re innovative enough: meet the new boss
Same as the old boss: I don’t think so; if you can’t demonstrate to her that you can truly innovate, don’t even bother applying for the job
The quango as heroic green knight?
Private equity hesitancy contrasted with prompt public funding of green innovation
Someone please tell me I’m not the only one!
This video about replacing yourself with a robot seriously creeps me out. But I still want to try it.
Are some things just too personal to share?
Your most private functions may soon not be quite so private
High hopes for high-rise horticulture
Vertical farmers offer their vision of the future in a video
A tale of two planes
Different dreams, startlingly brought to reality, but still mostly futuristic dreams for most of us
What’s stopping start-ups in the EU?
Are we making European start-ups abscond to the US?
The eCar guys that don’t build cars
Who are those guys? If they don’t build cars, what do they do? This short video tells you exactly what the eCar guys do.
Working with the Y (Why?) Generation
A battle to reinvent the way you see your workforce [Video]
Nanotech funding holds steady
European nanotech firms turned over €44 billion in 2009, according to industry body IVAM. Orders and sales volumes were down but funding held steady.