Organize for Innovation: Setup the Externals

This post is the second in a series of two posts examining how an organization can set itself up to be innovative. Yesterday’s post looked at Google and internal attributes of an innovative company, so today’s post will use P&G as an example company and list some external organizational attributes that can make companies innovative

Organize for Innovation: Tweak the Internals

In today’s economy, it is important that businesses take great strides to survive and be profitable. The way that a business can do that is to be innovative in products and processes (Krell, 2009), and one way companies can be innovative is to setup their organizations to be innovative (Tushman & Nadler, 1986). Using Google and Proctor and Gamble as templates, a person can examine some internal and external organizational attributes that can make companies innovative. Today’s post will just cover Google and internal attributes of innovation.

Two Economic Issues in Virtual Worlds

The extensive connectedness of the Internet has allowed people to connect and communicate in various ways. This connectedness had given rise to virtual worlds and games that have allowed people to live virtual lives and take part in virtual consumerism, giving rise to economic markets. Some of the worlds are multi-user video games, like Blizzard’s World of Warcraft , which players interact to complete goals, socialize, or buy virtual goods. Other virtual worlds, like Linden Lab’s Second Life, are purely for socializing, exploring, and using virtual objects. The virtual worlds contain marketplaces of virtual goods, such as virtual clothes and furniture, purchased from online stores or auctions using virtual currency (however, most virtual worlds need real word currency to get started in the world, buying, selling, and earning virtual goods.) Just like the real world, virtual worlds experience economic issues all their own that require special consideration by the companies that run those worlds.

IFRS: A New Accounting Standard for the U.S.

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is a set of accounting standards that defines how to prepare financial reports for publicly traded companies (AICPA, 2008).  The United States is currently using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the SEC has approved a roadmap that would move the U.S. from GAAP to IFRS by 2014 (Epstein, 2008). IFRS is in use by about 113 countries, with Canada, India, Mexico, Japan, and the U.S. planning to go to it in the next several years.

2014

I’m a trends guy interested in predicting the future, so I’ve put together this post to help illustrate where some trends might end up 5 years from now. I was drawn to the year based on some research I’ve had to conduct for the U.S. GAAP to IFRS conversion for financial reporting for publicly traded companies.

So, here are my guesses for 2014.

Amateurs are the New Professionals

There is a major disruptive force going on in our world today, and it involves a do-it-yourself behavior on a large scale. Individuals are sharing home videos with the world, performing citizen journalism, and selling goods all via the Internet. Companies are getting into non-core lines of business in order to expand their reach; such as selling music online, offering data centers accessible over the web, and distributing other people’s software through their infrastructure. This subtle and large scale trend is amateurization: the empowerment of firms and individuals to provide goods and services that used to be the realm of a professional organization.

Keep Moving Forward

In the 2007 Disney movie Meet the Robinsons, young inventor Lewis Robinson is whisked away to the future where he meets his future family. Lewis learns that in the future, mistakes are welcomed and the risk takers are celebrated.  The celebration of mistakes is due to the persistent motto “Keep Moving Forward,” authored by the famed future inventor (and Lewis’s grown self) Cornelius Robinson.  The point of the motto is that discoveries can’t be made unless people take risks to develop new innovations.