innovationzen.com Blog » Innovation Quotes

Innovation Quotes: Think Globally

Daniel Scocco — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:04:36 +0000

If the flattening of the world is largely (bur not entirely) unstoppable, and if it holds out the potential to be as beneficial to American society in general as past market evolutions have been, how does an individual get the best out of it? What do we tell our kids?

My simple answer is this: There will be plenty of good jobs out there in the flat world for people with the right knowledge, skills, ideas, and self-motivation to seize them. But there is no sugar-coating the new challenge: Every young American today would be wise to think of himself or herself as competing against every Chinese, Indian, and Brazilian. In Globalization 1.0, countries had to think globally to thrive, or at least survive. In Globalization 2.0, companies had to think globally to thrive, or at least survive. In Globalization 3.0, individuals have to think globally to thrive, or at least to survive.

(Thomas Friedman – The World Is Flat)

Innovation Quotes: Connect and Collaborate

Daniel Scocco — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:18:09 +0000

“As the world starts to move from a primarily vertical — command and control — system for creation value to a more horizontal — connect and collaborate — value creation model, and as we blow away more walls, ceilings and floors at the same time, societies are going to find themselves facing a lot of very profound changes all at once. But these changes won’t just affect how business gets done.

They will affect how individuals, communities, and companies organize themselves, where companies and communities stop and start, how individuals balance their different identities as consumers, employees, shareholders, and citizens, how people define themselves politically, and what role government plays in managing all of this flux.”

Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat

Innovation Quotes: Diversity

Daniel Scocco — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 22:15:44 +0000

I am a New Economy fanatic. Thence a Creativity fanatic. Thence an Intellectual-Capital fanatic. Thence … a … DIVERSITY fanatic.

Doest that mean I’m an Affirmative Action fanatic? Not necessarily. And in any case, that’s beside the point.

What is the point? It’s really quite simple: Creativity and Great Leaps Forward come from… mix/match/mess. That is, all kinds of people providing all kinds of ideas that crazily bounce against one another… and cause a lot of chaos… and eventualy cause a Great Idea to emerge… that… changes the world.

(Tom Peters, Re-imagine!)

Innovation Quotes: Learning from the Market

Daniel Scocco — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:35:34 +0000

Marketing focuses on the needs of the customer, and therefore should begin with an analysis of customer requirements, and attempt to create value by providing products and services that satisfy those requirements.

The marketing mix is the set of variables that are to a large extent controllable by the company, normally referred to as the ‘four Ps’: product, price, place and promotion. All four factors allow some scope for innovation: production innovation results in new or improved products and services, and may change the basis of competition; production innovation allows some scope for premium pricing, and process innovation may result in price leadership; innovations in logistics may affect how a product or service is made available to customers, including distribution channels and nature of sales points; innovation in media provide new opportunities for innovation.

(Joe Tidd and John Bessant, Managing Innovation)

Innovation Quotes: International Trade

Daniel Scocco — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:56:21 +0000

Countries engage in international trade for two basic reasons, each of which contributes to their gain from trade. First, countries trade because they are different from each other. Nations, like individuals, can benefit from their differences by reaching an arrangement in which each does the things it does relatively well. Second, countries trade to achieve economies of scale in production. That is, if each country produces only a limited range of goods, it can produce each of these goods at a larger scale and hence more efficiently than if it tried to produce everything. In the real world, patterns of international trade reflect the interaction of both these motives.

Paul Krugman, International Economics