Q&A: John Hagel looks to drive innovation at Deloitte & Touche
109871
Author and consultant John Hagel talks about teaming up with John Seely Brown and Lang Davison to form a new technology and business strategies research center at Deloitte & Touche.
234931
InfoWorld - It doesn't take a genius to catch on to the fact that in IT, innovation is a mandate. Push the envelope of what's possible, or find yourself relegated to wayside. But, to borrow a favored David St. Hubbins Spinal Tap aphorism, there's a fine line between clever and crackpot when it comes to making good on technological breakthroughs in the enterprise.
157227
(InfoWorld) - Innovation may be tough to define, but the best way to encourage it is to get rid of industry regulations and trade barriers, a group of IT-focused analysts said Wednesday. The U.S. must do a better job of encouraging innovation, said panelists at an ACT (Association for Competitive Technology) forum. But the speakers didn't all agree on how to accomplish that goal. Despite many U.S. lawmakers recently trumpeting their innovation agendas, the problem is that no one has a good way to define and copy innovation, said Veronique de Rugy, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "We know what it does, but we don't know what it is." ACT, an advocacy group representing small and medium-sized IT vendors, released a report on Wednesday calling for the U.S. government to embrace three policies to promote innovation: robust intellectual property protection, market-based international trade, and minimal competition regulation. Countries enacting those three policies, including the U.S., have created the best environments for innovation in the IT industry and other sectors, said Steve DelBianco, ACT's vice president for public policy. DelBianco decried efforts in other countries to block imports of U.S. technology. Countries like France and Norway,Â which have complained about how Apple has tied its iTunes music download service to its iPod player, are attempting to regulate an innovative service for the benefit of a handful of local vendors, he said. Many countries are looking for ways to cultivate innovation, he said. "The answers they seek will not be found in protectionism and centralized industrial policy, but in creating an environment that rewards innovations and embraces competition," he added. While ACT called on governments to take a deregulatory approach to trade and competition, it asked the U.S. and other governments to take action to protect its members' intellectual property. One major problem is the U.S. government doesn't see the large picture when other countries act to stifle U.S. products, said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation think tank. The U.S. reacts in a piecemeal fashion with trade complaints, but it doesn't seem to recognize that tariffs may be part of a national policy against U.S. products, he said. During a recent visit to India, Atkinson told IT leaders there that they depend on the U.S. to fuel their outsourcing industry, but the country maintained the second highest tariff worldwide on the import of U.S. computers. Indian leaders disputed Atkinson's numbers. Atkinson suggested the U.S. government shouldÂ take more action in pointing out such trade imbalances. "I think we're falling asleep at the switch in the U.S.," he said.
550302
In this audio podcast, David Weinberger interviews the founder of the travel search engine about the future of aggregated data and vertical searches.
411706
Looking for a formula for simplicity? Talk to the director of MIT Media Lab's Physical Language Workshop. He'll tell you to lose the obvious and put Steve Jobs in charge of your company. Wired News interview by Kim Zetter.
187504
(InfoWorld) - What struck Microsoft executive Marshall Phelps at a recent series of conferences in developing nations was that government, business and academic leaders often asked him, "How can we invent the next Google?" It's not that he took it as a slight that they said "Google" and not "MSN." What struck him was the view that a single big idea could transform a country overnight. "Not everything has to be the next big breakthrough," said Phelps, the company's corporate vice president for intellectual property, during an interview last week. The key to building a prosperous economy is to create an environment that supports innovation, he said. Innovation can take place at a piecemeal pace and does not have to happen in one fell swoop -- and usually, it doesn't. Phelps had just finished a series of conferences on innovation cosponsored by Microsoft in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The idea was to bring together national leaders and help them figure out how to encourage innovations that play to the strengths of their countries, and how to create an environment to ensure that innovation continues. For example, Phelps said, in Indonesia many people are artistic, and the country has started to focus this talent on visual multimedia software. A drawback for the country is that around 65 percent of college graduates go abroad to find jobs. In Thailand, government agencies tend to be aggressive and forward thinking, and that can help strengthen a number of industries. Medical tourism is booming there, and Thailand is growing into an automobile titan in Asia. Innovation can occur in any of these industries -- especially with software, Phelps said. The idea of drawing on local strengths can be applied to the U.S. too, said Bob Hayward, a managing consultant in Thailand with Strat-etech Consulting Co. Ltd. The U.S. software industry is a by-product of a business environment that relies heavily on new technology for efficiency. "You must work with what's in your environment," Hayward said. Malaysia is the most advanced of the three countries Phelps visited. It has high-tech parks and attracts investments from global technology companies, which in turn support innovation locally by providing training and engineering jobs that increase the skills of the work force. Malaysia also has strengths in building data centers, and in "Islamic finance," a type of financing that does not charge interest for religious reasons. South Korea is one country in the region that has developed so far in recent decades that it is now a technology leader in some areas. It's years ahead of other countries in certain types of Internet applications because of its early focus on broadband. Its online gamers are famous, and a host of multiplayer games developed there, such as "Guild Wars" and "The Legend of Mir 2," have won acclaim outside Korea. Many poor nations are still struggling to adjust their economies to the modern world, and they are often wary of solutions proffered by rich nations and multinationals. The innovation conferences give Microsoft a chance to meet local officials and try to win their trust. It gets other benefits too, such as boosting its image and giving it a chance to discuss issues that are important to the company, like intellectual-property enforcement. The countries where the conferences were held certainly face hurdles to innovation. They are still largely agricultural, and are moving into heavier industries, where less money is traditionally spent on research and development. Intellectual-property rights are not strongly enforced, meaning inventors see their products copied in the local market, making it hard for them to expand in their country, much less internationally. Such countries may have intellectual-property laws on their books, often enacted to meet the criteria of trade deals, but enforcement of those laws moves slowly. "Once R&D is near or approaching 1 percent of a country's gross national product, then their enforcement of IP gets very serious," Hayward said. Another hurdle is the lack of a "culture of failure" in Asia, Phelps said. Government and business leaders need to be realistic that some companies and some products will fail. Governments often provide resources to keep companies afloat artificially because, they fear, if they fail it will reflect badly on their development policies. There is also a debate in many countries over which economic model to follow, and how to create a modern nation without losing cultural identity. While these are sensitive issues, several countries, such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, have found ways to develop while maintaining their cultural roots. The best economic model is "not a mystery," according to Hayward. "We kind of know what works and what doesn't." For him, capitalism, for all of its faults, is the best economic system available. The next step for Microsoft is to arrange more meetings and create better coordination between government officials and local Microsoft offices, Phelps said.
633762
By Krell, Eric  IN THE BUSINESS WORLD, TECHNOLOGY MATTERS-EVEN IF SOME HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL THOUGHT LEADERS MIGHT SAY, OR WRITE, OTHERWISE.
698959
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, a  Vietnam War veteran and outspoken critic of the  administration's strategy in Iraq, said on Monday he would make  a decision on a 2008 run for the White House later this year.
497596
At the Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT in September, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos gave a keynote talk on the slew of new and innovative Web services his company has recently launched. His discussion of MTurk, S3, and EC2 held no surprises for me, or for readers of this column and of my blog. But one of the questions posed by an attendee, in the Q&A period following Bezosâ talk, was a stunner.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
191492
The auction site's new senior director of platform and innovation tells about developer plans the Disruptive Innovation team.
389249
K. Ananth Krishnan has a hard enough job handling the technology requirements of a global IT consulting behemoth with 89,000 globally dispersed employees and 34 to 35 percent annual growth. But as an avid follower of Clayton Christensen, author of the classic business book "The Innovatorâs Dilemma," he would never be content to merely stay on top of things. Innovation is part of his regular diet.
516876
(InfoWorld) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on politicians, business leaders, and researchers to cooperate more closely in helping the country secure a leading position in the global IT sector and pledged money to support collaborative efforts. Speaking at Germany's first-ever IT summit on Monday, Merkel said communications and telecommunications companies need to hook up with the country's traditional heavyweights such as the automotive and chemical sectors and collaborate more intensively in the area of software engineering. Already today more than half of the innovations in the automobile industry are based on software. The Chancellor pledged â¬1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) in grants over the next three years to support innovation in Germany's IT sector. The funds will come from the federal government's â¬15 billion high-tech investment program approved earlier this year. But Merkel was quick to add that in the future, industry grants should be carefully targeted and not simply "poured out of a watering can." Germany has seen its strong tradition of technological innovation steadily wane over the years, due in part to high labor costs that have deterred investment and declining university standards that have caused a brain drain. The country claims a number of IT achievements, including the Zuse, seen by some as the first freely programmable computer, and the MP3 audio compression algorithm. SAP Chief Executive OfficerÂ Henning Kagermann was blunt in his assessment of Germany's IT standing. Although the communications and telecommunications sectors combined employ around 800,000 people and generate annual revenue of around â¬150 billion, making it the country's largest industrial sector, "in a global comparison, we are not a leader and, even worse, we are falling behind," he said. In addition to funds, the government initiative calls for immigration policies designed to attract talented researchers from around the world, and grants to keep gifted students in the country.
419712
Microsoft CEO Bill Gates gave a glimpse of his future as a philanthropist in a speech in Switzerland on Thursday, calling for a new kind of &quot;creative capitalism&quot; from businesses to help improve the lives of the world&#39;s poorest people.Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gates challenged companies worldwide to work with governments and nonprofits to find ways to be charitable and solve the problems of the poorest people without sacrificing their own business needs.&quot;We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve the wealthier people serve poorer people as well,&quot; he said, speaking via a webcast from Switzerland.The idea of creative capitalism combines the &quot;two great focuses of human nature -- self-interest and caring for others,&quot; Gates said. By keeping in mind business acumen, corporations can find new and innovative ways to solve major problems for 1 billion of the world&#39;s poorest people, who don&#39;t get enough food or don&#39;t have drinking water or reliable access to medication, which the rest of us take for granted, he said.&quot;This system driven by self-interest is responsible for incredible innovations that improve lives,&quot; Gates said. &quot;But to harness this power to benefit everyone, we need to refine the system.&quot;Gates plans to retire from full-time duties at Microsoft in July and devote most of his time to The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic organization he runs with his wife.Gates acknowledged Thursday that profits may not always be possible when companies try to serve the poor, so corporate leaders should change their thinking and not expect that they must make money from new business models around philanthropy. Rather, recognition for the good it does in the world should be enough for a company to take an interest in serving others, because that recognition also has business value.&quot;Recognition enhances a company&#39;s reputation, appeals to customers and attracts good people to an organization,&quot; he said. &quot;In a market where profits aren&#39;t possible, recognition becomes a proxy for profit.&quot;In a question-and-answer period following his speech, Gates said that rather than having goals that are too lofty, companies should focus on the businesses they know -- whether food, drugs, media, or technology -- to work with governments in developing countries to bring resources to the poor.He cited an example of an unnamed Dutch company, sharing its rights to a cholera vaccine to provide the medication to Vietnam for less than $1 a dose, as an example of a company leveraging its core business to bring much-needed resources to the developing world.Gates also mentioned the Red campaign as an example of creative capitalism. The campaign, supported by companies such as the Gap, Motorola, and Armani, was born out of a late-night bar conversation he had with Bono of the rock band U2, according to Gates.The Red campaign gives portions of profits from products sold to raise money for disease treatment programs in Africa. Earlier this week, Dell and Microsoft said they will sell special crimson-red versions of the XPS line of computers as part of the program. To date, Red has provided $50 million to a global fund for treating AIDS and malaria, and nearly 2 million people in Africa are receiving &quot;life-saving&quot; drugs today, Gates said.Prior to the Dell announcement, Microsoft already had been putting Gates&#39; idea of creative capitalism in practice through programs such as &quot;Unlimited Potential,&quot; which aims to promote technology skills and bring computers to emerging markets.Business leaders are not the only ones who will have to change the way they think to put creative capitalism into practice, Gates said. NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) also must be more open-minded about working with businesses to come up with new ways to serve the poor.&quot;Once upon a time the NGOs had a bad attitude&quot; about working with businesses, because they would expect too much from companies and, as a result, companies that worked with NGOs often ended up with their reputations tarnished, he said. While &quot;there is still some of that, the attitudes of both NGOs and the private sector have improved quite a bit,&quot; Gates said.
672797
Two years ago,I publicly floated the concept that IT should start thinking more like entrepreneurs. What a disaster! I was speaking at a meeting of CTOs, and I mentioned that Iâd heard of a few IT departments that were focusing, at least in part, on creating saleable new products and services for their companies. I asked the group what they thought of the idea.
535224
perspective More people should follow the lead of Microsoft's co-founder in freeing up innovative thinkers to help the developing world, and not just cause it feels good.
472928
The 2004 Finance Forum is focusing on the theme: âThe bank of the future - strategies for increasingly competitive marketsâ. The event comes at a time when Europeâs major banks are exploring the idea
39418
Blog: At iMeme conference, CEO sidesteps questions about how much his predecessor had to do with company's success.