CPH127

Two days ago I asked a question on LinkedIN - “As part of a chief executive session I’m planning I’m in the search for books that describes the intersection between network economy, complexity, design, innovation, leadership, Enterprise2.0, web2.0 a. o.

To cut it short - what books should be on the shelf of the CEO if he/she want to learn about running a business in the 21. Century?”

After a few hours I got a tremendous response and a list of very interesting books - on the list is:

“The World is Flat”
The weblog of Jonathan Schwartz
“Innovation to the Core”
“Innovation and Entrepreneurship”
“Making it happen”
“Good to Great”
“Blue Ocean Strategy”
“Leading the Revolution”
“The Art of Innovation”
“The Future of Management”
“A Whole New Mind”
“Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity And the New Science of Ideas”
“The Breakthrough Company”
“Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder”
“Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google”
“Media Rules!: Mastering Today’s Technology to Connect with and Keep Your Audience”
“The Innovator’s Dilemma”
“The Innovator’s Solution”
“Mavericks at Work”
“Wikinomics”
“The Corporate Fool”
“The Goal”
“http://www.caro.cc/download/communitycommercenters.pdf”

Thank you very much to:

Frank Alex
Niti Bhan
Hannes Helander
Richard Auld
Kevin Paylow
Charles Caro
Jens Galatius
Peter Bysshe
Mike Slevin
Luiza Nadolska
Ionel Roiban
Tim Merrick
Peter Flentov
Sabina Podjed
James Finister
Alexander Osterwalder

It there a book missing?

I saw this presentation the other night and I must say it moved me deeply…..

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

Few weeks ago the online version of the economist included the following figure on membership growth of facebook. It appears that growth rates have somewhat peaked.

Do you agree, do you see the same movement? I my self got my FB-profile 5 months ago, and I must admit that I got one because of curiousness, and because a few clients asked me about the potential. Do you have a FB-profile? Why?

DesignLondon will develop, research and deliver radically new practices, tools and processes to transform the way businesses innovate, and translate their creativity into commercial success.

- Simulator - Teach - Incubator - Research

This new venture combines creativity and expertise in design from the Royal College of Art, engineering from Imperial College’s Faculty of Engineering and the business of innovation from Imperial College’s Tanaka Business School. It was established following the Cox Review: Creativity in Business that highlighted the need to stir together the scientific, engineering, business and creative design communities to enhance business and public sector innovation. Design London has four main pillars: creating new teaching programmes, conducting top-level research, incubating new business ideas and pioneering the next generation of innovation technology. It will deliver integrated design and business programmes for MBA and Masters of Engineering students at Imperial College, as well as for the MA students at the Royal College of Art.The innovation triangle blends design (represented by the Royal College of Art), engineering and technology (represented by Imperial College Faculty of Engineering) and the business of innovation (represented by Imperial’s Tanaka Business School). It has initial funding of £5.8 million from HEFCE and NESTA.

Read more at DesignLondon. Via. Royal College of Art News

Last week I went to a course on Complexity, Knowledge Management and future Innovation - gosh it was interesting. Maybe you already know Dave Snowden - a real thought-leader in that specific field. And he knows…

Nevertheless Dave and Cognitive Edge is on the track of something “new” and VERY interesting. The Cynefin-framework is outstanding when it comes to some sort of explanation of what is happening in the intersection between traditionel Knowledge Management, Technology and future growth and Innovation. As a true believer in proper use of Social Technologies - aka Web2.0 - internally in companies, I strongly believe that the flow of information between people is THE way to enhance innovation capacity, not by putting everything into a rigid data structure on a server.

Dave describes the development by setting up opposites:

Interesting - in Wemind we see that every day and try to advice our clients to move away from the old paradigm of thinking. It’s a tough call, a mental journey for most people.

Last week I was educated as a Accredited Practitioner in The Cynefin framework and I would love to have a conversation with you on how to cope with complexity in an internal organizational setting an still manage to make positive bottom lines.

If you are interested in further reading - and in Dave Snowden’ thoughts - you may be interested in these podcasts:

KM Australia 2007 Keynote
Jon Husband interview with Dave Snowden on Web 2.0
KM World 2007
KM Asia 2007 Keynote
Oil & Gas Exchange Houston September 2007

or the blogsposts:

Reporting on sin…
sense-making & path-finding
Safe-fail probes
Whence goeth KM?
Natural numbers, networks & communities
Volunteer not conscript
If the world is flat, seek out the bumpy bits
Good judgement comes from experiences. Experience comes from bad judgement
Confusing story telling with narrative

How to you see the challenges in management of today - is the cure to find in the books written around the time of the industrial revolution or is there by any chance new insights hidden in areas where we haven’t looked, yet? What do you think, and which implications does that have on our view on how to conceive business and companies?