“While most business leaders agree that innovation is essential, surprisingly few organizations have a system for innovation. Creativity and innovation may well be the fuel that drive an organization to greatness, but a system for implementing innovation is the rocket that will take an organization to the top. Lacking an effective system to carry it — innovation is just raw fuel left sitting unused. In order to effectively integrate an innovation system into an existing organization, we first have to view organizations in a new light.”

“I’ve been trying to take a balanced view of outsourcing. On the one hand, I want to acknowledge the market forces that are driving companies to outsource IT services offshore. On the other hand, I want to identify the risks, so that clients may understand what they are signing up for and make rational decisions. I am concerned that the benefits of outsourcing have been overhyped, while the risks generally have been minimized.”

“10. Big companies do not create jobs, and historically have not created jobs. Big companies are not ‘built to last;’ they almost inexorably are ‘built to decline.’”

“Fax machines and other champions of electronics provide some important lessons about how new technologies settle into our lives. The following are rules that turn The Next Wonderful Thing either into the Internet or Betamax of its generation.”

“We join volunteer organizations to help others. That doesn’t mean we can’t help ourselves, and our businesses, at the same time.”

“Marketing costs weighing you down? Here are 20 creative ways to boost business without breaking the bank.”

“Four winning companies demonstrate the true value of integration by achieving a single view of their customers and their data, saving time and money along the way.”

“These folks have joined me in investigating what really works, why it works, and what we can be doing to help others succeed. I’ve learned tremendously from interacting with my readers.”

“You’ve heard the expression that a picture is worth a thousand words. Great salespeople know that positive words can help them get a thousand sales… Your choice of words can promote positive feelings, encourage customers’ optimism, and lead to a sale. Using negative words can create fear, uncertainty and discomfort and, therefore, poison sales. Here are six examples of ‘poison’ words and their positive replacements.”

“…four years ago, it all came tumbling down. The stock market crashed; surpluses became deficits; world peace became endless, ephemeral war; and vaunted CEOs became convicted felons. Instead of utopia, we got bankruptcies, backbiting, bitterness, and a wholesale rejection of everything the New Economy stood for.”

“Read the whole article for the arguments of choosing to discuss things in public rather than in private… People prefer personal spaces: it feels more comfortable,†fast†and easy to ask personally, to have documents on your local drive or to search your inbox for copies of†corporate reports… Think of e-mail. E-mail is where knowledge goes to die.”

“Our third annual readers’ challenge generated more than 1,650 entries and 15,000 reader comments ó and 50 winners. From entrepreneurial monks to international artisans, their stories form an inspirational chronicle of creativity, struggle and triumph.”

“Xplana is a community of technologists and educators writing about technology and education. Our goal is to provide accurate insight and valuable resources for teachers, students, and administrators. We are committed to effective learning today, but are equally dedicated to understanding and envisioning the future landscape of education as it is affected by technological advances.”

“New research has shown that multi-tasking is counterproductive. Knowledge workers typically bang away at their word processors, answer phones, talk to colleagues all pretty much at once, but they may be wasting hours every day by trying to do too many things at once. So how are we meant to deal with information overload then? Dealing with one task at a time isn’t particularly flexible. Well, the flipside of multi-tasking is interruption, and thankfully someone in the United States Navy is taking interruptions seriously.”

“Finding out what customers want is a fundamental aspect of innovation. However, itís one of those things that is easier said than done. Customer surveys and focus groups have proven ineffective in most cases and bad data can be worse than no data.”