alison gow's List: Innovation and industries

"Our emphasis should be on encouraging experimentation and collaboration in pursuit of successful innovation".

#ASNEchat: Ex-editors on What They Would Do Differently Now
Guest panel: John Robinson (Greensboro News & Record); Melanie Sill (Sacramento Bee and Raleigh News and Observer); Howard Weaver (Anchorage Daily News and McClatchy); Glenn Proctor (Richmond Times-Dispatch); Mike Fancher (Seattle Times). Host: Carole Tarrant, editor, Roanoke Times.

"Studying technology’s impact on a country’s economy is not a new concept. For the past decade, the World Economic Forum has been publishing the Global Information Technology Report (GITR), an annual assessment of how various nations are using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to impact development processes and increase global competitiveness.

In addition to monitoring the actual usage of technologies by individuals, businesses and governments from around the world, the 2011 report analyzed the “digital competencies” of 138 countries and assessed each nation’s readiness to successfully implement ICT to drive economic growth. Sweden and Singapore once again ranked first and second, respectively, holding their positions from the previous year."

"How do Apple, Google, and 3M continue to disrupt their markets? The truth doesn’t lie in common myths about visionary leaders or business strategy, but rather simpler truths"

Mark Potts, commenting on Robert Niles' blog in 2009 re parallels between news industry disruption and Disney's wilderness years " ...[the] dark period in Disney's history, the years between Walt's death and Michael Eisner's ascendancy (roughly 1966-1984). I covered the company in the tail end of that era, and Disney was as lost at sea as any newspaper company is now. Just like most newspaper companies today, it was plagued by a lack of imagination, fear of innovation, lousy management and bureaucratic morass--compounded by a paralyzing "What would Walt do?" internal question that was posed for every idea (and almost always answered wrong).

While it's hard to imagine now, given Disney's dominance, the company was in dire straits in the early '80s and the subject of regular takeover and breakup speculation. It wasn't until Eisner--and more crucially, Frank Wells--came in as top management that Disney became the behemoth we know today.

Lesson to newspaper companies: It takes strong, bold, innovative, visionary leadership to move forward. And sometimes, no, often, that leadership has to come from outside."...

Borrell Associates, Inc | Clark Gilbert's Session at Borrell Associates' Local Mobile Advertising Conference 2010 - Dallas, TX

Clay Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and the world's most influential management guru according to the Thinkers50, lays out his landmark theory.

Digital First editors were asked: What obstacles do you face in getting things done?

"Newsquest Releases Five iPad, Iphone News Apps"

"Recognizing innovators sends other employees a powerful signal that innovation is something that the company greatly values. But employees will be reluctant to take the risks inherent in innovation unless they know that their leadership team is willing to accept a certain amount of failure as an inescapable component of the innovation process. At Dow Chemicals (#19), risk-taking is not only accepted, it is encouraged, which helps the company to stay agile and innovative. Dow evaluates its leaders not only in terms of customer value, but also taking into account whether they are leading courageously, whether they are collaborating themselves and whether they are encouraging collaboration among others. "

"“Strategy lives in delivery – not in meetings” – Leisa Reichelt"

This is from Martin Belam's liveblog of Confab 2013. This point, by Leisa Reichelt, is one of the most strikingly memorable - and true - things I've come across for a while. For anyone who has ever said they want "a more strategic role" or to "become more involved with strategy making" this, more than anything, sums up what matters. 
Crafting strategy is a pretty straightforward thing compared to the implementation of it. Delivering strategy in the Real World is one of the most challenging, difficult things, a manager can face. 

According to Ericsson, mobile data traffic will grow 12 times between now and 2018, driven largely by video. Mobile is soon going to be as big as fixed line internet access and it won't be long before it is the primary way audience access the web.