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Design thinking is a crucial business asset-one that can, indeed, move a company forward and improve the bottom line. To optimize this impact, Ryan Jacoby and Diego Rodriguez advise thoughtfully structuring the innovation process. They stress working on projects that improve people's lives, and they present a "ways to grow" model that helps managers direct and assess innovation efforts.

SAP, the dominant player in the corporate information systems industry, is apparently hitting a wall in face of radical innovation. First, the shift towards cloud computing seems to be very difficult to the company, although this slow transition could actually help its huge customer base move towards more modern systems without too many shock waves. Second, and probably more profound, SAP is finding it very difficult to change its internal routines and processes by embracing "agile" approaches to product development.

In India, where two-wheelers represent the most common transportation means, Tata Motors saw the need to come up with a safer kind of transportation. In addition to this safety issue, personal transport is also problematic because of the rare availability of public transportation . Therefore, Tata Motors introduced the People's Car, called the Nano. This disruptive product innovation will surely have significant effects on the small-car segment.

A bit of a provocation, but interesting. The idea is that adoption of e-health is hindered by the fact that the business model of health care institutions (i.e. hospitals and such) is to provide care, not to improve health. As such, the greater process efficiency induced by e-health systems would not benefit the very institutions who should invest for its adoption, and who instead make their money out of current inefficiencies. The reader comments at the bottom of the paper enlarge the picture a bit.

After a period of research, Jacuzzi has come to IUNGO, the Smarten's software and business solution for managing the supply chain. They chose IUNGO instead of SAP first of all because it's Italian, and moreover because it's more customizable and easier to use. Furthermore IUNGO is fully integrable with the management software currently in use and did not require any customization of the ERP.

It's likely that some of the words such as "netbook", "smartbook", "tablet", etc. will sound funny and obsolete in the near future. However, it is always like this during paradigm changes. Industry is now trying to understand what comes after the PC, and no product architecture and usage process has yet emerged as dominant.

'Early adopters', 'trendsetters', 'opinion leaders', 'first movers' - are the labels describing those who are ahead of the mainstream, who are keen to try out new things. The article explains the subtle differences between those terms and how can companies proactively incorporate using these groups and their insight into their innovation management process.

Toyota's recent response to claims of unintended acceleration in its vehicles illustrates the potential pitfalls of today's technologically complex automobiles. Software development, however, is still largely stuck in a 1970s pre-kaizen mode, where the human-readable instructions are accessible only to those who write the code. This protects the intellectual property of the software developer, but it also limits the abilities of others in the value chain to "see something, say something, and do something" to correct flaws. The lack of visibility into the software in its cars stands in stark contrast to the openness of its management and manufacturing processes. The software hidden in Toyota's black boxes is the equivalent to having a car with its hood welded shut. Open source represents the most significant change and most disruptive force in software development in 20 years. In the open-source software model, the human-readable source code is distributed along with the computer-readable machine code. Users are encouraged to understand the code, find flaws, suggest fixes, and add functionality. Open source is about leveraging the power of participation to solve complex problems such as manufacturing, health care, and government. It may also be how Toyota can improve its vehicles and ultimately regain consumer trust.