Featured Trend of the Week

The Worlds 30 Most Innovative Countries

The U.S. is number 8 on this list and Singapore is number 1.  The way to become more innovative is collaboration, taking more risks, long term planning and innovation models that fit your company culture. However; your company must embrace a culture that enhances a natural creative spirit and culture of collaboration in order to drive innovation in the company.

Business Week Full Article

The 30 Most Innovation-Friendly Countries

By Bruce Einhorn

Which countries provide the most innovation-friendly climates for companies? That’s the question the Boston Consulting Group, working with the National Association of Manufacturers’ Manufacturing Institute, set out to answer in its recent survey. BCG consultants, led by James P. Andrew, looked at both “inputs”—government policies supporting education, workforce quality, infrastructure, and trade—and “performance”—R&D results, business performance, employment growth, and other impacts of innovation.  READ MORE or click through Countries.

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Nine Young Chinese Entrepreneurs To Watch

Entrepreneurs

Nine Young Chinese Entrepreneurs To Watch

Hannah Seligson, 02.28.10, 06:00 PM EST

The world’s third-largest economy just keeps on growing, and these wunderkinds aim to take advantage of it.

In Pictures: Nine Young Chinese Entrepreneurs To Watch

By 2015 there will be 500 million people under age 30 in China–roughly the population of the entire European Union. And they aren’t idolizing Lei Feng, a devoted follower of Mao. They are looking to figures such as Bill Gates and Michael Dell, says Ge Dingkun, a professor of entrepreneurship at China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.

Young people, barely a generation removed from Chairman Mao’s strict communism, are embracing entrepreneurship. The incomes of twenty-somethings in China grew 34% in the past three years, the largest growth of any age group, according to a survey by Credit Suisse ( CS – news – people ). While large industries in China–such as banking, steel, telecommunications and electricity generation–are still essentially state-owned, a growing chunk of new wealth being created comes from the hard work and vision of scrappy upstarts.   Full Story

The Future Needs Innovation!

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6 New Insights On Media Usage

Partner

Posted by David Rose

6 New Insights on Media Usage
Posted by Daniel Flamberg on February 01, 2010 at 05:00 AM PDT

In a world of continuous, always-on media consumption and endless media hype, most marketers think they know what consumers like, what consumers use most and how often consumers are engaged with different media channels. Yet every-so-often new data challenges our assumptions.

That’s case with L.E.K. Consulting’s 2009 Media Consumption Survey, an online survey of 2000+ households, conducted in December 2009, that addressed media use in 28 media types. This study sought to identify changes in media consumption habits, find opportunities in new media and cast light on how the recession has affected media consumption. The data and the implications weren’t what I expected and made me think.

Here’s quick summary:

Channels Cross-Pollinate. Thirty-eight percent of consumers said they’d pay an extra fee to get content from cable channels on their computers or on their smart phones. This data validates the “content is king” notion and supports the business strategies driving Yahoo, Google and others. It also implies that marketers should orchestrate and integrate campaigns across channels and that video-to-go will soon become a common expectation which will dramatically increase demand for portable bandwidth.

Radio isn’t Dead It’s Gone Online. One third of respondents listen to Internet radio services for 5.8 hours each week; a third more than listen to satellite radio. Interestingly 83 percent still listen to traditional radio for an average of 8.1 hours each week. Neither TV, cable nor the Web killed the radio star which is a testament to its portability and targeted content offerings. Fifty-two percent of survey respondents listen to the radio and listening to music is second only to TV, ahead of the Internet, in terms of time allocated to media. Americans craft individual soundtracks to their lives and use music as a mood elevator.

E-Readers Are Heavy New Media Users. Not only do E-Reader owners drive the market for books but they consume significantly more new media than iPod owners and the general public. It’s probably not much of a stretch for educated literate readers to invest more disposable time and discretionary income using emerging media. E-Readers are four times more likely to see movies online, play more Web-based games and listen to more Internet radio than iPod Users, Facebook fanatics or the general public. Think of E-Readers as the vanguard of the digital proletariat.

50+ is the New Black. Don’t forget or ignore the power of the Boomers who still wield great numbers, great enthusiasm for new or revolutionary ideas and great wealth even as they age. The 50-64 year old age group uses new media almost twenty percent more than 25-39 year olds. Boomers do the most e-mail, play the most online games and pace every other age group in doing online tasks.

Everyone Multi-tasks. It’s no longer just teenagers who text and play online games with opponents in China while watching TV. One-third of consumers responding to the survey, watch TV and go online simultaneously. Nineteen percent listen to the radio while surfing the Web and eleven percent talk on the phone. Look for smart marketers to design campaigns to leverage and capitalize on this behavior in real time.

TV is Still Our Mass Medium. Online TV is just starting and in spite of the growth of DVRs and time shifting, TV represents the biggest gross audiences and the most time spent with media. The margin is big – 38 hours per week for TV versus 7.6 hours online. TV is still the place to launch new ideas and revitalize brands.
Read More

Videos of the Month: Computers In 2020

Computers In 2020 02:29 –

Best Video of the Month: The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less

Google TechTalks April 27, 2006 Barry Schwartz

Forbes: Could S Corp Owners Be A Tax Target?

Taxes

Could S Corp Owners Be A Tax Target?

Janet Novack, 01.15.10, 10:00 AM EST

New GAO report, health bill, suggest more might be wrung from them.

Forbes: The Way To Innovate To Beat Radical Discontinuity

Managing

The Way To Innovate To Beat Radical Discontinuity

Mark W. Johnson, 01.11.10, 03:38 PM EST

There’s a basic secret to being able to look forward rather than back.

In the early 19th century most people lit their homes with lamps that burned whale oil. In mid-century a Canadian physician and geologist named Abraham Gesner developed kerosene, a cleaner-burning alternative made from a newly plentiful resource, crude oil, and founded what became the modern petroleum industry. Whaling, which had been a major world industry, ceased. Then Thomas Edison threw a light switch, and the world changed again. No one wanted the foul smell and dangerous flame of kerosene lanterns in their homes when they could have clean and easy electric light. Demand for fossil fuels plummeted, and they rose again only when Henry Ford came along and made the new technology of automobiles affordable for the masses. Today the ramifications of global warming threaten the automobile, electric power and oil industries.   Full Story

Forbes: Get A Head Start In The Coming War For Talent

It is hard to imagine a war on talent with so many people out of work and layoffs continuing but this article puts this war in perspective as companies begin to build for growth, learn they must do a better job at selling value and that customer service will be a make or break revenue growth deal breaker! Those companies that invest in people, invest in growth and invest in their customers will be the real winners of this century ( and certainly for 2010).

Leadership

Get A Head Start In The Coming War For Talent

Lori Rosenwasser, 09.25.09, 04:40 PM EDT

Four steps to take so you can keep your best employees when jobs elsewhere start opening up again.

Great Article on “Design Thinking” (a PlazaBridge Group core compentancy):

Christopher Steiner On Innovation

12.30.09, 06:00 AM EST

There is always a better way to do things–and that brings hope for the year ahead.

The Big Trend

“Design thinking”–that is, innovating via a structured analysis of specific challenges in a particular process or industry. Five books hit the market this year on the subject. Change by Design, by Tim Brown, chief executive of design firm IDEO, may be the best. “The core of great entrepreneurship is bringing people what they need–and there’s always a better way to do it,” says Brown. “That’s what design thinking helps us figure out.”  Full Article

Those with clout, flout

By Sharon Jayson
USA TODAY

The moral compass of some public figures clearly went awry in 2009. Now new research better explains why some in the public eye don’t think like the rest of us.

Power increases “moral hypocrisy,” says Adam Galinsky, a behavioral psychologist at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and co-author of a study published today in the journal Psychological Science.

Power does indeed go to your head, making those in the limelight such as celebrities, politicians, CEOs and athletes more prone to a double standard: They’re stricter in their moral judgment of others but are more lenient about their own behavior, the study suggests.   READ FULL ARTICLE

Are We Addicted To Giving Our Own Opinions

The tools we use for social media have empowered us to be steady-flow commentators. Watch Twitter or Facebook during any event, and you’ll see our added commentary rolling along in time with the experience. At times, such as the US Presidential election, it was exciting to feel that experience, of everyone participating all across the world in an event. There are many more times where it feels like that.

In blog comments, on Twitter, all over Facebook, Yelp, YouTube, and several other sites, we’ve been groomed to give our opinion. We spit it out everywhere. We share, rate, criticize, deride, praise, and everything in between. Forrester’s Ladder graphic suggests that critics are second on the content ladder, just below creators.   FULL STORY

Eight Ways to Ruin Your Social-Media Strategy

Eight Ways to Ruin Your Social-Media Strategy

by Catharine P. Taylor

Tags: Facebook, Conversation, Customer Service, Dell Computer Corp., Twitter Inc.…, Context Optional, social media, Twitter, YouTube, viral advertising, social marketing., Catharine P. Taylor

So you’ve set up a company fan page on Facebook and you’re letting your employees fire off messages to the world via Twitter — or you’re at least thinking about it. Well, congratulations! You’re part of the social-media revolution, which can offer unparalleled access to word-of-mouth buzz among those you most want to reach: your customers, current and future.    FULL STORY

Forbes: The 10 Questions You Should Never Stop Asking

Turnaround Tactics

The 10 Questions You Should Never Stop Asking

arc Kramer, 11.20.09, 05:01 PM EST

Companies run aground for the same basket of reasons, so don’t forget the fundamentals.