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4/27/2006

On Innovation & Overcoming Road Blocks

A great article on innovation appeared on the cover in this week's Business Week titled The World's Most Innovative Companies and although the focus of the piece is geared towards the private sector, there are plenty of observations that can also be applied to the public - including libraries. See if any of these barriers sound familiar...
"The No. 1 obstacle, according to our survey takers, is slow development times. Fast-changing consumer demands, global outsourcing, and open-source software make speed to market paramount today... "Some organizations are nearly immobilized by the notion that [they] can't do anything unless it moves the needle," says Stalk. In addition, he says, speed requires coordination from the hub: "Fast innovators organize the corporate center to drive growth. They don't wait for [it] to come up through the business units."

"A lack of coordination is the second-biggest barrier to innovation, according to the survey's findings. But collaboration requires much more than paying lip service to breaking down silos. The best innovators reroute reporting lines and create physical spaces for collaboration. They team up people from across the org chart and link rewards to innovation. Innovative companies build innovation cultures."


Read the full article here. I think there's a lot of ideas here that any library can adopt.

PS: Thanks Sarah for link and also for continually helping PLCMC strive to be better.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post and article reference. It is so refreshing to see public libraries embracing the innovation conversation and ideal. Something else that I would recommend as a must read for this dialogue and a great reference to innovation models and understanding is "" by IDEO VP Tom Kelly.

Anonymous said...

Great post and article reference. It is so refreshing to see public libraries embracing the innovation conversation and ideal. Something else that I would recommend as a must read for this dialogue and a great reference to innovation models and understanding is "" by IDEO VP Tom Kelly.