A 6th grade teacher here in northern Virginia made positive headlines last week for teaching virtually from a treehouse. Nellie Williams said “a lot of math was involved” to remodel the space this summer with her husband, but she enjoys the serenity and uniqueness of the unconventional classroom—and how it connects with students.“They are really excited to have a teacher that is teaching from a treehouse,” she said.

“There are no ‘enemies’ of innovation, but it is a question of complacency and inertia, of innovation perhaps not being top of mind. I hear often ‘we’ve never done it that way’ or ‘we’ve always done it that way’.”   That quote comes from Kerstin Fröhlich, head of innovation management at German media company Spiegel Verlag in an article on FIPP’s World Media Congress on the What’s New in Publishing site. Fröhlich spoke about how the German media power is “baking innovation into its organizational culture. Despite everyone agreeing that innovation is something they want to prioritize, its value must be consistently reiterated.”   An initial response to publishing life in the pandemic might have been to play down innovation and go with what you know, but what we know has been upended. The more I read, it’s the companies that are being bold and innovat ...

Last month, legal publisher ALM introduced Legal Radar, a “first-of-its-kind website and app” that uses artificial intelligence and natural language generation to offer faster and more personalized user experiences.

"While 64% of workers say their workplace regularly asks employees to think of how they can do things in a completely new way, a full 58% say they're so swamped with getting day-to-day work done that they don't have time to think beyond their daily to-do list."

Don't wait for the customer to tell you when they need something new, urged Bill Fischer, professor of innovation management at IMD, and co-director of the IMD-MIT/Sloan Driving Strategic Innovation Program, in an article on Forbes.com last year. He finds that few companies are "really up-to-date with their customers' needs" and even less familiar with their customer journey.

"This powerful mantra - [fail often to succeed sooner] - exemplifies the deep bias for action," says consultant Jeffrey Cufaude of Idea Architects. "I prefer to reframe it from as failing often (which focuses on the outcome) to experimenting more (which focuses on the process) and expecting and being okay with some things not working as anticipated."

First, the good news:  Last month, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development announced that the pending private right of action under the Canadian Anti-SPAM Law (CASL) would be delayed indefinitely—this was initially scheduled to come into effect on July 1, 2017.  As many of us pointed out back when the law was enacted, unleashing the threat of frivolous litigation is likely to punish innocent companies to the tune of millions of dollars—in most cases companies that are trying to comply—while enriching trial attorneys and stifling many of the desirable email communications citizens have come to expect and appreciate. In the statement announcing the delay, Navdeep Bains, the Canadian Minister, noted that while “Canadians deserve to be protected from spam and other electronic threats so that they can have confidence in digital technology,” the Canadian government is “committed to striking the right balance&rd ...

“Innovation isn’t just a tool to grow, it’s a survival tactic,” said Greg Hart, director of marketing for PSMJ Resources, during a session on Building a Company-wide Culture of Innovation at the recent SIPA Annual 2017 Conference. That innovation can take on many forms, he said. “You can take an existing product and give it new life. We put on a two-day project management boot camp. It went over budgeting, scheduling and other important areas" that were in their information arsenal. "It proved to be one of our most popular products! The market actually took it on itself to be PMSJ-certified. We would get calls, 'How do I get PMSJ-certified?' "We had been looking for another recurring revenue product." Instead of doing the heavy lift of building something from scratch, Hart said building from something you already have will often be the answer. Here are more ideas from that session: “Have a think tank where you can bring people t ...

On Friday, June 17th, SIIA hosted a panel that was co-sponsored by the Congressional High Tech Caucus and the Congressional Internet of Things Caucus on assessing the benefits, challenges, and policy implications of the Internet of Things. SIIA has been active on the topic of IoT in recent months both filing comments to NTIA and releasing a white paper on the subject.  David LeDuc, SIIA’s Senior Director for Public Policy gave opening remarks where he said SIIA defines the “Internet of Things” as ubiquitous connectivity where people are not only interacting with their devices, but devices are also interacting with each other. He also touched on the importance of regulatory humility cautioning against an overarching policy framework for IoT to accommodate IoT’s complex ecosystem. The panel consisted of representatives from GE Digital, Qualcomm Inc., and the Center for Data Innovation.  Each panelist touched on both public and private sector oppor ...