MIT Sloan Management Review

I am the proud recipient of an MIT Sloan Executive Education Course certification. Or, my avatar is.

MIT Sloan’s Big Data 4Dx executive education course, held simultaneously in Cambridge and in the virtual world this April, was the first ever to use a gaming interface. Think Second Life for the professional set.

Through the AvayaLive Engage platform, we online students were transported (as avatars) to a virtual auditorium, the classroom setting for the two-day Big Data: Making Complex Things Simpler course.

Despite the considerable amount of attention paid to social media by business, the press, and academia, managers still don’t have a clear understanding of what social media actually is. Managers need to understand the nature of social media so that they can understand its strengths and weaknesses for their own business. If they don’t — in a market environment increasingly influenced by social media — they may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

A data and analytics survey conducted by MIT Sloan Management Review in partnership with SAS Institute Inc. found a strong correlation between the value companies say they generate using analytics and the amount of data they use. The creators of the survey identified five levels of analytics sophistication, with those at Level 5 being most sophisticated and innovative. These analytical innovators in Level 5 had several defining traits. This article explores those traits.

What if what you know about the innovation process is wrong? That’s a question Eric von Hippel thinks companies should consider.

Von Hippel, professor of technological innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has spent much of his career doing research that has led him to a radical conclusion: The traditional view of the product innovation process is flawed. In the traditional view, companies get too much credit for product innovation, according to von Hippel — and users get too little.

Project leaders should sequence and articulate messaging about their projects in the same way a marketing manager would organize an external branding effort to promote a company’s products and services. Just as product branding creates awareness and sustains value in the minds of an organization’s external customers, shareholders, and constituents, a brand mindset can empower a project leader to develop strategically-timed messages to create visibility and engagement among key targets.

Can a company that supplies electricity really become a partner in helping customers optimize their electric use? Absolutely, says Jim Rogers, chairman, president and CEO of Duke Energy: “We can make it totally back of mind for you, and we can create huge productivity gains in the process.”

Finding the expertise to handle complex, knowledge-intensive team projects is challenging. That’s where a project network comes in.

While technological innovations have revolutionized the workplace, it is ironic that relational boundaries — obstacles to productive human interactions — remain largely unchanged. This article identifies five types of such boundaries, and suggests that all five of them may be overcome when collaborative and creative leaders engage in six boundary spanning practices: buffering, reflecting, connecting, mobilizing, weaving and transforming.

From time to time a company’s project truly stands out, creating exceptional value and having an impact on the industry. IBM’s AS/400 development effort in the 80s was a game changer and gave IBM a competitive edge. Apple Inc.’s success in creating the iPod portable media player and iTunes online store is another more recent example of a great project — one that changed the way people listen to and buy music. Why are such projects so rare — and why can’t more projects be like them?

What's the prognosis for America's innovation future?

That was the topic of an NBC Nightly News report this week that included interviews with MIT Sloan School Professor Edward Roberts and Paul Otellini, Intel's president and CEO.

In a recent interview with the website InnovationManagement, open innovation expert Henry Chesbrough discussed his new book, Open Services Innovation, and the importance of service innovation in general:

“We know a lot about how to innovate new products, new processes, and new technologies, but know far less about how to innovate

It's not always easy to bridge the gap between academic research and the business world. Two recent articles offer perspectives on different aspects of the process:

TURNING IDEAS INTO START-UPS. A recent New York Times article highlights university "idea incubators" -- such as MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation -- that help professors bring their innovations to market.  Notes The New York Times:

"M.I.T.

 

If a company is committed to addressing societal problems, can that benefit its business performance? Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter thinks so.

Kanter explained why, in an interview published recently in Business Insight, MIT Sloan Management Review's collaboration with The Wall Street Journal.�

Traditionally, we have tended to think of businesses (or individuals who then start businesses) as the principal source of innovative new products or services in a market economy.  But, in a thought-provoking new working paper, Carliss Y.

On average, investments in information technology are associated with greater productivity for companies -- but why do some companies get greater productivity benefits from IT than others? That was one of the questions MIT Sloan Professor Erik Brynjolfsson addressed at a presentation at the MIT Center for Digital Business today.�

As sustainability-related pressures change the competitive landscape, what kinds of capabilities and characteristics will that landscape demand of companies that aim to thrive? Here’s what Business of Sustainability survey respondents and sustainability thought leaders say.

If one innovation approach is helpful, you might think using more than one approach to innovation would be even more productive. Not necessarily, write Frank T. Rothaermel and Andrew M. Hess in the new issue of Business Insight, MIT Sloan Management Review’s collaboration with The Wall Street Journal.

There’s plenty of optimism to be heard about Asia’s innovation future — but less optimism about the U.S.’s ability to maintain its historical innovation leadership in the 21st century.

A new book includes some interesting observations about the personal characteristics of successful innovators — and what managers can do to strengthen their innovation skills.

A new working paper tackles an interesting topic: the relationship between tolerance for failure and innovation. In particular, authors Xuan Tian and Tracy Y. Wang looked at venture capitalists' tolerance for failure  -- and its effect on the innovativeness of the young companies they invested in.