The Innovation Zone

MIT InvenTeams Links

Here are some cool links for my Blog Talk Radio Innovation show today:

Check out the radio show at The Innovation Zone

The InvenTeams Main site

The Lemelson-MIT program site

The Lemelson Foundation site

Cool Innovation Games on the MIT site

A Line in the Sand, Well sort of....

When I was writing my book Smartsourcing I interviewed hundreds of companies about the challenges of sourcing and the tenets of successful sourcing relationships. What I uncovered was a monumental myth that many of us have bought into as the result of it's simplistic appeal. It goes something like this, "keep the stuff you do well in house (that's your core competency) and outsource the rest." Sounds appealing, right? Sure, why not focus on those things that you do well and just hand off the rest to an organization that can do it just as well. Even the visual illustration of this model is simple. Draw a crisp vertical line on a sheet of paper. To the left of  the line are those things you keep, to the right are those things you get rid of. Not too tough for a CEO to grasp. In fact, to provide full disclosure, even I had once believed it was that easy. What could possibly be wrong with that model?  Lots!

Want a Nobel Prize? Join the Team! Want Reality? Watch TV!

So, I promised you in the last post that I'd unload some heavy new research in my weekly Innovation Zone Radio show. If you tuned in today you got that plus a great interview with Online Nation Producer Paul Cockrill. If you didn't, well, what are you waiting for? Click here to listen to my interview with Paul and to find out why even the Nobel Prize is becoming a team activity.

Click here to find out more about the new reality show, Online Nation, that Paul is producing.

Want me on your team?

(Pick me...pick me!) I don't know about you but I wasn't the kid that ended up being first choice when they were picking teams in the schoolyard. Okay, I wasn't second or third choice either. I got used to waiting it out, it built character and lots of patience. Funny thing, however, is that I ended up being a whole lot better at teamwork than most of my schoolmates - maybe because when I finally got on a team I tried like hell to stay on it for fear of having to find another one.

So hear I am, some 30 (or is it 40) years later and I'm hanging out with some really important people telling them that their companies need more teamwork, and they are actually listening or at least paying!