Alexander Osterwalder on Management Innovation
"[My greatest frustration is when] great ideas and passionate innovators get ‘killed’ by internal company politics or 19th century management structures. In many large organizations politics has become more important than value creation. That’s why there’s an urgent need for management innovation: to enable passionate innovators to strive within large organizations and not just as start-up entrepreneurs."
These are the words of a new age thinker. Alexander Osterwalder is out to change the way innovation is executed in the management arena. He's out to make any company, big or small, innovative and a place where the employees ideas are valued. Alexander is a Grainiac. Check out is HOT projects on his
Blog!
Labels: alexander, business, grainiac, innovation, management, model, osterwalder
Mahabharata the Graphic Novel?
Epics like the
Odyssey or
Beowulf are what they make us read at school (in the West), but this is the old mainstream. Now the Mahabharat and Ramayana are becoming a new age trend in art and popular culture. Recently, on Public Radio International's The World, I heard about a retelling of the
Mahabharata as a fantastic "Lord of the Rings" like movie called
18 Days.
After doing some digging into more information on the pop culture of the Indian Epics I found more on the beautiful
modern art that Epics and Mythology has inspired.
I am really looking forward to this upcoming epic!
5 Priorities to create Innovation Opportunities in the 3rd World
Developing countries cannot forever rely on the aide of developed nations. To empower their own citizens, developing countries' governments must encourage their own scientific advancements and promote the citizens to help themselves.
SciDev.net a non-profit organization based in England and Wales has a nice website discussion science and research policies in Developing Countries in all parts of the world. The website is divided by topics like Innovation, Technology Transfer, Education, or articles can be viewed by continents and sub-continents.
An article from this past January details 5 priorities that Professor of International Development at Imperial College London, UK, Gordon Conway and, Director of the London International Development Centre and Professor at University of London, UK, Jeff Waage felt were critical to creating opportunities for innovation in developing countries.
1. Empowerment - Encourage scientists everywhere to work on innovations for developing countries through better and longer term funding projects. Fund and help to develop better educational institutions and programs in the developing countries to encourage the citizens to work on innovative solutions.
2. Systems - Improve current science innovations systems and forums in developing countries. Bringing together entrepreneurs, innovators, and funding agencies within the country to discuss ideas and policies is critical to generating the traction to start new projects and fund innovative ideas. Global Innovation forums must also work to include developing countries' scientists and students to encourage careers and catalyze collaborations.
3. Accessibility - Developing countries and scientists need to encourage those working on international public goods (IPGs) and making sure these products and technologies are available to those in the developing world. The private sector especially needs to make contacts with research institutions to allow for developments of technologies.
4. Results-based -
(This is the most GRAIN idea I saw)
Scientists must make sure that the results of their work have direct impact that will enable the betterment of the current citizens in the developing countries, especially the poorest citizens. " It also means asking stakeholders to help frame research questions, so that they are prepared to get involved in executing, applying and scaling up research
outputs and outcomes."
5. Profile-raising - Talking and informing policy makers of the importance of science education to improve the the economic production and poverty reduction of the whole society is critical. The onus remains on scientists to demonstrate this with policy makers and help them understand to make policies friendly to sharing science knowledge and encourage working on innovations to help developing nations.
Overall, I thought this article was clear and direct. GRAIN is working toward all of these 5 priorities. Each GRAINiac works to empower the scientists around them and encourage them to work on developing countries' issues. We are developing a new network for social entrepreneurs to connect. We are working on ideas and projects that will provide free tools for anyone in the world. Our co-innovation model teaches working with the stakeholders to develop questions and iterative processes to find a good solution. Finally, GRAIN is getting the the stories and successes of several projects that work in developing countries out to the general public and other scientists.
I hope this gives you some inspiration and direction!
Just another GRAIN-y day. Have a good one.
-Sujata
Better than Wikipedia entry for "Hinduism"
In the vast Internet, religious teachings, preachings, truths, untruths, mistruths... are all easily found. Not easily deciphered.
Here are some of my new found favorites. They may not be perfect, but at least they have references that can't be added and removed by crazies on the Net that have nothing better to do than delude readers.
http://www.sanskrit.org/ -- a Hinduism resource
http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org/ -- group that promotes (generally) Hindu-American Values
Step to the Right Side of Your Brain
Jill Bolte Taylor tells us to give up our Ego and Step to Right of our Brain!
You have got to see this
Video! Dr. Taylor was invited to speak at TED and found her experience during a stroke an idea worth spreading.
We can all learn a lot from her experience. Learn about how we can all experience a more peaceful life filled with love and happiness! Thanks
Dr. Jill!
L.O.L.
Sujata
Very important page from "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda
Note that Jnana Yoga as a path is not the only way to realization! The knowledge we aquire must be meditated upon to realize the Truth, "Aham Brahmasmi", "I am Brahman."
L.O.L.
Sujata
Happiness is up to you
Be happy, because it's up to you. I read
this article yesterday and really began to think about what we work so hard for in life. It's happiness. In every shape and form. But, as all humans, we err. We make believe that the stuff around us bring us joy, bliss, and happiness! It's not true! Happiness is our essence, it's within us!! So says the Bible, Qur'an, Bhagavad Gita and so many other beautiful gospels!
We just need to stop allowing the world to COLLUDE our true selves, our essence.
Live Joyfully, Be Happy!
L.O.L -- Lots Of Love
-Sujata
