Welcome to IAM Talking, a periodic podcast interview series, with your host, Dan Keldsen, Co-founder and Principal at Information Architected.

Today, the topic is Business Model Innovation – White Space and You.

In this episode, I am interviewing Mark Johnson, the author of a new book, Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal.

Mark is chairman of Innosight, a strategic innovation consulting and investing company with offices in Massachusetts, Singapore, and India, which he cofounded with Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen. He has consulted to Global 1000 and start-up companies in a wide range of industries—including health care, aerospace/defense, enterprise IT, energy, automotive, and consumer packaged goods—and has advised Singapore’s government on innovation and entrepreneurship.

Mark’s most recent work has focused on helping companies envision and create new growth, manage transformation, and achieve renewal through business model innovation.

Find copies of his new book, Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal, at your favorite online or brick and mortar book store. The official website for the book is www.seizingthewhitespace.com.

Key Concepts Covered on White Space Innovation

We cover several of the key concepts, including a deep dive into the Customer Value Proposition (CVP) and the “job to be done” mindset that Innosight typically uses in their work, which is part of an overall trend in innovation management that focuses on the outcomes that customers are searching for, rather than the products, services, or solutions-based approach, which is rapidly becoming a dated and dangerous approach.

We also discuss several aspects of innovation maturity – both from the standpoint of innovation practices, product innovation vs. process innovation vs. white space or business model innovation, as well as maturity in skillsets and personnel to execute on a variety of innovation initiatives.

Listen now!

Listen to the Interview: IAM Talking with Mark Johnson – Business Model Innovation – White Space and You

Reference Materials for White Space Innovation

For reference, two of the figures or graphics referenced from the book, can be found below.

The Four-Box Business Innovation Model

And the Stages of Business Model Implementation

Closing Review

Whether you are just getting started with innovation management, or are already a seasoned innovator, I would readily recommend Seizing the White Space as a worthy addition to your innovation toolkit. Business Model Innovation may be the latest flavor of innovation to get air time, but not without good reason. By re-thinking the fundamentals of at least SOME aspect of your innovation portfolio, to make way for White Space Innovation opportunities, you will be in far better shape than your “head in the sand” competitors.

Is your Information Architected for Innovation? for White Space discovery?

Contact us at 
617-933-9655 to discuss how you can put in place systematic tools, techniques and yes, technology to make the most of the strengths of the people within your organization

More details on our practices related to Collaboration and Innovation can be found at:

• Innovation Management Workshops and Coaching/Consulting

Collaboration – it’s all the rage, and to some it is “new.”

Yet for any project, whether it is assembling a sales proposal in response to a Request For Proposals (RFP), to the collaboration and coordination necessary to build an aircraft carrier, or any size or style of collaboration in between, there are several questions to consider when it comes to modern day collaboration, what many are calling Enterprise 2.0, or for those with a longer history in business collaboration, Knowledge Management 2.0.

Do you believe that your organization has pulled together a suitably versatile and agile collaboration toolkit?

Are your collaboration tools built for distributed teams, or for localized teams?

Are the tools involved well-integrated into the flow of collaborative work (search, research, document, refine, revise, publish, re-use, etc.), or do you as a user of the toolkit have to remember what tool or application to use at various stages within the context of collaboration?

While management may say that “we need more collaboration,” are you measured based on collaborative contributions, or in the end are you actually penalized for team contributions if it gets in the way of your individual work and personal performance measures?

Join us for a discussion (continue discussion in comments below or twitter via #iaie20) on the current and future state of collaboration – and what it takes to ensure that your culture, skills, and technical tools are up to the task of real-time, flexible online collaboration. Not all collaboration efforts or outcomes are the same – make sure you are setting yourself up to succeed.

Watch the Video archive of Webinar

Is your Information Architected for Collaboration? for Innovation? to leverage the strengths of the workers and teams within the organization?

Contact us now at 
617-933-9655 to discuss our Collaboration-focused assessments, consulting or workshops, and to schedule a private 30-minute executive briefing on how we can most effectively work together. You can quickly jump-start or re-start your collaboration efforts, and we can show you how.

Schedule a private executive briefing now

Target your collaboration pains now, details on our consulting practices related to Collaboration and Innovation can be found at:

• Collaboration and Enterprise 2.0 Workshops, Coaching and Consulting
• Innovation Management Workshops and Coaching/Consulting

The video archive of our keynote from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco is now available. It is embedded and viewable below – running just under 22 minutes.

Thanks again to Steve Wylie for inviting us to keynote a second time, to Susan Scrupski for her work and our partnership with The 2.0 Adoption Council, and to Wayne Kurtzman for the fantastic voice-over work in the intro video clip.

This represents highlights of some of the most shocking and interesting findings from the work we have been doing with The 2.0 Adoption Council, focusing, in this case, on IT Resistance, Management Resistance and User Resistance, budgets spent, and where those budgets are being allocated for Enterprise 2.0 projects at large-scale and in large enterprises (of all types represented in the council).

Interested in the companion whitepaper and further Enterprise 2.0 resources?

• Sign up for the entire bundle of related Enterprise 2.0 Resources we have created both directly based on the resarch presented at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, as well as additional resources created in the last year.

Are you experiencing similar resistance in your own organization?

How have you overcome the resistance? Top-down? Bottom-up? Internal communications? Carrot? Stick? Weigh in – we all need to uncover the best and worst practices if this market is going to take hold and grow even further.

Last week, like hundreds of others, I attended the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. In this blog post I provide an overall impression of the conference, that in-turn lends insight into the state of the Enterprise 2.0 market in general.

After attending the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston last June, I blogged that for me, the show came down to an acronym –  CIT, which stood for Culture, Innovation and Twitter.

This time the conference is summed up in an even shorter acronym – ER.

No I am not referring to the popular use of ER as in Emergency Room, inferring that the show needs resuscitation – FAR FROM IT.  In this case, ER stands for Energy and Reality.

ENERGY

I could not help but feel it; volume levels, packed halls and a sense of excitement that seemed to top that of all previous Enterprise 2.0 conferences.  Overall attendance was basically the same I was told.  Maybe it was just the location on the west coast versus the east coast – but no – right? I mean we all know that west coasters are supposed to be more laid back then us east coast “rat-racers.”  Maybe it was linked to the fact that the conference was held in tandem with the VoiceCon event.  If so, kudos to the  TechWeb team for doing so.  Either way the energy level was noticeable. Some sessions were literally had attendees spilling out into the halls. The questions asked were many and hard-hitting. Attendees were interested in going beyond the basics and theory and into issues of implementation war stories and ROI. That in fact brings me to the second letter of the acronym – R for Reality.

REALITY

This conference was marked by a far greater level of discussion and presentations by practitioners of Enterprise 2.0 within end-user organizations.  There was far less time spent debating the reality of Enterprise 2.0, and whether it would take hold, if it merited the 2.0 generational label, etc.  That seemed to be behind us.

Indeed, Steve Wylie, the conference chair, noted how the show floor was no longer the exclusive domain of start-ups and pioneers, but now included the likes of OpenText, Microsoft, Google, and Adobe among others. It was really quite a show floor.

Andy McAfee stated he felt the market was at its tipping point, the first time I have ever heard him be so bullish about the movement he labeled a few years back.

In her keynote, Tammy Erickson, President, nGenera stated she believed that 2010 is going to be the year of “A-ha”, referring to the turnaround in senior executives who now “get it” and will move forward. (Not only do I agree, but also it is interesting to recall that in our research from 2 years ago, we found that while most executives believed E2.0 was critical to business success,  most executives also did not know what E2.0 was. The level of awareness and understanding of Enterprise 2.0 is now catching up with the intuitive sense that it matters. That is the Aha.)

But more powerful than any of these facts  was the number of presentations and panels given by end-user practitioners – speaking from the trenches, which I referred to earlier.   These were not sales people, marketers or academician theorists (Yes there were still enough of those to go around). These were folk who had their sleeves rolled up, successful projects behind them and the scars to prove it.  Among the many, my two favorite were the presentation given by Bevin Hernandez who shared her amazing success at Penn State, where she waged a strategy that was more about culture and behavioral change management than technology; and a panel entitled Case Studies in Enterprise Micro-Blogging, in which real-world use of micro-blogging in the enterprise was discussed ala the good, the bad and the ugly – but not the theory. Participants spoke freely of misplaced efforts and failures, as well as what it takes to get real value out of micro-blogging inside the firewall.

Finally, the maturity of the Enterprise 2.0 market was punctuated by the coming out of the 2.0 Adoption Council, many of whose members were speakers at the event as well. As I blogged about months ago, Dan Keldsen and I executed a market study with this council. The results were the focus of our keynote at the event.  The findings are compelling and insightful and I encourage downloading the initial report, but again, it is the sheer existence of the council itself that provided further evidence that E2.0 has come out of the theoretical closet and into the reality of the boardroom. The council is comprised of (at present) 115 individuals representing major global organizations. Each individual is a senior level manager, a full-time job managing Enterprise 2.0 within their respective organization.  Each manages a substantial budget ranging from the 100s of thousands to tens of millions of dollars. They are beyond the pilot stage of deployment, into production, effecting literally thousands of end-users in each organization.  Each is a real-world major case study. Collectively, as “the council” they truly mark the turning point in the Enterprise 2.0 market.  Congratulations to Susan Scrupski for her execution in putting together this council.

Before I wrap this up, let me be clear.  While the acronym de jour is ER, CIT (culture, innovation and Twitter) was certainly still a part of the conference.

Culture was still frequently talked about as a major component to Enterprise 2.0. I gave an entire session on just this issue, using 4 different clients of mine as case studies. As I mentioned earlier, the case study presented by Bevin Hernandez of Penn State focused predominately on culture and change management. In fact, when asked if she could have accomplished all she had, if not for the technology she was using (ThoughtFarmer), she eloquently and politely opined that the technology made a difference and made many parts of the rollout easier, but that at least in her case, it was the strategic change management that really made all the difference.

Innovation came up several times, but perhaps most impressive was the risk that TechWeb took in allowing IAI to provide a ½ day version of its innovation management training as one of the pre-show tutorials. Although not as popular as some of the more mainstream E2.0 topics, the training pulled a fair number of attendees and was well received.  Those that attended understood that if Enterprise 2.0 is about leveraging technology and practices to facilitate and invigorate collaboration, then one likely end game is the facilitation and acceleration of innovation, which is a practice to be managed in its own right.

And as for the big “T”, Twitter, oh it was prevalent all right, but no longer novel. Again testament to how quickly some of these tools are being adopted.

In conclusion, kudos to Steve Wylie and his team at TechWeb for a job well done, and kudos to the Enterprise 2.0 community for a well done performance. We at IAI were very proud to be a part of it and look forward to hopefully seeing most of you at the Boston 2010 Enterprise 2.0 conference.

And we’re just back from San Francisco, where we could be found doing a half-day Innovation Workshop “Going the Last 9 Yards of Enterprise 2.0,” a session on Findability “How Search 2.0 Has Been Redefined by Enterprise 2.0,” a session on Culture and Change “Can Enterprise 2.0 Crack the Knowledge Management Culture Barrier?” and not least, a center stage keynote “Enterprise 2.0: Straight from the Horses’ Mouths.”

The video from the keynote was streamed live, but appears not to have hit the archive yet – great to have had a chance to reprise our keynoting skills with a variation from our keynote in June 2008.

While we await a pointer to the captured video from November 2009, below we have provided both the intro video before we walked onstage (which went over quite well, thanks again to Wayne Kurtzman for the voice-over work), and which we’ve received a number of requests to post publicly – embed/tweet/spread as you will, and thank you to the live audience for your indulgence in running (galloping?) with the horse theme of the keynote.

And if you did not have a chance to watch the keynote live, below are the slides we had presented, highlighting some of the most shocking/intriguing of the statistics in the research work we have done with The 2.0 Adoption Council – a consortium of over 100 organizations representing the best of the best, and the largest of the Enterprise 2.0 projects that have been deployed around the world.

Without our voiceover from the conference, the findings likely beg some explanation as we had 20 minutes to hit the highlights and dive into the major issues found in IT Resistance, Management Resistance and User Resistance experienced by the 2.0 Adoption Council members in this research project.

Any questions while we await the audio/video from the show?

Comment away, and we will see what we can do to continue the conversation post-conference.

What resistance have YOU found in your organization, and how did you overcome it?

A brief 20 minute video interview (embedded at the bottom) on the journey that a mid-sized company, Allyis, has taken in moving from a 1.0 to mindset, and where the journey will be CONTINUING to go from here on out. For them, 2008 was the watershed year when many previous efforts clicked into place and sent their 2.0 efforts into high gear.

Driven from the Top

This is the type of interview (audio, video or “just” text) that we typically do with Enterprise 2.0 customer engagements. The “soft” efforts that it takes to actively sow and reap Enterprise 2.0 needs all of the bottom-up AND top-down efforts you can bring to bear – while I’m a big proponent of emergent behavior, there’s nothing like stated dedication to an ongoing effort like a change of management thinking to Enterprise 2.0 to ACTUALLY (rather than theoretically) make change happen.

Allyis was kind enough to host me for 3-days last week in their offices in Kirkland, WA, for two separate sessions – one to continue sowing the seeds of Enterprise 2.0 Thinking (and Doing) with their executive and management team in a 2-day hybrid course of the Enterprise 2.0 Specialist course that Carl and I had developed for AIIM while we were the Market Intelligence unit of AIIM, and a 3rd day which I’ve been describing as a day-long Enterprise 2.0 keynote (I *think* that’s a good thing) largely for clients and the local contacts of Allyis to continue discussing and learning about Enterprise 2.0.

Engagement and 2.0 Nirvana

Fascinating discussions, and very interesting to hear how technology and/or culture lead and lag each other across various departments within companies, or across different organizations. Still a long way to go Enterprise 2.0 Nirvana, but I have to say I was VERY heartened to engage all of the people of Allyis and their peers in the Washington state area.

Hear what Ethan Yarbrough, President of Allyis had to say about the start of their journey, and the ongoing work they are doing to push to the front of the Enterprise 2.0 curve.

What are YOU doing in your business to BE Enterprise 2.0? Let us know – transparency, participation, feedback – no progress without reflection and refinement.

Any efforts that you’ve used to market, sell, educate on Enterprise 2.0 within your organization, chime in  – we’re using these materials to build up the story around the 2.0 Adoption Council. More stories = better.

(Downloadable MP4 version)

Is your Information Architected for Innovation? for Collaboration? to leverage the strengths of the workers and teams within the organization?

Contact us at 
617-933-9655 to discuss how you can put in place systematic tools, techniques and yes, technology to make the most of the strengths of the people within your organization

More details on our practices related to Collaboration and Innovation can be found at:

• Innovation Management Workshops and Coaching/Consulting
• Collaboration and Enterprise 2.0 Workshops, Coaching and Consulting

While much of the work that we do is focused on the application of technology to business workers, we’ll depart from that theme in this interview, to address issues around personal development, team-based working, and the “strengths movement” coming out of Positive Psychology – along with the re-invention of the publishing industry in the form of Manga-style books, blogs, twitter, and more.

The interview today with best-selling author Dan Pink, who you may know from his books Free Agent Nation, A Whole New Mind, or the topic of today’s conversation, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko.

While there are 6 major points covered in the Business Manga Novel “The Adventures of Johnny Bunko“  – we hone in on two of the six that I had felt were the most important to the conversations I have with my clients the and work that I do.

Those are:

1. Think strengths, not weaknesses
2. It’s not about you

We discuss how the implications of this book are most certainly useful for individuals to focus on their own careers and growth paths, but how the larger ramifications of fully engaging in these behaviors is at the root of what seem to be the complete OPPOSITE of these ideals – as embodied in the big, slow-moving, and currently floundering automotive and airline industries.

As always, a brief discussion as to what Twitter means to Dan in his work as an author and speaker, and a bit of a diversion on crowdsourcing efforts that Dan and his publisher used in order to uncover the prize-winning 7th secret piece of career advice, out of field of over one thousand entries, as narrowed by Dan, and ultimately, chosen by the crowd.

Any and all feedback welcomed – and if you have an innovation story that needs to be shared, please don’t hesitate to get in touch, either by commenting, or contacting me directly – dk[at]informationArchitected[dot]com or 617-933-9655.

Dan Pink can be found on Twitter as @danielpink, and as always, I’m @dankeldsen .

Is your Information Architected for Innovation? for Collaboration? to leverage the strengths of the workers and teams within the organization?

Listen now!

Listen to the Interview: IAM Talking with Dan Pink

Is your Information Architected for Innovation? for Collaboration? to leverage the strengths of the workers and teams within the organization?

Contact us at 
617-933-9655 to discuss how you can put in place systematic tools, techniques and yes, technology to make the most of the strengths of the people within your organization

More details on our practices related to Innovation can be found at:

• Innovation Management Workshops and Coaching/Consulting

Have you heard of CPSI? (typically pronounced sip-see)

CPSI stands for The Creative Problem Solving Institute, the annual conference on Creative Problem Solving, created by the Creative Education Foundation which was founded in 1954 by Alex Osborn (the inventor of brainstorming and writer of the oft referenced, but hardly read [and hard to find] book Applied Imagination).

The CPSI conference is famous (perhaps infamous) as the annual retreat for all interested in being more effective innovators and creative problem solving.

This year’s event was held in Danvers, Massachusetts – not exactly on the beaten path of the greater Boston area, but nonetheless, far more convenient for a Boston local than the events that seem to only happen on the West Coast.

While I was only able to participate in 7 hours or so of the 7 DAYS of the event (which is apparently 1 day LESS than the typical CPSI conference), I experienced a rapid-fire introduction to the experience of CPSI.

For example:

I (re-)met a woman who had chaired the track that I’d presented on at the Front End of Innovation event the month before, and who I’d learned has been to 17 consecutive years of this event. If that’s not dedication, I don’t know what is. Her title is Creative Innovation Pioneer at Kimberly-Clark (makers of a wide variety of consumer products, such as Huggies, Kleenex, Scotts and more) – and uses creative problem solving skills on a daily basis. Very interesting, and always gratifying to hear of companies that take innovation and creative problem solving seriously.

Participants at the event came from over 30 different countries, including a contingent from Nigeria that I happened to stumble while being introduced to Dean Kamen (more on Dean in a second) as the on-premise Starbucks was closing down for the evening (little did Starbucks know that this event stretches on to midnight nearly every night – they might want to stay open a tad longer next year). The Nigerian contingent has attended for several years, specifically to look into innovation within the government, and how to spur growth in the economy, attract investments, and more. A surprising conversation, in many ways.

The organization FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a non-profit organization started in 1992 by Dean Kamen, was also well represented, with a hall full of kids of all ages who have been involved in the robotics challenges of FIRST, ranging from ages 6 through high school. Contestants are required to build robots of all shapes and sizes, from materials ranging from LEGOs to the annual “box of junk” that Dean Kamen and the FIRST organization send out to participants to ultimately compete in the annual competition held in Atlanta, GA which now attracts over 20,000 people each year.

Met other people from every walk of life, those involved in my “typical” work around technology, software and hardware, as well as those involved in marketing, in corporate sales, insurance, pharmaceutical R&D, consumer packaged goods, government, focus group/research, and more. Roughly 30% of attendees had never previously attended CPSI, and in these times of tightened wallets, I found it a bit surprising to hear of so many attendees who arrived at the event to do the two pre-conference days, and 3 “normal” conference days, let alone the contingent who came for the entire Saturday through Friday experience.

All told, fascinating to see the inventiveness and variety of the attendees at this event. While it is all too easy to become mired in “technology as savior” in the client work I’m typically involved in (and I constantly strive to remind people that business problems existed well before they bought SharePoint or any other solution), it was an interesting experience to validate that while magnifying problem solving capabilities with technology is certainly possible, that the need for creative thinking and critical thinking skills is both highly valued, and a life-long, and certainly career-long goal and need.

Which brings me to the highlight of my time at CPSI – a lengthy (two and half hour) keynote by none other than Dean Kamen, Founder of DEKA Research & Development Corporation.

Dean is  likely most famous due to his invention of the Segway (at right), which of course was on hand for a test-drive – and made for amusing hallway excursions in the hotel. What many people probably do not know is that Dean holds over 400 patents, and while he is an engineering geek (in the best sense), he has an incredible sense of humor, and ability to cut straight through unclear thinking.

He is an unabashed entrepreneur (can’t run a business without a profit), yet he created the non-profit FIRST back in 1989 to ensure that the future of America, and it’s youth specifically, would have the skills they needed to create the future, and overcome the overfocus of media on the glories of sports and entertainment. Highly recommend that anyone who is concerned about the future capabilities of America (or any country) and the inability of children to compete with the WORLD’s “best of the best and brightest” in science and technology-oriented careers, should take a look at the organization FIRST and see how you can help.

I have a video clip of Dean’s presentation on FIRST – but need to edit a bit for length. Keep an eye out for this shortly.

The vast majority of his commercial work has also been on completely rethinking and transforming some of the basic needs and problems of life, such as the portable dialysis machine – the HomeChoice® dialysis machine, developed for Baxter, the Ambulatory Infusion Pump (for those who need to have constant infusions of insulin, in many cases prior to this invention required patients to be bed-ridden), recent work with DARPA to provide fully modern prosthetics to those American soldiers who have returned missing one or even two arms to function at incredibly high levels (if I can find a public clip of the videos demonstrating the use of these, I’ll re-post – quite incredible), and in general, as you might expect for a man with over 400 patents, an incredible array of work in healthcare, defense, and in creating (not yet in production) equipment to produce clean drinking water from previously undrinkable sources and portable power generation equipment to bring power to portions of the world that, as Dean said “are as unlikely to see traditional power plants in their countries as they are to ever see land lines [i.e. traditional phone service].”

Simply put, if you have been wondering whether YOU or the people within your organization are “creative” or “innovative” – I can only say that the answer is yes, absolutely.

And, as with the questions of the last few years as to whether the “millennials” are better, smarter, faster than the “boomers” (or any age in between) – these are questions not even worth asking folks… questions that are preventing you from solving problems rather than being the problem.

Whether you’ve been given or have studied the appropriate tools to tap that creativity, individually, as a team, or as an organization, that’s another matter entirely – and I’d be happy to discuss my perspectives, as well as training courses that we offer on innovation management and creative problem solving.

Innovation isn’t magic – you, your team and your organization can do it – but it will take some work.

What are YOU doing to create an atmosphere and train the skills of innovation in your organization? Inquiring minds want to know – discuss in the comments or contact me privately (dk[at]informationarchitected.com or 617-933-9655)

As far as IT organizations have come in the last few decades, there is still much that just doesn’t quite work as it should.

Why are IT (the technology) and IT teams (the people) frequently seen as “part of the problem” when they (and all other players) should all be part of the solution?

Is business as usual, chargebacks, and the practice of “running IT as a business” causing heartburn in YOUR organization?

Too much process, not enough practice = PROBLEMS…

Today’s interview is with Bob Lewis, who is president and a consultant at IT Catalysts – itcatalysts.com, the award-winning author of seven books which are distributed through his publishing company issurvivor.com and author of more than 650 columns dealing with how to effectively lead information technology organizations.

Bob is known for his unique blend of vision and pragmatism, the result of having been a practitioner as well as an advisor. He has held a wide variety of executive, staff and consulting positions in the field of information technology, as well as positions in manufacturing, product development, and business planning.

The discussion is hosted by Dan Keldsen (@dankeldsen), Co-founder and Principal of Information Architected, and discusses several of Bob’s manifestos from his most recent book, “Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology.”

The manifestos of Bob’s book eerily reflect my (Dan) own path through IT, which was part of the attraction in discussing this topic with Bob.

There are better ways to run IT folks, and with any luck, Bob and I have surfaced some useful business and IT practices for a saner and more agile way to run businesses.

What is your experience in the war or collaboration of IT in Business?

If you have examples (good or bad) within your business, I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU, so please feel free to contribute your comments, concerns and questions, and together, we can work to not only keep the joint running, but make it far more likely that your organization will weather the recession and come out stronger your competitors who have NOT figured out the need to get everyone on-board and rowing together.

Is your Information Architected for Business? for Collaboration?

Listen now!

Listen to the Interview: IAM Talking: The Problems of Process, In Practice

Is your Information Architected for Business? for Collaboration??

Contact us at 
617-933-9655 to discuss how you can reap the benefits of an architecture and design approach that will enable you to maximize the value of your content, information and knowledge without pursuing a painful and expensive re-architecting of your systems.

More details on our practices related to Collaboration can be found at:

• Information Architected for Collaboration
  

Let’s face it, most enterprise systems, the systems that employees have to use EVERY DAY to do their job, are painful interfaces to use. They are barely usable, let alone elegant.

Why is that?

And more importantly, what can be done to FIX this seemingly inevitable problem?

Is “elegance” to high a bar to ask that our systems, software, processes, products and services measure up to?

What is Elegance?

What makes a design elegant, and what can we borrow from design across a variety of industries, from entertainment to mobile devices, from manufacturing to ongoing learning, to bring elegance into our own companies?

The podcast interview today (below) features Matthew May (@matthewemay) author of the brand new book “In Pursuit of Elegance” (more information on the book at InPursuitOfElegance.com), as well as author of the critically acclaimed book “The Elegant Solution” published in 2006, and which I had a tremendously enjoyable time interviewing him about in early 2007.

The discussion is hosted by Dan Keldsen (@dankeldsen), Co-founder and Principal of Information Architected, and discusses the four primary components of elegance, as brought forth in Matthew’s most recent book.

Do You Have Stories of Elegance in the Enterprise?

If you have examples of elegance within your business, whether the elegance is found in the products you sell, the systems you use internally, or any other application of elegance… I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU, so please feel free to contribute your comments, concerns and questions, and together, we can work to make elegant solutions far more common than they typically are.

Is your Information Architected for Innovation? for Sustainable business? for Elegance?

Listen now!

Listen to the Interview: IAM Talking: Sustainably Elegant

Is your Information Architected for Elegance?

Contact us at 
617-933-9655 to discuss how you can reap the benefits of an architecture and design approach that will enable you to maximize the value of your content, information and knowledge without pursuing a painful and expensive re-architecting of your systems.

More details on our practices related to Elegance and Innovation can be found at:

• Information Architected for Innovation Management