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Working backwards to move forwards - a surprising recipe for innovation success
How to unlock the power of your ideas through the PR/FAQ framework  Innovation isn’t a solo act, it’s a multi-player game which depends...
John Bessant
Mar 202 min read


The data alchemists
How an entrepreneurial couple helped start a retail revolution Image: Canva A gold ingot about the size of an older generation smartphone...
John Bessant
Mar 72 min read

paralysed by possibilities- how to get to grips with AI
Why absorptive capacity matters in our innovation strategy  We grow through what we know. Put simply that’s at the heart of the...
John Bessant
Feb 93 min read

Inspired innovation
How a concert fifty years ago can still provide insight and ideas to help manage innovation 24th January, 1975. Fifty years ago and a...
John Bessant
Jan 253 min read


Beating the bougainvillea blues
Why cutting back is sometimes the best innovation approach Every year about this time we move southwards. Like very late swallows....
John Bessant
Jan 92 min read

Dear Santa...
A seasonal innovation song... Image: Dall-E via Chat GPT Dear Santa… A seasonal innovation song It’s the time of year when letters are...
John Bessant
Dec 17, 20242 min read

AI through the rear-view mirror
What we can learn from the past to help navigate the AI storm… There’s a technology out there that’s coming for you. You can’t escape it,...
John Bessant
Dec 6, 20242 min read

Flying the flag for innovation
A standard is an old word for a flag. Back in the days of sailing ships you could see a forest of them fluttering at the stern of ships...
John Bessant
Nov 15, 20241 min read

Bridging different worlds...
How to unlock the power of recombinant innovation Wandering around Chicago in 1912 William Klann was a man on a mission. He was part of a...
John Bessant
Oct 22, 20242 min read


Continuing continuous improvement
Why high involvement innovation matters more than ever — and how to make it happen Autumn. Season of mists, mellow fruitfulness — and...
John Bessant
Oct 4, 20242 min read

irresponsible innovation anyone?
Why we need to rethink the story around responsible innovation High on mountain above Oslo you can see the strange angular shape of...
John Bessant
Sep 12, 20242 min read

Hitching a ride to productivity
How one man’s innovation provided the missing link for 20th century agricultural revolution There’s a lot of good stuff which comes out...
John Bessant
Aug 20, 20242 min read

Why innovation needs mapping skills
It’s easy to take maps for granted — but we’d be pretty stuck without them. Maps have been one of the most important human inventions for...
John Bessant
Jul 24, 20241 min read

Impact intrapreneurship
Leveraging the power of large organizations for social innovation We’ve got a huge challenge around social innovation. If we’re serious...
John Bessant
Jul 9, 20242 min read


AI is a no-brainer for innovation
Long fuse, big bang. A great descriptor which Andrew Hargadon uses to describe the way some major innovations arrive and have impact. For...
John Bessant
May 24, 20242 min read

scaling value
How to navigate the long winding road to high impact innovation What do you get when you’ve successfully developed and launched your...
John Bessant
May 9, 20243 min read

Irrelevant innovation
Why change isn't always a good thing.... We spend so much of our time thinking about important innovation but maybe we should spare a...
John Bessant
Apr 27, 20241 min read

It's not (Only)what you know....
Innovation is a multi-player game. The image of the lone hero innovator is a myth. Even celebrated soloists like Thomas Edison or James...
John Bessant
Apr 2, 20242 min read


Beating the innovation scaling blues...
Another innovation song.... Last week I was helping run a series of workshops supporting social innovators from across the United Nations...
John Bessant
Mar 14, 20242 min read

Innovation lessons from a skateboard...
What have ollies, decks, trucks, popsicles, cruisers and kicktails got in common? If you’d asked me that back in December I would have...
John Bessant
Feb 15, 20242 min read
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