In previous posts (here and here) I’ve delved into Steven Johnson’s insights on innovation in his book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. I’m again returning to Johnson’s outstanding book, briefly, because I was struck by an idea—“cooperative advantage”—that he addresses in his chapter on creating online platforms, specifically APIs, or application programming interfaces. […]
From the Blog
Outsource Planning 3Es: Experience, Essentials and Empathy
In my previous post I talked about maturity in outsource planning and wanted to follow up with a little more color from research by CORE, Deloitte and Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management on their survey report, “The 3 Es of Effective Outsourcing Governance.” The 3Es are experience, essentials and empathy. Parties involved in […]
How “Mature” is Your Outsourcing Plan?
I’m a fan of “maturity” assessments because they help organizations plot where they are relative to a set of criteria and other organization. While it might be frustrating that there is not “one” maturity model out there, I am ok with that as long as the goal of an organization is to improve by taking […]
100 Years and the Guns of August
This month marks the 100-year anniversary of the start of the World War I – a military, political and human disaster of epic proportions that defined the twentieth century. A recent Wall Street Journalcolumn “The War that Broke a Century,” focused on the leadership (or really the lack of leadership) aspect of WWI. For those […]
Standing on the Shoulders…
Previously I posted on Stephen Johnson’s work about how innovations that are built on slow hunches, serendipity and having an attitude that embraces sliding doors that open new pathways is conducive to driving innovation. These posts brought to mind the evolution of the Vested business model itself and how it relates to a powerful quote […]
Parallel Tracks to Innovation
Lately I’ve been thinking about the paths taken and not taken in business and life, the choices made, and how that impacts a company’s success. Last night I was watching Sliding Doors, a 1998 movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hannah. It is light romantic comedy/fantasy fare, but there’s a cleverly conceived message inside the fluffy story. […]
Leave Space for Serendipity
In a recent post I wrote about Steven Johnson’s insights on innovation in his book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. I want to narrow in on his chapter on “Serendipity.” In it, Johnson says hunches and dreams have a place in the canon of great ideas and innovation. For example, Johnson […]
Have Faith While Walking the Walk
We’re all on journeys both in our personal and business lives. It’s a cliché to say that life is a journey, but it’s also a basic truth. These thoughts come to mind after recently watching The Way, starring the wonderful Martin Sheen. The movie is an inspirational story about family, friends, and the challenges we […]
Avoiding the Dishonesty Germ
When Dan Ariely writes about the importance of “establishing rules that can safeguard ourselves from ourselves,” I immediately think about how resonant that thought is with the Vested mindset. After all, Vested’s Five Rules are designed to transform business relationships and provide effective safeguards to counter the various ailments that can plague those relationships, such […]
Maxwell’s Law of Navigation: Be Prepared, Share the Vision
John C. Maxwell’s 2007 book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You, stresses the importance of navigation (Law #4) as part of a leader’s arsenal. Why navigation, you ask? It’s not really about blindly “following the leader” as much as it is about the leader charting the proper course for his […]
