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The buzz: “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower” (Steve Jobs). If you think Design Thinking (DT) innovation method demands many days or weeks of intense work beyond your high-level managers’ availability, here’s a news flash. Short-cycle DT, developed in a PhD study by SAP and Aalborg University, is a logical, time-efficient DT derivation suited to leaders who can devote just one or two days. This new problem-solving method can benefit your business beyond just R&D and innovation programs. The experts speak. Prof. Charles Møller: “…it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” (Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass). Arkin Efeoglu, SAP: “Everyone has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth” (Mike Tyson). Alejandro Pifarré, SAP Consulting: “Show me the money!” (Jerry Maguire, 1996 film). Join us for Short-Cycle Design Thinking: Perfect for Top Managers.

The buzz: “Change before you have to” -Jack Welch. A disruptive innovation model creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market-leading firms, products and alliances -C. Christensen. The model tends to be produced by outsiders and entrepreneurs, because enterprises need resources for profitable, competitive sustaining innovations. But they still need to change. The experts speak. Prof. Rajeev Srinivasan: “The reason why it is so difficult for existing firms to capitalize on disruptive innovations…their processes and their business model that make them good at the existing business actually make them bad at competing for the disruption.” -Clayton Christensen Suraj Sudhi, SAP: “Only the paranoid survives” -Andy Grov. Lakshman Pachineela Seshadri, SAP Consulting: “When the game gets tough, change the game” -Zhenya Lindgardt. Join us for New Disruptive Business Models: Changing the Enterprise Role.

The buzz: 'Surround yourself with partners who are better than you are' -D. Ogilvy. Is your company treating your ecosystem as vendors to squeeze and channels to push, not as agile partners to co-innovate with you? Reality check: Small and medium organizations in your ecosystem can bring a different kind of value to innovation than you get from start-ups and big companies. What are the challenges and opportunities of expanding your innovation capabilities to your partner network? The experts speak. Professor Wim Vanhaverbeke, Hasselt University: 'The success of electric cars hinges on the successful alignment of the entire electric-car ecosystem. Uncoordinated investment in the individual pieces is…failure' -Ron Adner. Charles Bennett, SAP: 'I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter' -Blaise Pascal. Alejandro Pifarré, SAP:'All of us are smarter than any of us' -Tim Brown. Join us for Partnering-Up: Innovating through Your Ecosystem.

The buzz: “Change before you have to.” -J. Welch B2B sales experts, managers and pundits typically credit their organization's success to individual sellers' skill sets. Not anymore! According to RAIN Group’s 2012 study of top-performing sellers, an innovation-based sales strategy is what helps increase win rates, drive long-term customer loyalty, build collaborative buyer-seller relationships. Does your company know this? The experts speak.Ago Cluytens, RAIN Group: “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor” -Thoreau. Tony Hughes, Author: “Information causes people to think but emotion causes them to act” -Z. Ziglar. Cian Mcloughlin, Trinity Perspectives: “70 percent of buying decisions are based on how customers feel they are being treated” -S. Sinek. Shawn Robertson, SAP: “You can't win in the NCAA without great athletes, but you can lose with them” -L. Holtz. Join us for B2B Sales Winners: Role of Innovation.

The buzz: You say to-ma-to, I say to-mah-to. Confused about intrapreneurship vs entrepreneurship? We’ll set the record straight. The first behaves like the second while employed in a large organization. Is this a good thing? Yes. Smart enterprises are implementing people-centric Intrapreneurship approaches that integrate entrepreneur-style risk-taking, motivational techniques and rewards to develop radical innovations in-house. How can your organization adopt their best practices? The experts speak. Prof. Rajeev Srinivasan: “…when we bring what is within us out into the world, miracles happen” -Ralph Waldo Emerson. Suraj Sudhi, SAP: “Live out of your imagination instead of out of your memory” -Fortune cookie. Lakshman 'Lucky' Pachineela Seshadri, SAP Consulting: “Never before has there been such a push for employees to take ownership of their own corner of a company” -Alyson Krueger, Fast Company-. Join us for The Intrapreneurship Journey: Highs and Lows.

The buzz: Paradox? Despite studies showing a positive correlation between diversity and innovation, the Silicon Valley 'cradle of tech innovation' is dominated by a 'brogrammer' culture where 20-something 'white guys work in a testosterone-fueled environment to create the next tech revolution,' says SAP's Janaki Kumar. This sends a contradictory message to leaders that diversity, while good in theory, is not worth investing in. Learn why diversity by design is worth building and nurturing in your organization – and how to achieve it. The experts speak. Janaki Kumar, SAP: 'Diversity is the art of thinking independently, together' Malcolm Forbes. Emi Kolawole, Stanford d.school: '…We suffer more often in imagination than in reality' Seneca. Brandon Schauer, Adaptive Path: 'When people say that diversity is important, I like to say instead, ‘No, it isn’t important. It’s essential to increase the quality of discourse' John Maeda. Join us for Smart Innovation Diversity by Design.

The buzz: En garde! The most successful companies anticipate—and often invent—the future before their established competitors do. The secret weapon of Fortune 500s? They conduct competitive “war gaming” exercises to generate defensive strategies as well as innovative offensive growth strategies that proactively anticipate new services, products, business models. How can you harness this creative tool for your competitive advantage? The experts speak. Bryan W. Mattimore, Growth Engine Company: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete” (R. Buckminster Fuller). Christopher Bishop, improvising careers: “The future has already arrived. It’s just not widely distributed yet” (William Gibson). Michel Sérié, InnoLifters: “There are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns” (Donald Rumsfeld). Join us for Disruptive War Gaming: A Critical Tool for Today’s Innovators.

The buzz: Getting fresh. Corporations are increasingly seeking to engage entrepreneurs, both from within and outside the organization, by launching initiatives for intrapreneurship, innovation accelerators, incubators and start-up focus programs. While the common purpose of these efforts is to create viable, sustainable new business opportunities, the models of engagement, the challenges and the opportunities vary greatly. What will work best for your company? The experts speak. Hans Balmaekers, Intrapreneurship Conference: “An organization's ability to learn, and translate insights into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage” (Brant Cooper). Manju Bansal, SAP Startup Focus Program: “When all is said and done, there is more said than done” (Aesop). Tonja Erismann, SAP: “Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual” (Natalie Clifford Barney). Join us for Power to the People: Corporates Engaging Entrepreneurs Inside and Outside.

The buzz: Fun! Design Thinking is based on the concept of deriving the needs of your users, then designing a solution to meet those needs. But how will you engage your Design Thinking participants to boost their creativity, and then engage your target audience to actually use your new solution? Gamification! It teaches us different user engagement styles, while Design Thinking tells us which styles will fit a particular user. How to team-up Gamification and Design Thinking to generate successful innovative solutions? The experts speak. Mario Herger, Enterprise Garage Consultancy: “People are stupid. In school they learn plutimication, but coming up with something funny, that's not what they learn” (Pippi Longstocking). Joerg Niesenhaus, Centigrade: “Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view” (Obi-Wan Kenobi). Gilles Atlan, SAP: “If an expert says it can’t be done, get another expert.” (David Ben-Gurion) Join us for Design Thinking Engagement: Gamify!

The buzz: Who’s driving your bus? Be it Digital Transformation, Industry 4.0, innovation in general, or simply ensuring your company’s sustainable growth, your networking approach outside your organization must become your company’s inside DNA. How? Your employees must be engaged and committed. And that requires your Head of HR to become a driving force of company strategy, next in line to the CFO in the C-Suite. The experts speak. Jörg Thienemann , Detect Value GmbH: “Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs” (Bill Gates). Michel Sérié, InnoLifters: “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life” (Confucius). Wayne Morris, SAP: “No organization ever created an innovation. People innovate, not companies” (Seth Godin). Join us for HR: Driving Your Innovation DNA.

The buzz: Evolving. Well into our tech-driven fourth industrial revolution, complexity and speed are the new game-changers. Complexity, from the Internet of Things, Big Data analytics, wearable devices, to real-time business, requires a network-focused digital business model. Speed of innovation cuts the longevity of your business model from decades to years. Ready to be agile and quick at managing business models as well as processes? The experts speak. Peter Mittemeyer, SAP: “Time travels at different speeds for different people. I can tell you who time strolls for, who it trots for, who it gallops for, and who it stops cold for.” (W. Shakespeare) Hichem Maya / SAP: “What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” – Werner Heisenberg) Michel Sérié, SAP: “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” (Anatole France) Join us for Video Killed the Radio Star: Evolving Your Business Model.

The buzz: Red badge! What is “courage” in our innovation culture? Courage is one of the most essential factors in the innovation process. It enables you to be open for new ideas and possibilities, not afraid to fall on your face or get lost in your own isolation. Failing can wake you up to new ways and paths to successful innovation. But without it, you probably wouldn’t have recognized that. As André Gide said, “You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose the sight of the shore.” The experts speak. Michel Serie: “There is nothing more constant than change” (Heraclitus). Oezge Oelmez: “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new” (Albert Einstein). Martin Daum: “So often you find that the students you're trying to inspire are the ones that end up inspiring you” (Unkown). Inessa Laukart: “It´s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure” (Bill Gates). Join us for Courage, Failure, and the Innovation Culture.

The buzz: Up close and personal.Every second sentence, every slide, blog and story in every industry talks about “Digital”. What exactly is it, and what does it mean for you, your company and your customers? Perhaps most important, what changes does it bring to the definition of a “customer”? In a perfect future, we will better pamper and delight our customers, but we can’t unless we know who and where they are, what they want and expect. The experts speak. Michael Sérié, InnoLifters: “I'm not a tech guy. I'm looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people's eyes” (jack Ma). Marco Cigaina, SAP: “Integrative Thinking: The ability to constructively face the tensions of opposing models, and instead of choosing one…generating a creative resolution...a new model…superior to each.” (Rotman School of Management). Alejandro Pifarré, SAP: “Only the paranoids will survive (Andy Groove). Join us for Digital Evolution: New Opportunities for Customer Intimacy.

The buzz: Red badge! What is “courage” in our innovation culture? Courage is one of the most essential factors in the innovation process. It enables you to be open for new ideas and possibilities, not afraid to fall on your face or get lost in your own isolation. Failing can wake you up to new ways and paths to successful innovation. But without it, you probably wouldn’t have recognized that. As André Gide said, “You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose the sight of the shore.” The experts speak. Michel Serie: “There is nothing more constant than change” (Heraclitus). Oezge Oelmez: “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new” (Albert Einstein). Martin Daum: “So often you find that the students you're trying to inspire are the ones that end up inspiring you” (Unkown). Inessa Laukart: “It´s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure” (Bill Gates). Join us for Courage, Failure, and the Innovation Culture.

The buzz: Cultures.Companies like yours worldwide face unprecedented business challenges. Resource constraints, a norm in emerging markets, are a reality even in advanced economies. Market conditions are fluid, complex, fast-paced, and volatile due to the information boom and social media. What will separate the winners from the also-rans? The answer: Innovation. Do innovation cultures vary from country to country? If yes, how? The experts speak. Avi Rokach, SAP: “When you have two alternatives, the first thing you have to do is to look for the third that you didn't think about, that doesn't exist (Shimon Peres). Anastasia Stauffenberg, SAP: “A good innovation culture is based upon Trust, Confidence, Freedom and Openness” (Hans-Joerg Bullinger). Lakshman “Lucky” Pachineela Seshadri, SAP: “Intelligence and capability are not enough. There must also be the joy of doing something beautiful…” (Dr.G.Venkataswamy). Join us for Global Innovation Cultures: Focus on India, Germany, Israel.

The buzz: Drama! Product innovation success tales typically feature a temperamental visionary whose savvy leadership made it all happen. Too good to be true? Yes. Most innovations started with one purpose and target market, and ended up with different use cases and customers. An innovation-favorable environment and skillful team members might not be the stuff of a blockbuster movie, but they are a useful formula for organizations ready to innovate. The experts speak. Dr. Julia Goga-Cooke, Gconsultancy Innovation: “In the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvised most effectively have prevailed” (Charles Darwin). Guy Van Wijmeersch, Barco: “A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock pile when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind (Antoine Saint-Exupery). Itzik Shoshan, SAP: “The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas” (Linus Pauling). Join us for The Power of Group Thinking: Inspiring YOU to Innovate! – Part 2

The buzz: The I’s have it! The I’s: Innovating Innovation. Ready to make it happen in your organization, but not sure how? The answer is to follow a proven recipe for creating a successful culture of innovation. Key ingredients: A passionate team working together to reach common goals. An environment where your team can try new ideas without fear of failure. Strong leaders with great visions. Will it be easy? Thomas Edison said it well: “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Is it worth your effort? Yes. The experts speak. Michel Serie, SAP: “It always seems impossible until it’s done” (Nelson Mandela). Özge Ölmez, SAP: “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower” (Steve Jobs). Inessa Laukart, SAP: “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed!” (Theodore Roosevelt). Martin Daum, SAP: “You cannot discover new things without having the courage to leave the safe harbor” (Andre Gide). Join us for How Do We Live the Innovation Culture?

The buzz: Yes, you! A Design Thinking training participant told the instructor, “This is not for me. I am leaving.” The reason was not quality or pace, but a matter of fit. Creativity was supposed to be open to everybody; for this person, not so much. Should your company’s innovation program be open and broad-brush or selective and focused, a sprint or a marathon? Does great innovation require inspiration or perseverance, the right mindset or knowledge and skills, solitude or group thinking? The experts speak. Dr. Julia Goga-Cooke, Gconsultancy Innovation: “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions” (Einstein). Guy Van Wijmeersch, Barco: Every mind needs friendly contact with other minds, for food of expansion and growth” (Napoleon Hill). Alejandro Pifarre, SAP: “Courage is only the accumulation of small steps” (György Konrád). Join us for The Power of Group Thinking: Inspiring YOU to Innovate!

The buzz: Gamification. Who in the workforce is driving the uptake of gamification in business? These ‘emPLAYees’ are Millennials. For them, work is about self-fulfillment, not just salary – and success is defined not by rank or seniority, but by personal matters. For your organization, gamification is not about serving managers and companies, it’s what interests employees. The silver lining: When games create an environment for creativity and innovation, everyone wins. The experts speak. Gopal RajGuru, Innovate+Grow: “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity” (Gen. George Patton). Mario Herger, Enterprise Gamification Consultancy: “Gamification is big data on employees and will transform the way companies select, evaluate, and promote employees.” Tonja Erismann, SAP: “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun” (Mary Poppins). Join us for Gamification and Innovation: iWorker, Em’play’ee, Col’laborer.

The buzz: Disrupt or be disrupted. In our fast-moving, hyper-connected, uber-competitive world, companies that continually re-invent themselves through innovation are the most likely to survive. Have you been thwarted by the expensive, bogged-down and lengthy traditional process of introducing new ideas to solve existing challenges – from business plan to funding to solution-building to promotion? Take heart! Today’s innovation model can be lean, cheap, and fast. How, you ask? The experts speak. Prof. Dr. Stefan Bongard: “As a University of Applied Sciences professor, I’m always working ‘under the radar’. Problems emerge immediately, when my projects appear on the radar screen.” Daniel Brunnett, SAP: “Screw it, let´s do it!” (Richard Branson). Wayne Morris, SAP: “Organizations, by their very nature, are designed to promote order and routine. They are inhospitable environments for innovation” (Theodore Levitt). Join us for Your Innovation Projects: Better Under or On the Radar?