Pages: 1 2 3 Next

Monthly Archive for June, 2009

Pages: 1 2 3 Next

The eight steps of Innovation Process Management

Published on June 30, 2009 in Business innovation. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

With the growing popularity of innovation initiatives, ever more companies are launching their own actions. However, many are going forward in a piecemeal fashion, running a brainstorming event here, trying out an ideas campaign there and promoting innovation in vague ways in marketing communications. Such an approach works, somewhat, but it is not ideal.

The best approach is to have a comprehensive innovation process management (IPM) structure that treats innovation as a series of cycles that run within a grand, enterprise innovation process cycle.

The Innovation Process Cycle

Innovation Process Management DiagramAn innovation process cycle combines creative problem solving (CPS) with scientific peer review evaluation and some typical business tools.

Continue reading ‘The eight steps of Innovation Process Management’

Social media experiments, part two: Share This

Published on June 30, 2009 in Business innovation. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

If you look at the bottom of this or (any other) nowEurope post, you’ll see a green icon labeled ‘Share This.’ Ages ago, I added this feature, but I have to confess I’ve only recently started to use it. Suddenly I find myself becoming a fanatic convert.

Over the years, I’m made a habit of forwarding useful information to my friends and business contacts. This habit is a friendly way of keeping in touch – the digital equivalent of saying ‘hello, I remember you.’ It’s also clever way of offering value, provided I don’t overwhelm my friends with irrelevent information. The key is moderation, as well as relevency.

Playing with Share This, recently, I discovered that I could also add this feature to my browser. (In Firefox, it’s a plugin, in Safari it’s a bookmarklet on my toolbar.) What’s more, Share This also includes a contact manager. You can import your contacts from Gmail, Hotmail and many other services. Before I discovered these features I used to copy and paste URLs into an email, the copy and paste bits of relevent text. Who has the time for that? Now, from any web page, I can open Share This from the browser, select a friend’s email address, and add a personal message. Away it goes.

I admit, Share This might not appeal to everybody. But then again, you might find yourself liking it. Why not take a minute to play with the Share This feature at the bottom of this post. If you find it useful (or anything else you read at nowEurope) take a half minute to let your friends and colleagues know about it.

How Austria and the United Kingdom view CENTROPE

Published on June 29, 2009 in Austria. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

A couple of weeks ago I met Charles Ward in London, who works at the IT network Intellect. Intellect offers similar services to Vienna IT Enterprises (VITE). However, Intellect is a privately run enterprise thus the member fees are a lot higher.

One of the most striking differences between the Austrian and the British market is their access to the Eastern European market. It is a well known fact that Eastern European business partners play an important role for the Austrian and especially Viennese IT sector. Furthermore, various international companies coordinate their CEE activities via Vienna. This is why Vienna is known as the third largest IT location in Europe, after London and Munich.

But the Eastern European IT market is not that important to enterprises in the UK, aside from some big players. Charles Ward could not explain why and found it rather astonishing. My advice would be to locate British enterprises in Vienna to benefit from their experience and strategies, especially from those of the CENTROPE region, and then expand to Eastern European countries. Charles Ward strongly supported my suggestion. If this is really going to be implemented cannot be foreseen. However it could be a new starting point for further and stronger cooperation between Austria and the United Kingdom.

WSJ: The best companies are started during a downturn

Published on June 25, 2009 in Business innovation, Current events and Hungary. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

The other day I was talking to an old friend of mine who runs one of Budapest’s largest and well-known commercial real estate companies. He told me in confidence that his business is down 80% this year. Yikes!

It seems everywhere in the business world, today, you see pain and misery. And yet, what we’ve discovered at Howdy Group is that a recession is also a wonderful time to build partnerships. When two or more parties direct their resources and energies toward a common goal, the result is MUCH more powerful. The general reaction this year is shock, pessimism and retreat. That means this is EXACTLY the right time to build, partner, grow and prepare for the eventual recovery.

Case in point: this morning I read in the Wall Street Journal that over half the companies on the 2009 Fortune 500 list were started during a recession. This finding emerged from a study (PDF) just released by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. “Despite the pain of the current recession, there is reason for hope,” the study concludes, “good things do grow out of recessions.”

The same WSJ article also mentions Prezi, a Hungarian start up I have previously written about. Actually, the WSJ links to an article at Harvard Business Publishing which calls Prezi as “the best business model in the world.” The author is Umair Haque, director of Havas Media Lab. Check this quote:

If I was on the corp dev team at Google, I might think hard about whether Prezi is the Powerpoint-killer that will be the final nail in Microsoft’s cash-lined coffin.

This is a Budapest startup. We’re all in this recession together. My question to you, gentle reader. Are you thinking big enough?

Does Centrope have the potential for an ICT cluster? (part two)

Published on June 21, 2009 in About CITT. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

This is the second part of the SWOT analysis performed for the CITT project. (Part one is here.) This post examines the external factors: opportunities and threats.

Continue reading ‘Does Centrope have the potential for an ICT cluster? (part two)’

Social media experiments, part one: Tumblr

Published on June 21, 2009 in Current events and Facts, figures & trends. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

tumbler-logoI’m one of those rare people who will register and try out pretty much every new website I come across. That’s because I work in social media. However, I don’t always end up using all of these sites on a regular basis. In this series of posts, I’m going to write about what services I do use, and why I use them.

Tumblr is best described as a micro-blogging service. Rather than essay style blog posts (such as at nowEurope), a tumblelog consists of brief text messages, quotations, links, images or video. It took me no more than a few minutes to set up my Tumblr site. Once I realized I wanted to use the service on a regular basis I set up a custom domain (the company might charge for this feature, but they don’t). You can see the result here: http://stevencarlson.org.

At first I saw my Tumblr experiment as an easy way to run a vanity website. However, as our social media universe continues to evolve I have discovered that my tumblelog is also something different (and even more useful) than what I originally thought.

Continue reading ‘Social media experiments, part one: Tumblr’

Does Centrope have the potential for an ICT cluster? (part one)

Published on June 19, 2009 in About CITT. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Finding the answer to this question is a central goal of the Centrope ICT Technology Transfer project (CITT). The project is comprised of six partners in four countries – Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia – and funded by European Community.

To reach this answer, we performed a SWOT analysis, focusing our attention on the ICT sector. Here are the results of this analysis – the first part. (I’m dividing this work into two parts, due to the length of the text.)

Continue reading ‘Does Centrope have the potential for an ICT cluster? (part one)’

Let’s create an open working group of stakeholders

Published on June 18, 2009 in About CITT, Business innovation and Slovakia. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

As discussed by Steven Carlson, our CITT team recently held an internal meeting focused on the development of ICT cross-border cluster business plan. Let me offer my opinion on this issue.

In all CENTROPE countries we can identify ICT networks and clusters, but their activity is focused on local regions and states. Spill-over from universities and research institutions does not cross borders. Cooperation among cluster companies is occasional, even accidental, and is not based on long-term intentions. Outward contacts (if any) are established by networks and clusters managers and are based only on initiatives derived from cross-border or EU projects. The cross-border regions of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are relatively underdeveloped in comparison with Austria. Entrepreneurs are not aware of business opportunities in neighbouring countries. The most important starting point is to raise awareness about business conditions, establishing business networks and actively gathering business contacts.

I suggest creating an open working group of stakeholders, including public authorities, the business community and knowledge developers such as universities and research institutions. The adjective “open” means that the working group should be open to every person or institution which would like to support its ideas.

What is a browser?

Published on June 17, 2009 in Facts, figures & trends. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Most of us here at nowEurope are familiar with various kinds of browser software: Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Opera. Some may even recall the browsers wars of the 1990s. (Does anybody still remember Netscape?)

As this video demonstrates, we are the exception. The general public doesn’t know the difference between a search engine, a web browser and Google. (This is a humorous video created by Google’s New York office.)

Hungary’s mobile penetration is falling

Published on June 17, 2009 in Facts, figures & trends and Hungary. 10 Comments Tags: , , , , .

In recent years, mobile penetration has shown steady increase in most countries, but according to the latest publication of the National Communication Authority, Hungarian mobile usage peaked in the fourth quarter of 2008, and is now falling.

In 2008, the total number of Hungarian mobile subscribers increased by 1,194,000, the largest gain since 2003. By December 2008, the local market hit a peak of 121.8 subscriptions for every hundred people. However, these numbers have been steadily declining in 2009. By the end of May 2009, mobile penetration sank to 118.9.

mobile_hu_may_20091

Traditionally, mobile market growth varies throughout the year, with the biggest increase during the Christmas period. The steady decline in 2009 is without precedence. What is the situation in your country?

Pages: 1 2 3 Next