We recently had a fascinating meeting with a prominent venture capitalist based in Palo Alto, and during the course of our conversation about the pressures that his portfolio companies are under he used a fascinating phrase to describe the tech industry as a whole. He said that the lagging companies, many of which are not even lagging that far behind, are being “driven to death by the rate of innovation.”
What a precise way to express both the tone and brutal reality of our times!
During the conversation we also talked about the digital revolution, and the fact that as computer technology continues to advance, the new power it brings creates unprecedented opportunity for those that quickly create new digital platforms, and then attract a very broad base of users. For any firm that is directly in the high tech sector, and likewise any firm that is affected by what happens in tech, the key theme is therefore speed.
Speed is also one of the three main themes of our newest book, coming out September 22 from Wiley. We called it “Agile Innovation,” as the book explores the synthesis of Agile Software technique and rigorous innovation methodology. We wrote the book with one purpose in mind – to help leaders accelerate their innovation progress.
We have received a lot of very positive comments from the early reviewers, including this comment from Reid Hoffman, co-founder and chairman of LinkedIn: “In today’s world of always-accelerating global competition, organizations either innovate or die. And as the authors of this worthwhile book make clear, innovation in the Networked Age is a team sport. It’s no longer enough just to think differently. You have to think faster. You have to think more productively. And to do that, you need to think collaboratively. This book is filled with good advice on how to do just that. Read it, then share it with your co-workers!”
And this one from Forbes, which put us at number 9 on their Recommended Reading List: “Langdon Morris, Moses Ma and Po Chi Wu, Agile Innovation: The Revolutionary Approach to Accelerate Success, Inspire Engagement, and Ignite Creativity (Wiley, September 22). Two leading innovation thinkers and consultants (Morris and Ma) and an engineering professor (Wu) have written an excellent (and overdue) guide to how agile techniques, like process acceleration, risk management, and fuller team engagement, have fostered successful innovation for leading businesses and can be put into practice elsewhere.”
And this one from Errol Arkilic, who was co-creator of the Innovation Corps for the Obama administration: “Agile Innovation promises to profoundly transform businesses and institutions. By bridging the worlds of Agile and traditional corporate innovation, the authors have created a mash-up for business strategy that enables the transformation of self-organizing toward self-optimizing teams and offer a map for the journey to the development of self-actualizing organizations. This must-read book is a strategic imperative for anybody aiming to successfully deliver new products or services in a brutally competitive, digitally-accelerated business world.”
To help encourage our friends to buy the book, we have assembled a digital library of tools and helpful information.
We’ve also created a new Crowd Launching platform to support the book and also to support other authors and content creators.
Click here to find the free library, read all the praise, watch a quick video about the book, and find links to Amazon and other booksellers.
Or you can click here to go directly to Amazon and order your copy now!
Thanks for your support!!