GE Healthcare today launched Stimulus Simplicity, a new financing and product-certification program that will offer zero percent interest loans to physicians’ offices, hospitals, clinics, and other organizations. The concept is to help them...

Not too long ago, the discount-clothing chain Steve & Barry's was the center of newspaper style-section stories and glossy fashion-magazine spreads. It was another example of the democratization of design.

The concept of positive deviance is credited to Tufts University professor Marian Zeitlin, who documented the existence of "positive deviant" children in poor communities in the 1990s. These were kids who were better nourished than others even though...

Just as many of the world's biggest companies are embracing open innovation, along comes James Todhunter, chief technology officer of software provider Invention Machine, to say it's becoming yesterday's idea. Chatting with me between presentations at...

Last night the Plain English Campaign award ceremony was held in London. The 30th time these gongs have been doled out, individual prizes include "Golden Bull" awards, "for the worst examples of written tripe" as well as the "Foot in Mouth" award, "for...

One of the truisms in innovation is that it’s OK to fail—most ideas never become a real-life product or service. Yet few executives are willing to fess up to their mess-ups. Cisco Systems’ Greg Fox is one of the few. Today, at the final day of...

As I was chairing the first day of the Open Innovation Summit today, I was struck by something that many speakers acknowledged: Their companies converted to open innovation—relying on outsiders for their next products or services—only after falling...