Let us imagine that “innovation” is a person, a vibrant and dynamic person who is most interested in the new, the exciting, the useful, and through these qualities, is also very interested in creating new wealth for individuals, companies, nations, and societies. Indeed this is exactly the role that innovation plays in the global economy. Langdon Morris reflects on 2011 and what’s to come.

We think of careers like ladders, don’t we? And when careers do not go straight up the ladder, we do not see them as (good) careers. But if you are in the business of providing talent this is a tradition that may need to be replaced by innovation. Replacing the traditional ladder with a lattice has led to significant improvements according to Cathy Benko, chief talent officer for Deloitte.

Emotions, empathy, connection, love, storytelling, self-care – I am referring what I heard about the consumer. Creative revolution, democratization, social innovation, experience, passion – I am referring to what I heard about innovation.

In their desperation to be innovative, companies often brainstorm themselves into idea overload, generating ideas that ultimately are failures. But what if companies could focus those brainstorming efforts and develop an efficient, targeted process for creativity? InnovationManagement asked Tony Ulwick to share his thoughts on how to leverage the creativity and get a better outcome.

For years, management and business schools have vastly exaggerated the importance of tools and theories in delivering innovations to the markets effectively. As common sense indicates, the overwhelmingly important predictor of success for an innovation is not the use of tools, “innovation frameworks”, or handbook of rules, but the quality of leadership of the project and the talent and motivation of the staff carrying it out. In innovation management, we need to go back to basics.

Many firms discover in their search for unknown co-innovators that in different countries potential innovation partners react differently when they are approached by an Open Innovator. Frank Mattes looks at a recent study that may help shine light on the issue.

At last weekend’s Taipei Startup Weekend, 3 young men – an Irishman, a Canadian and a Swede took up the challenge. Did they make it? Read their story.

One of the major findings in mankind’s history is realizing the value of working together. Without it we would have starved to death about 100 000 years ago because a single man going hunting is very inefficient (I know – I am a hunter). We have also seen a very strong correlation between the amount of innovations happening and the number of people who are interconnected in the society during the course of the years.

Venture capitalist offers million-dollar grand prize in contest for best new start-up.

Continuing our week of discussion on new directions for innovation David Weiss and Claude Legrand discuss the innovation challenge in an extract from their new book. Innovative Intelligence. Why don’t leaders truly lead on innovation?

From Science to Business on effective firm–university partnerships is a new book on the university-enterprise arm of innovation. Karin Wall talks with author Dr. Georges Haour, Professor at the executive education institute IMD.

At the end of March the European Innovation Conference brought together senior executives from Europe’s leading firms. Paul Hobcraft who was at the meeting of innovators describes the outputs.

As the Japanese tragedy unfolded following the Tsunami in March and the subsequent disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant, German netnography company Hyve decided to use its crowdsourcing expertise to help. You can help too. Read on to find out more about Idea for Japan.

StartUp America is President Obama’s policy of choice to kick start jobs growth in the United States. StartUp America Partnership is a private sector initiative to help out. How closely related are they and what do they mean for innovation in America? We talked to Lesa Mitchell, VP Innovation at the Kauffman Foundation, one of the architects of the partnership.

Do large companies need a Chief Innovation Officer? First they need to think more clearly about the range of issues they can innovate their way through and those that they cannot.