Burning Questions 2007

GE brings in "Professor in Residence"

GE, long noted for their ability to innovate, is brining in some outside expertise. Vijay (VG) Govindarajan, professor at Tuck and co-author of Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators, will be their first "Professor in Residence." VG and GE's Dan Henson will be presenting a session on building start ups from within at next week's Burning Questions conference in London.

Here's is more on the story from BusinessWeek:

"The quest to turn efficiency-minded managers into growth-generating creatives has yielded everything from innovation gyms to innovation officers. In 2008, General Electric (GE ) will add an academic wrinkle. Vijay Govindarajan, co-author of Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators, will take a year's leave from Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business to become GE's first "professor in residence" and chief innovation consultant.

Govindarajan will teach at GE's Crotonville (N.Y.) campus and other global sites, consult on "imagination breakthrough" projects, and make himself available to managers. While he hasn't set office hours, he plans to host coffee hours with "learning officers" throughout GE. Will he grade GE's notoriously performance-driven managers? No, he says, laughing. "GE is already very much in the grading mode."

Innovation in Recruitment

Among the quesions we asked the speakers who will be part of Burning Questions is what innovations they have seen and been impressed by. Here is what Albert Ellis, CEO of search firm Harvey Nash, had to say about social networks and recruitment:

"Recruitment has always been about relationships. An effective recruiter will have a strong network of trusted candidates and will enjoy long term relationships with his or her regular clients. In recent years we have seen some fascinating technology led innovation in the recruitment industry, from the introduction of internet based job boards - where hundreds of thousands of jobs can be listed in one place - to the technological revolution in the processing of candidate information.

The most exciting technology led innovation around at the moment, which is still only in its infancy, is that of social networking. The growth of websites like facebook, myspace and Bebo is now well reported in the media. Millions of people are signing up to these sites to connect with others who share interests but not geographic borders.

Within the social network itself there is a significant commercial opportunity, however, as an industry that depends on personal relationships and networks, recruiters potentially have a lot to gain from tapping into these online groups. LinkedIn is an early innovator in this field where they have built a network of 7m senior businesspeople who can connect with suppliers, recruiters and each other. In only a few years’ online social networks have grown into communities with millions of members; as the technology behind them advances we can expect their importance to grow across a range of industries."

How are you using social networks?

Changing the World

We recently asked several of our Burning Questions speakers to suggest two organizations to combine that could transform an industry, a market segment, or even the world (note to financial regulators: this is not meant to imply any actual merger or acquisition intentions -- this is all just to stimulate discussion around innovation). Here are some of their replies:

From David Kester, CEO, Design Council -- "If the United Nations and Facebook combined, international diplomacy would become a popularity contest with every country competing to have the most friends."

From Erich Joachimsthaler, CEO, Vivaldi Partners -- "I would bring together Apple with our current healthcare system and then I would finally have real hope that our quality of life has a chance of significant improvement, especially for those times when we are not well and need the help of a health care provider."

From Eric McNulty of Harvard Business School Publishing Conferences, "If FedEx and Starbucks would come together, my morning packages would arrive with a hot latte!"