Innovation RSS feed for Forum

  • African Rural University's Innovative Customer Ecosystem by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    African Rural University is the first All Women's University in East Africa. Launched in 2006, its mission is to educate and empower Rural Transformation Specialists--women who work in rural communities to help the families in these economically-poor areas create better lives for themselves and for their communities. What makes this ...
    Apr. 18, 2023
  • What's a Customer Ecosystem? by Ronni Marshak in Innovation
    Patricia Seybold coined the term "Customer Ecosystem" in 2008. She defines it this way: "A customer ecosystem occurs when an entire network of individuals and organizations are intentionally (or serendipitously) aligned to help customers achieve their desired outcomes as easily as possible." These customers may be consumers, patients, students, or ...
    Mar. 25, 2023
  • Looking for Customer Innovation in 2023 by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    Which companies really practice customer innovation these days? Very few. New businesses and industries typically emerge based on an accurate perception of an unfilled customer need, or a great new transformative invention. The customer engagement part usually happens LATER during product  testing and market research, marketing focus groups, and sales ...
    Jan. 20, 2023
  • Eric Topol: Patients Should Own & Control their Medical Data by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    I like the thoughtfulness of this article, recently published in Nature: Stop the Privatization of Health Data, by John Wilbanks and Eric Topol. I have culled a few highlights to give you a flavor: Selected Excerpts below: "Until now, obtaining health data has generally depended on highly skilled professionals who ...
    Jul. 28, 2016
  • Precision Medicine: IBM Watson Partners with VA on Cancer by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    On June 29th, at Vice President Biden’s National Cancer Moonshot Summit, the U.S. Veterans Administration and IBM Watson Health  announced a public-private partnership to help doctors expand and scale access to precision medicine over the next two years for 10,000 American Veterans with cancer. Here's the write up from the ...
    Jul. 4, 2016
  • Precision Medicine: Formation & Evolution of US Genomic Data Commons by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    As a follow up to our coverage of Precision Medicine--the ultimate application of personalized services--there's progress to report on the ability for more clinicians and patients to benefit from targeted analysis, diagnosis and treatment of cancer by accessing a shared database of Cancer Genomes. This is part of Obama's Precision ...
    Jul. 4, 2016
  • Why Engage Community Members in the Design of a University Library? by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    I grew up in a college town. Swarthmore College worked hard to maintain good relations with the people who lived and worked in Swarthmore, PA. But nobody from the College conferred with local residents about the design of on campus buildings. I imagine the architects involved in the design of ...
    May. 26, 2016
  • Don't Miss Your Chance to Shape the Future of Medicine by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    To me, the most exciting initiative that's been triggered by President Obama’s focus on Precision Medicine is the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) Cohort program. Its goal is to recruit a cohort of 1 million people in the U.S., all of whom agree to share their health data, including their medical ...
    Feb. 25, 2016
  • Will Patients Shape the Field of Precision Medicine? by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    How Patients COULD Shape Precision Medicine I believe that we're at an incredibly important inflection point in the exploding field of Precision Medicine. Proactive patient participation could shape this nascent industry. If the patients who benefit the most from Precision Medicine also become empowered and engaged patients, rather than scientific ...
    Jan. 30, 2016
  • Pattys' Pioneers Predictions for 2016 by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    Every year, members of Patty's Pioneers' group enjoy sharing their technology predictions for the coming year. This year's submissions are interestingly diverse. Several touched on topics I hadn't heard of, much less thought about, such as: Biogenetic Malware: CRISPR: Pat Kerpan: "In 2016, we'll get the first real "MALWARE" scare ...
    Jan. 16, 2016
  • New Energy for Climate Innovation by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    The United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP-21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change took place in Paris from November 30 to December 12th, 2015, just a week after major terrorist attacks across the city. France's President, François Hollande, had declared a state of emergency and blocked ...
    Dec. 22, 2015
  • Graduates Co-Designed their University & Validated its Curriculum by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    On November 20th, an earth-shattering event took place. And, it wasn't a terrorist attack or a mass shooting, or a devastating earthquake. It was an antidote to the world's ills: A beacon of hope. The first students graduating from the newly accredited African Rural University on November 20, 2015, included ...
    Dec. 3, 2015
  • Patterns from Patty's Pioneers Meeting in October 2015 by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    Last week, Patty's Pioneers met for our semi-annual face-to-face confab. As usual, we all came away with new insights, wonderful peer support, and newly awakened perceptual filters. Without violating our confidentiality agreements and "cone of silence," I'd like to share a few of my personal take-aways--the patterns that emerged for ...
    Nov. 3, 2015
  • Solu: Innovative Personal & Social Computing Ecosystem by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    I've fallen in love with a new computer from Solu Machines in Finland. I suspect that you will too. This pocket computer was unveiled on October 15th in Helsinki and San Francisco. It is the first truly innovative computing platform and ecosystem that I've seen in a long time. The ...
    Oct. 24, 2015
  • Co-Designing a Community Center by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    On Saturday, August 29th, we held the Grand Opening of our new Community Center here in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. It was a fantastic event--about 300 people showed up to tour the new facility during the Open House. What makes this event significant is the way it was done, what it ...
    Aug. 30, 2015
  • Wrong Customers in Your CABs? by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    It never ceases to amaze me how little most execs know about "a day in the life" of the people who rely on their products and services to get things done. Somebody or some group in the company is usually steeped in end-user research, but that research is "presented" to ...
    Aug. 24, 2015
  • 8 DOs and DON'Ts for Customer Advisory Boards by Ronni Marshak in Innovation
    6 Things Customer Advisory Board Members Love to do: Network with their peers. What makes a Customer Advisory Group great is the value of the relationships that customers build with one another. You know you're on the right track if members call one another for advice in between meetings. Share ...
    Jun. 17, 2015
  • Why Managing Cashflow is a Killer App by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    Dealing with Unexpected Expenses  Over the last two decades, when working with financial services firms and their end-customers, we invariably encounter a common Customer Scenario: "I don't have enough money to pay for an unforeseen expense." Oddly enough, It doesn't matter how affluent the customers are. They may still have ...
    May. 6, 2015
  • OPEN LETTER TO IBM Watson Health: Is It Too Late for Patients to Drive This Initiative? by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    I’m psyched about the launch of IBM’s Watson Health Business Unit.  Now that I spend about 50% of my time in the healthcare world working on customer co-designed health and wellness initiatives, I’m very interested in technology advances that will improve the lives of patients and their caregiver partners. However, ...
    Apr. 16, 2015
  • The Peer-to-Peer Economy Is Growing by Patricia Seybold in Innovation
    I received a thoughtful reader response from Jeff Conklin on my recent Zopa case study/update. Jeff wrote: “Your piece about Zopa (which I hadn’t heard of) is fascinating, and reminds me of a quote I saw on LinkedIn yesterday: ‘In 2015 Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles; ...
    Apr. 9, 2015