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Experimenting With Failure, The Executive Challenge – SideraWorks | SideraWorks.

Having just returned from a master class taught by Alex Osterwalder, author of the ‘Business Model Generation‘ and the similarly named canvas tool used throughout the business world, there are a swirl of ideas going through my brain.

I’m quite fond of his canvas and had already used it often, but it was extremely useful to see how he personally approaches the methodology. I can’t recommend the book or the tool highly enough, in my opinion there is an immense amount of power contained in the process itself that goes far beyond designing business models.  It expands the viewpoint of participants and embeds in them a form of ‘critical thinking for business’ that is difficult to achieve through other methods.

The Blended Enterprise

One point that was reiterated throughout the two day workshop was the notion that businesses (enterprises in particular) need a portion of their attention and resources dedicated to constantly experimenting and testing new business models.  Effectively, developing and testing startups within their walls.  I find it fascinating how seemingly different these efforts are at first glance compared to a large scale social business transformation, and yet how closely intertwined they are in practice.  One helps to clearly describe ‘what’ you want to do, the other is a method of ‘how’ you’re going to achieve it through organizational design and culture initiatives.

Now that I’ve fawned over Alex’s work and given him some free advertising, let’s get back to the topic at hand, the need for creating innovation centers and intrapreneurial efforts.  This point is not particularly new,

My point of view: SideraWorks posts are always aming for a higher level. Recommended read.

Photocredt: Boston Cream Pie 2

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