Ideation, Prototyping & Pilots

All Your Innovation Questions, Answered

Learnings From the Sudden Death of the World’s First Social Robot

Does It Scale?

How Tiffany & Co. is Turning Prototypes into Products Faster

‘If This Works’: The Secret to Avoiding Projects that Become Too Big to Fail

All Your Innovation Questions, Answered
Learnings From the Sudden Death of the World’s First Social Robot
Does It Scale?
How Tiffany & Co. is Turning Prototypes into Products Faster
‘If This Works’: The Secret to Avoiding Projects that Become Too Big to Fail

If asked where ideas come from and how they’re prototyped, most companies would admit that at least two of these are true:

Too few people in the organization are invited to come up with ideas.
The standards for evaluating ideas are inconsistent, or overly political.
Working with startups oroutside firms to explore high-potential possibilities.
It takes too long to build a prototype that can be tested with customers.

Our coverage of ideation and prototyping focuses on how companies are inviting employees to develop ideas, sifting those ideas for the best ones, and getting to MVP.

Articles & Case Studies

How Coca-Cola Created the Soda Fountain of the Future

The inside story how how a skunkworks team of Coca-Cola engineers created the Freestyle soda fountain back in 2007 — and what they’re working on and imporving for the second iteration.

Revera Senior Living on Tackling the Challenges of Aging Collaboratively

From involving residents to running internal idea challenges to partnering with young tech companies, Revera Senior Living seeks to innovate aging collaboratively.

‘Office of New Urban Mechanics’ Nudges City Gov to Take Risks

Boston’s Office of New Urban Mechanics is a civic innovation incubator and R&D lab. It’s also the city’s “risk team, the failure team,” says co-founder Nigel Jacob.

How Truck Manufacturer PACCAR is Innovating for the Long Haul

Tesla isn’t alone in the ring of companies experimenting with electric, autonomous, and smarter commercial vehicles.

How Cisco Brings Multiple Companies Together to Innovate

Cisco executive Kate O’Keeffe explains the format of the company’s 48-hour “living lab” program, which brings together multiple companies to explore opportunities.

What Software Do You Use for Managing Ideas?

One member of the Innovation Leader community asked: “What software do you use for managing ideas — specifically, dealing with an idea backlog?” See the responses inside…