FastCompany, just published on the 2011 Most Innovative Companies post.
An artificial heart and its lightweight power drive. A better airline for Brazil. Chocolate from Madagascar and a soccer shirt made of plastic water bottles. A fashion leader escaping its pattern, a smelter, and that little coupon startup in Chicago that’s suddenly worth billions. All this from one simple word: innovation.
The 50 companies on our 2011 list have chosen a unique path. Today’s business landscape is littered with heritage companies whose CEOs battle their industry’s broken model with inertia, layoffs, lawsuits — anything that squeezes pennies and delays the inevitable. How many of these companies will be dominant in 2025? Few.
The intro got me interested so I decided to take a look further and see which 50 companies made it into the list, hoping against hope to see SAP listed because I am aware of so many amazing innovations taking place – well I wasn’t surprised we were not listed, which means will need to push harder for 2012 to ensure even folks like FastCompany notice the amazing stuff we are turning out!
We really need to push hard to ensure that the hard work of our developers are being noticed!
I had a similar feeling last year when I read a book called “The New Polymath” by Vinnie Mirchandani, (Deal Architect and New Florence). Even more so listening to Vinnie himself talk about it.
Innovation is one of those slippery terms than can and is often misused by people, yet surprisingly often also not used enough! Being inside a big company like I am and having the access I do I see literally hundreds (sometimes close to thousands) of apps and prototypes each year that are being created by our own employees who are encouraged by management to stretch their creativity muscles and to see what they can come up and more and more those items are beginning to be shared! Are we at the level that we should be in terms of sharing? No! But 2011 will be a year of seeing even more sharing happen!!
This of course brings me to another topic, it’s that time of the year, the SAP TechEd 2011 events are starting to ramp up even though SAPPHIRE is looming over our heads!
This is a special event for me, because it’s all about innovations and it’s innovations from our customers, partners and even our own employees!
Now as in previous years I will be involved in the SAP TechEd events around the Demo Jam, as not only the host but also as someone that you are welcome to contact ahead of time to discuss your ideas and your demos with! For me this is a chance to hear more and more about the innovations going on but for you it’s a great way to get in touch with someone who has been around the topic for awhile and has a good feeling what the initial selection committee is looking for and more importantly what they are not looking for. Take the opportunity while you can!
Now submissions open in the middle of May, however I will be online via Skype at “CraigCmehil” every Tuesday and Thursday from 17:00 to 19:00 central European time (German time) starting May 24, 2011. There could be an occasion or two where I am not online but for the most part you should find me there and if not leave me a message or a voicemail and I will get back to you. You can also email me, firstname.lastname @ sap.com is the address (use my real first and last names of course) and I will also be available in and around Germany throughout the summer, mostly Walldorf but other locations as well and those I will announce in the upcoming videos as I know them.
