Radio & Video: Tools for Agricultural Innovation

Africa News reports:“Farmers innovations are often shaped by capital limitations and mainly rely on locally available resources, of which knowledge is a key one,” said Paul Van Mele, a scientist at the Africa Rice Center. “Video proved a powerful, low-cost medium for farmer-to-farmer extension and to expose rural communities to new ideas and practices.”...Innovation levels of 72 percent were

The Karatara Project

From the The Karatara Project website "...Handouts and charity are NOT the solution for poverty and other problems in Africa - that’s been proven over and over.What Africa really needs is education and enterprise that transforms communities so that they believe in themselves and thrive through trade; not merely survive from aid. This project is all about teaching smart, ‘green’ sustainable wealth

Obama in Africa

G Pascal Zachary in the Guardian:Obama's tendency to view Africa through an American lens is thus both understandable and inevitable. Yet his African roots give him a unique capacity to transform American relations with Africa, elevating the importance of African self-reliance and achievement, while striving to make American aid more intelligent and effective. More here.

Nigerian Returnees vs India's

Jeremy Weate writes:...it might be an idea to begin to compare what the recent influx of diasporic Nigerians has done for the country's corporations. Compare and contrast with India.Ten years ago, Indians with Californian technology experience started to return home during the dot com consolidation that began in late 1999/early 2000.On the back of this migration, India's IT services sector began

The Silly Business Model Innovation Cow Exercise

A couple of posts back I wrote about a simple, fun, but silly exercise to think out of the box when it comes to business model innovation: the silly cow exercise. I asked people to submit their own sketches of business models using a cow..

The echo was very weak (no creativity out there, or fear of sketching?). Hence, in addition to the set of sketches I got from Fréderic Sidler, I photographed some of the sketches coming out of a workshop I did last week in Belfast. The silly cow exercise is a always a success, probably because it looks at business model innovation from a very light angle. It even works with very senior and serious business people. My favorite business model came from a participant in Belfast. However, she didn't have the courage to present her sketch during the workshop: "The Condom Tester"...

Here some of the sketches. You can find the full set on Flickr. I will certainly add more over time...

Business Model Innovation Exercise Series: nr.1 - ideation

The cow exercise is something I regularly do at my keynote speeches and workshops to trigger business model innovation thinking. It so far away from the audience's daily business concerns that it easily stimulates creativity.

Have a look at the slides and make sure you send me your own sketches:

Business Model Exercise Series : nr.1 - ideation

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: management strategy)

Have fun, send me your sketches and give me feedback...