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Many business gurus consider relentless innovation to be the United States' only remaining edge in a global marketplace marked by labor arbitrage and the competitive threats posed by exploding economies in China and elsewhere.

Tom Koulopoulos, the author of a new book, The Innovation Zone, and the founder of the Delphi Group, says, "While some progress is being made on the innovation front, too many U.S. companies still under perform when it comes to driving the type of sustained innovation needed to meet this competitive threat. On the other hand, many corporations are looking at operational innovation as a way to cope with the complexity technology brings."

In his book, Koulopoulos demonstrates how organizations can create and sustain a culture of innovation. Koulopoulos, who writes a blog called The Innovation Zone (http://www.tomkoulopoulos.com) says that if public and private organizations are serious about taking the lead in innovation and re-invigorating the marketplace and U.S. economy, they must move behind the hype of innovation and apply proven techniques and processes. His book provides a how-to-do blueprint for innovation process methods that organizations can put into practice. He says, "We need to stop singing innovation kumbaya and start delving into the practice and science of innovation."

Koulopoulos' insights about innovation have received wide praise from luminaries such as Peter Drucker, dee Hock, and Tom Peters who called Tom Koulopoulos' writing, "a brilliant vision of where we must take our enterprises to survive and thrive." According to Peter Drucker, Tom's writing "makes you question not only the way you run your business but the way you run yourself." He is also editor of the Delphi Report, a quarterly journal for business and technology leaders.

He sees signs that organizations are embedding innovation in their business practices, and that they have devoted both financial and staff resources to innovation. He says, "It's surprising to me that more companies actually are putting people in positions of authority with respect to innovation. They are not necessarily new people; they are folks that are already on staff, but they also are carrying that [innovation] badge."

In this second Enterpriseleadership.org podcast, Koulopoulos talks about the following:

• the status of technology efforts in the U.S. corporations;
• the challenges of IT innovations in global corporations;
• the ways companies have used IT in innovative ways;
• the need for corporate education programs in innovation;
• the things CIOs and CTOs need to do to get involved in corporate innovation; and
• the way his organization works with clients to drive corporate innovation.

Bio

Tom Koulopoulos is the founder of the Delphi Group, a 20-year-old Boston-based thought leadership firm providing advice on leading edge technologies to global 2000 organizations and government. He sold Delphi to Perot Systems in 2004 and today serves as managing director of a global innovation lab.

During the past two decades Tom Koulopoulos' works have introduced core industry concepts, frameworks, and vernacular that describe the impact of technology on business. These things include Single Point of Access, Touch Points, Digital Control Rooms, Business Operating Systems, Corporate IQ, Information Value Chains, and Smartsourcing.

InformationWeek named him one of the industry's most influential information management consultants. Koulopoulos' insights on the implications of IT on global organizations frequently appear in national and international print and broadcast media, such as BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Economist, CNBC, CNN and NPR.

Tom Koulopoulos' eight books include: Smartsourcing, Corporate Instinct, Smart Companies, Smart Tools, and The X-economy.

Tom Koulopoulos has also been an adjunct professor at the Boston College Wallace E. Carroll Graduate School of Management and a guest lecturer at the Boston University School of management and Harvard University. He is the former director of the Babson Center for Business Innovation.

Resources

Enterpriseleadership.org Podcast - Tom Koulopoulos - The Innovation Zone
http://www.enterpriseleadership.org/blogs/podcasts/2009/06/29/podcast-with-thomas-m-koulopoulos-author-of-the-innovation-zone

Podcast -Tom Koulopoulos on Unemployment, Innovation & the PUMA Personal Transportation Vehicle from Segway & GM, The Wall Street Journal Online
http://arikjohnson.com/2009/04/10/tom-koulopoulos-on-unemployment-innovation-the-puma-personal-transportation-vehicle-from-segway-gm/

IT Outsourcing According to Tom Koulopoulos, Wisconsin Technology Network
http://wistechnology.com/articles/2795/

Architecture & Process keynote: Tom Koulopoulos
http://www.column2.com/2008/04/architecture-process-keynote-tom-koulopoulos/

Production Credits

Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer

Audio Editing by Doug Marcis