Incremental innovation and process improvements have always come from those closest to the problem. It's the basis of kaizen, a system where employees continually improve manufacturing processes. It's also a founding principle of Six Sigma — tap employees' relentless, incremental quality improvements.

The same is true in the way employees are harnessing consumer technologies — social, mobile, video, and cloud. They're improving how they do their jobs and solving your customer and business problems. And it's not just a few employees; it's a critical mass of employees. In a survey of more than 4,000 U.S. information workers, we found that 37% are using do-it-yourself technologies without IT's permission. LinkedIn, Google Docs, Smartsheet.com, Facebook, iPads, YouTube, Dropbox, Flipboard — the list is long and growing. Many of these scenarios are do-it-yourself projects.

How did USAA become the most innovative bank in America? I guess its big-bank competitors have been kind of preoccupied with other matters the past few years. And because USAA serves most of its 5 million banking customers remotely, it stands to profit from pushing the envelope in online/mobile delivery. 

The latest proof that the bank is both innovative and adored? Posting user reviews right in the middle of the homepage, an inventive and unique approach. And with an average score of 4.7 out of 5 for both checking and auto insurance, the reviews serve as a transparent and effective mass endorsement.

Here are ten tips to nurture a strong partnership between innovators and the core business:

1. Articulate a motivating vision of victory in which both the dedicated team and the performance engine win.
2. Highlight the reality that the dedicated team and the performance engine are mutually dependent.
3. Create a common enemy: the competition.
4. Reinforce the values that the dedicated team and the performance engine share, even if they are simple and universal values, like a commitment to integrity.
5. Make the division of responsibilities between the dedicated team and the performance engine as clear as possible.
6. Anticipate resource constraints created when the shared staff must simultaneously handle the demands of innovation and ongoing operations.
7. Gather data to understand whether fears about cannibalization are valid or unfounded.
8. Alter incentives. Specifically evaluate "ability to collaborate across organizational boundaries" on performance reviews.
9. Use influential and collaborative insiders at points of interaction between the dedicated team and the shared staff.
10. When the innovation initiative succeeds, share credit liberally, with both the dedicated team and the shared staff.

BankSimple, the potentially disruptive Web-based banking service started by Twitter forefather Alex Payne, wants your input.

The company announced it will be launching an API for use by third-party developers at the same time it releases its first Web- and mobile-accessible banking service to users. But first, BankSimple has created a listserv using Google Groups to get feedback from developers and users.

We have been working on a project for a while now that we are very excited about. It is called OpenIDEO and it is launching today. We are hoping that we can create a platform for you to work with us on some important social innovation projects. Don’t worry if you are not a practicing designer. There is room for you to contribute things that may inspire other designers, post your own ideas or you can evaluate ideas that others have suggested. One of the first challenges is for Jamie Oliver, this years’  TED prize winner. The goal is to find ways to inspire and educate people (especially kids) to cook and eat healthier food. The other current challenge is for Gray Matters Capital and is to do with low cost educational tools for the developing world. Check them both out and contribute if you can.

Here's why we worked on execution, as opposed to creativity: We surveyed thousands of executives in Fortune 500 companies to rate their companies' innovation skills on a scale of one to 10, one being poor and 10 world class. Survey participants overwhelmingly believe that their companies are better at generating ideas (average score of six) than they are at commercializing them (average score of one).

So which is more effective — moving your (already good) creativity score from six to eight or lifting your (very poor) execution score from one to three? Here's the math using our shorthand, creativity times execution:

Capacity to innovate = 6 x 1 = 6

Capacity to innovate, increasing creativity score = 8 x 1 = 8

Capacity to innovate, increasing execution score = 6 x 3 = 18

It's no contest. Companies tend to focus far more attention on improving the front end of the innovation process, the creativity. But the real leverage is in the back end.

Article Highlights:

• Agencies look to utilize new targeting technologies, but have not incubated or owned such technologies
• When agencies build and retain audiences, they become distribution sources for their brands
• Agencies must adopt unproven technology, rather than wait for brand buy-in

Countless articles have been written in recent years putting agencies in the hot seat to adapt their business models or die. Why? Never-ending budget cuts and the digitization of the marketing landscape have produced two key trends currently threatening the livelihood of the traditional agency:

• Media has become digital, multi-channel, multi-platform, and decentralized. These elements are forcing media publishers to be more creative in how inventory is packaged and sold (e.g., bundling offers cross channels from print, online, to mobile). Furthermore, media companies are tired of losing revenue to agencies for the production of creative assets and are thus building and buying their own capabilities in house.

• Innovations in technologies, from brand monitoring, audience targeting, and media planning and buying technologies, to social media and mobile content solutions, drive when and how brands connect with consumers. Many of these technologies are being developed outside of the agency ecosystem.

1. Reason is highly over-rated.

If you need more data to prove your point, you’ll never have enough data to prove your point.

Analysis paralysis.

You’re going to follow you gut, anyway.

By the time you put your business case together, the market has passed you by.

“Not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted counts.” – Albert Einstein

The scientific method came to Rene Descartes in a dream!

Most reasons are collected to prove to others what you have already decided to do.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – G.B. Shaw

I am, therefore I think.

How did Pixar make that and other good decisions? There seem to be several factors going on:

Its managers give its directors a lot of autonomy. The studio prides itself on being "director led" and gives them a high degree of autonomy. "Managers like to be in control," but Pixar fights it, according to an interview with Catmull at an event The Economist put on in March.

Even though directors have autonomy, they get feedback from others. "Dailies," or movies in progress, are shown for feedback to the entire animation crew. In The Economist interview, Catmull also describes a more extensive periodic peer review process:

We have a structure so they get their feedback from their peers. ... Every two or three months they present the film to the other filmmakers...and they will go through, and they will tear the film apart. Directors aren't forced to respond to the feedback, but they generally do — and the films are generally better for it.

The Graphics Lab at the University of Southern California has designed an easily reproducible, low-cost 3D display system with a form factor that offers a number of advantages for displaying 3D objects in 3D. The display is:

• autostereoscopic - requires no special viewing glasses
• omnidirectional - generates simultaneous views accomodating large numbers of viewers
• interactive - can update content at 200Hz

The system works by projecting high-speed video onto a rapidly spinning mirror. As the mirror turns, it reflects a different and accurate image to each potential viewer. Our rendering algorithm can recreate both virtual and real scenes with correct occlusion, horizontal and vertical perspective, and shading.

While flat electronic displays represent a majority of user experiences, it is important to realize that flat surfaces represent only a small portion of our physical world. Our real world is made of objects, in all their three-dimensional glory. The next generation of displays will begin to represent the physical world around us, but this progression will not succeed unless it is completely invisible to the user: no special glasses, no fuzzy pictures, and no small viewing zones.