Ideas
Explore the world's #1 largest database of ideas and innovations, with 460,592 inspiring examples.
Trend Reports
Discover why 1,240 brands rely on our AI-powered Trend Reports to get better, faster insights.
Newsletter
Join 321,086 subscribers who rely on our weekly newsletter to keep up with need-to-know trends and insights.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Consumer Insights
Uncover major shifts and emerging opportunities with our exclusive PRO research.
Trend Reports
Discover why 1,240 brands rely on our AI-powered Trend Reports to get better, faster insights.
Newsletter
Join 321,086 subscribers who rely on our weekly newsletter to keep up with need-to-know trends and insights.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Advisory & Services
Accelerate innovation and ignite disruptive thinking with our award-winning programs and research.
Trend Reports
Get fast, customized trend reports, presentations and deep dives 20x faster than traditional research.
Plans
Get started today with a free consultation, our self-serve tools, or a dedicated program.
Articles & Magazine
Get inspired with our 4,210 innovation strategy articles, keynote, videos and innovation tools.
Innovation Awards
Trend Hunter’s Innovation Strategy Awards recognize the best innovation tactics gathered from our interviews with some of the world's most notable business leaders, authors and change makers.
Advisory & Services
Accelerate innovation and ignite disruptive thinking with our award-winning programs and research.
Innovation Assessment
Enhance your innovation potential with a deeper understanding of your unique innovation archetype and how your organization benchmarks.
FuturistU
Prepare for the years ahead with 100+ lessons, tactics, tools and frameworks with our full learning database.
Innovation Books
Join 20,000,000 people getting better and faster with our New York Times Bestselling books and keynote videos.
Jeremy Gutsche
Ignite your event or virtual event with our CEO, a NY Times Bestselling Author and one of the top innovation keynote speakers.
Our Team of Speakers & Virtual Presenters
Inspire your group with our most popular speakers on innovation, trends, change and futurism.
Custom Training & Events
Bring the Future Festival experience directly to your team or co-hosted custom event.
Custom Masterclasses
Join the world's leading brands who leverage our custom programs to accelerate innovation.
FuturistU 5-Day Program
Become a Futurist with our immersive 5-Day program at Future Festival World Summit.
Online eLearning
Learn the fundamentals of futurism and trends with 100+ online courses about innovation.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Contact
Get in touch to learn more, ask a question or submit a tip.
About Us
Learn more about Trend Hunter and how we accelerate innovation.
Follow-Us
Join our 3,500,000 social media followers, on the cutting edge.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
FAQ
Get answers to common questions about Trend Hunter.
Community
Stay on the cutting-edge with the help of the Trend Hunter community.
Team
Meet the team trusted by hundreds of leading businesses worldwide.
Jobs
Find opportunities to accelerate your career with the #1 Trend Firm.
News
Catch up on noteworthy Trend Hunter news and media mentions.
Join
Build a portfolio and put your trend-spotting abilities to the test.
Advertising
Supercharge your marketing by partnering with Trend Hunter.
Portfolio
Visit your public portfolio and browse your past articles.
Add a Trend
Write up an article and showcase your trend-spotting skills.
My Trends
Edit your articles and see how they stack up on the leaderboards.
Settings
Edit your profile, connect your social media accounts, and more.
Add a trend, customize your dashboard, or track topics.
Future Festival
Innovation Events
Join the world's top innovators at our in person events.
Free Webinars
Learn to innovate through chaos, navigate the new normal and maintain work culture from home.
Custom Training & Events
Bring the Future Festival experience directly to your team or co-hosted custom event.
Search our database of 460,592 cutting edge ideas.

Instigating Tomorrow's Innovations

Tom Kavassalis, VP of Strategy at Xerox Innovation Group
Taylor Keefe
June 11th, 2012
As the Vice President of Strategy and Alliances for the Xerox Innovation Group, Tom Kavassalis uncovers today’s breakthroughs in order to provide practical technologies for tomorrow. Not only does Tom hold innovation responsibilities at Xerox, but he is also a board member for the Industrial Research Institute. We recently sat down with Tom to discuss his role at Xerox and what it takes to not only be a great innovator but a great leader too.

4 Questions with Tom Kavassalis

1. How would you describe innovation at your company?

I would say it’s both a standard process and ad hoc. You want it to be both. We have different approaches at both ends of the innovation process, from ideation to execution and refinement. You want to be able to execute with high predictability. On the front end, you can tolerate chaos and noise because breakthroughs happen on the front end. With the back end, it’s more refined, but the front end can be a little more unstructured.

2. How do you create a culture of innovation?

A lot of companies try to replicate these innovative companies and have sort of fallen short. There’s a lot you can do to sustain and strengthen that culture. Every corporation has to do planning for some purpose, and that in itself creates constraint. We provide opportunities for off-cycle proposals that fall outside the window of planning and we provide funding for our employees to pursue certain opportunities. We’ve empowered employees to find ideas and to fund them. What this does is that it allows employees to make decisions on how funds are used for certain projects. It’s an internal venture fund almost.

We encourage a lot of cross-functional communication. At our annual conference, we invite our research and technology areas of the organization. Through the meeting of colleagues, new collaborative work has emerged. At times we’ve encouraged sabbaticals internally, meaning we’ll send someone to Europe or India, keeping them in the organization to cross-fertilize ideas. However, one of my favorite practices these days is putting researchers in contact with customers. That way they can immerse themselves in the environment of the customer, which stimulates thinking and solutions for problems that face our customers. That really helps us come up to speed in a new industry learning specialized knowledge from end users.

3. Are there specific areas of your culture that you would like to enhance?

One area that we do think about a lot and actively encourage is open innovation. Recognizing you can’t do everything yourself. Needing to be open to ideas and talent outside the company and learning how to partner with that. It’s beyond a trend today I would say, but to what degree do you do open innovation? Does it become the core or is it just a small part of the process?

4. How do you motivate you team to come up with good ideas?

It’s built into the Innovation Group. The Innovation Group is an organization in Xerox that is part of the corporate operation that is really focused on inventing technology for the future. A lot of companies approach innovation in different ways. If you’re a company that expects to see large revenue with products new to business and the world, you have to make sure investments are oriented towards that. And that’s what that Innovation Group is; it focuses on new business and technologies for the future. Looking at innovation for today and tomorrow can be challenging. The approach with our group is geared at tomorrow’s innovation.
References: linkedin, xerox