Editor's Note - Customer Focused Innovation Course at Stanford

I’m driven by innovation and insatiably curious, so it seems natural that I would sign up for a week of innovation school.  When Stanford launched its new Customer Focused Innovation course, I signed up immediately.  The course is a week long program taught at the Executive Education Center with day trips to places like the Hasso Platner Institute of Design.  Even more exciting is the list of celebrity professors.  Tomorrow, the course kicks off with a day of strategy from Dr. Robert Burgelman, author of ‘Strategy is Destiny’.

In detail, the course is about, “The processes organizations use to pursue innovation can actually erode their capability to innovate. Systems built on stages and reviews simply bureaucratize the process and deflect attention from the user-experience. Then, by limiting responsibility for innovation to a specific department, these organizations actually underutilize the creative capabilities of other employees. Companies must create a culture of innovation that harnesses the creativity of its customers, users, and employees.”

I’ll post more when I am better able to review the experience.