Ten years promoting Intelligence

The Master Program on Competitive Intelligence of Toulouse University - France, will celebrate its 10th anniversary this early january.

Among the top French Universtities proposing the Master Program on the subject, it is a pleasure to make it public on this blog the program of festivities . After all, all the consultants graviting around TIF are offsprings of M2IE - UT1!

For those interested in a Competitive Intelligence afternoon conference and debate on major topics , followed by a 'Gala Night' on the best french style and charm in a superb atmosphere, cross check jan 15th on your agendas !

Below you will find the invitation , and if you want to be updated on furhter information, just clic on the first link, between the dashed line.

To contact the responsibles for the event, clic the second link on the announce.

	CONFERENCE / DEBAT suivi d'un GALA À l'occasion des 10 ans du Master professionnel Intelligence Économique, sont organisés, et ceci pour la première fois, une Conférence/Discussio n suivi d'un Gala, le 15 janvier 2010 à Toulouse à partir de 16h. Anciens étudiants, professeurs, intervenants, professionnels du secteur, chefs d'entreprises et tuteurs de stage, sont cordialement conviés à cet événement exceptionnel. POUR PLUS DE RENSEIGNEMENTS : ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- ------- Afin de rester informé nous vous invitons à vous pré-inscrire ici ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- ------- Le comité d'organisation est joignable ici

How Rich are we?

There are several well known magazines and sites throughout the web to list the top 100, top 500 great fortunes of the planet.
These folks have dreamlike lives, where money does not count much. It is a matter of what they want, not what they can afford.

Considering that we are 7billion on sharing Gaia, have you ever thought where are you placed on an hypothetical world wealth list ?
These guys have an estimate of where you would be placed.
Type in your annual income (salary+other revenues included) and it will give you your rank among all inhabitants of the globe.
You, as I, might be surprised of our placement. We are INDEED fortunate ones if we look at the percentage that we might come to be placed at.

It sure put us to think about taxation of great fortunes, sparing with the less fortunets ones, human greed and social programs in poor areas of the world.
I have already heard a theory that if today all the world's wealth were shared equally among everyone, in 30 years' time it would come back to the same hands as it is today, due to one's capacity, competence, intelligence, business aggressiveness, or simply because some of us are gifted and take the most out of it.

But the issue here points to another facet of the question, and you may name it as you wish: to give a hand, to share, charity, subvention....
When we aid, we feel better. When we share we lift our spirits, when we lead the way in a new model of growth, we warm hearts and we make a difference!

By simply HELPING OUT the ones in the need on our way to wealthiness, we will sure put a smile on someone's face along our path. We will give a future to the hopeless, or a different life perspective to numberless children.

Our actions of sharing and the application of new models of sustainable growth may not make history books, but at least after we are gone we will be remembered by some, perhaps, a little longer.

Credits with a bow of hat to Make wealth history for the inspirational tip for this article.

Time for Innovation

History shows us: hard times have pushed mankind to move forward. Looking back at the last one hundred years, the large scale use of airplanes, control of atomic energy and the man on the moon are good examples.

No matter whether they were times of wars, natural disorders or economic crisis, some good always came out of evil, just as we see it in nature.
We have the opportunity to witness now, as it unfolds before our eyes, another tough period.

So, how shall we profit it?

Simply by letting the those insights, those dreams and those great ideas out. Then it is just a matter of separating the superb ones, and hands on to work! Make money! Create jobs! Cooperate for a better society! It is time to invent and reinvent things!

This bulk of superb ideas will certainly produce some innovation. It may come out in the form of a new product, a new method, or most commonly, a new service. Remember that today's common ones, once were great innovations.

- Imagine the guy who had the idea to tie together Pizza+Motorbike/car to come up with pizza home delivery. He would be millionaire by now if he had ever registered it.

- Or the individual at a large fastfood company that added the sale of Sandwiches + hunger of mobel clients. He came up with the drive through. Both examples show the simplicity of joining two already existing services to create a brand new one.

Needless to say that we, average Joe's, are able to come up with great ideas. The matter resides in putting them into practice. For a self entreprenor or a company, these days of crisis might give you a shot, even if there are countless reasons telling you not to innovate.

We have selected ten of most common ones (and they are in great number, belive us) to be prepared for:

1. Definition of "innovation" (framed as an initiative, not a normal way of doing business).
2. No sense of urgency nor strategy.
3. Employees suffers from "initiative fatigue".
4. Senior Team is not aligned and/or CEO does not fully embrace the effort.
5. No compelling vision or reason to innovate.
6. Key players lack time to focus on innovation.
7. Innovation champions are not empowered, generating lack of trust.
8. Non-existent or fuzzy decision making processes.
9. Cost cutting or incremental improvement culture.(we stay where we are, producing more with less).
10. Employers ruled by past assumptions and old mental models.

Are we motivated yet? Do you feel that you have that super, doable, business oriented, impossible- to- fail innovating idea?

The Intelligence Factory is there to help you out to put it into practice, by making it easier the task of braking paradigms, cultural barries and low spirits.

We are able to give you a hand with: creativity, observation, perseverance, oral and written communication, analysis capacity, business hints and clues, strategic approach, business terminology, market monitoring, presentation of new ideas and sourcing.

Moreover, we may work out solutions using our knowledge on methodologies, power structures inside companies, decision making processes, the development of competances, control of changing habits and the industry in general.

So, next time you come up with that so called long shot idea, do not let it aside, to be shared with your buddies at your favorite bar.
Drop us a line and maybe we can help you make your idea a profitable, innovating one!

Photo by Felipe T. Marques at Flickr