Institution: Harvard Business School (USA)
Course: Leading Product Innovation Program
I chose the Leading Product Innovation Course at the Harvard Business School because I wanted to learn from the world’s best and I had heard great things about the case study-based teaching method that Harvard is famous for. The course exceeded my expectations – I learnt how Lego brought itself back from the brink by focusing on its core product principles, and took lessons from one of the masters of innovation, Apple founder Steve Jobs, through video interviews and case studies. I even got to learn first-hand from one of the world’s best illusionists, Jason Randal, on how innovation principals used in magic can be applied equally to the business world.
During the Open Innovation topic, I was introduced to the concept of Crowd Sourcing – where companies send their tough technical problems to the public and ask for opinions, insight and suggestions. It is not traditional collaboration as such, but rather an open call to the public for ideas and inspiration. At Ziltek, we are now using Crowd Sourcing to help solve some of our hardest technical challenges relating to the remediation of some particularly stubborn environmental contaminants.
Without the support of the ILF I would not have had the opportunity to attend such a highly-rated course and to apply my learnings within my own company for commercial benefit.
