David Robertson: Creative constraint

illustration by Peter Durand

“By putting focus and direction around innovation, that is how you turn sparks of brilliance into profitable innovation.” David Robertson uses LEGO’s tumultuous business history to describe the delicate balance between creativity and constraints.

Yossi Sheffi: The resilient enterprise

Yossi Sheffi explores the various flavors of redundancy, simplicity, flexibility and communications strategies businesses employ to make themselves resilient. “These are the most dangerous things; the things that have severe consequence and low probability…These are the events one worries about when one has to run a large organization.”

How not to save the world according to Kevin Starr

Kevin Starr, Mulago Foundation director, looks for the best solutions to the biggest problems in the poorest countries. He thinks all projects need to answer four questions: Is it needed? Does it work? Will it get to those who need it? Will they use it correctly when they get it? Too many bad ideas are using up our limited resources and that needs to change.

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Lorrie Vogel: Pioneering Designs

Lorrie Vogel works for Nike’s Considered team. As General Manager, she’s leading Nike’s research in sustainable product design.  We are moving to a new economy, a “green economy”, which has no roadmap. So how does a big company like Nike do it?

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