Here are two highly contrasting personal stories about innovation in major technology companies, Microsoft and Google - in Microsoft's case from a former Vice President and in Google's case, an employee who has been with the organisation for one month. This is a fascinating comparison between an idealistic starter at Google, eyes wide open as if experiencing the candy shop for the first time, where all before him seems like an unclimbed snow covered mountain peak full of wonder and awe offering the glorious challenges of a lifetime, not without its dangers, that can be conquered in the due process of time and a former Microsoft Vice President, who like many true innovators in organisations was thwarted over time not by his will or want to innovate or for that matter the organisation's publicly expressed desire to do so but by the organisation's internal culture and processes and the inherent power struggles which regularly conceal and undermine the inherent nuances and subtleties required for organisational innovation. These articles read together offer compelling examples of the importance of idealism, yet show its powerful constraints and undoing. The real mystery in innovation is seeking the balance between imagination and pragmatism. This piece begins with the untainted imaginationand ends...well read on.

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This lengthy and yet highly important article in my view forms the basis of a really important discussion that is now occuring globally. Here Tapschott and Williams offer a cogent and compelling plan for re-inventing universities for 21st Century. Read this article and forward it to every single person you know is involved in education. "Encyclopedias, newspapers, and record labels have a lot in common. They all are in the business of producing content. They recruit, manage, and compensate capable producers. Their products are composed of atoms — books, papers, CDs, DVDs — and are costly to create and distribute. Their products are proprietary, and they take legal action against those who infringe their intellectual property. Because they create unique value, their customers pay them, and they have revenue. Their business is possible because of scarcity: quality news, information, knowledge, learning, art.

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John Baldoni, a regular Harvard Business Review contributor offers this small piece on how to think small. "At its core, innovation is applied creativity. A business owner can encourage creativity in employees by urging them to "think small." Encourage your people to find a solution to a problem, or a better way of doing things. But encouraging small innovations is just part of it -- a business owner must ensure that execution of the innovation is perfect. The announcement of Apple's iPad is turning many people's thoughts to the innovations behind big ideas. Innovations such as these play a critical role in a company's future, but companies often hinder themselves by focusing on finding the next big thing, when in reality, the next small thing might be more beneficial.

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David Magellin Horth is one of the most highly experienced and knowledgeable creativity and innovation facilitators I know and have had the pleasure to work with.He is a global leader in the field of innovation thinking and his experimentation and design work around creativity and innovation processes and tools reaches back some 30 odd years. He is currently the President of the US Creative Education Foundation and his book The Leaders Edge is a standard text for all our programmes. So when he has an article published in Forbes, it would be remiss of me not to reproduce it fully for the Creative Leadership Forum readers.

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Stefan Lindegaard is an innovation and creativity consultant based in Denmark who has a particular interest in open innovation. He is a profilic reader and blogger and offers regular updated reading, video and LinkedIn discussions he has enjoyed over a period of weeks. Here is his list to commence 2010

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