Disruptive Black Swans

The disruptive reality of the elusive black swan lurks about unseen as it ferments in the garages of individuals around the globe. To many large companies looking at their competitors for intelligence is critical to keep abreast of what will happen in their industry in five to 10 to 15 years out. This logic is based on the incremental march of their industry and does not take into account the reality of the black swan rising out of crisis or the crisis itself being so disruptive that the companies are no longer able to compete.

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Can Open Innovation Help Clean Up Oil Sands?

On March 1, some of Canada’s largest oil sands producers formed Canada’s Oil Sand Innovation Alliance (COSIA), a new alliance that will focus on driving the pace of environmental performance and sustainable technological advancement.  COSIA’s goal is to establish structures and processes through which oil sands producers and other stakeholders can work together for the benefit of the environment. The alliance is setting out to identify, develop and apply solutions-oriented innovation around the most pressing oil sands environmental challenges, specifically water, land, greenhouse gases and tailings, and will work to communicate their efforts and successes in addressing those challenges.

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Open innovation and the world’s second largest gold company

Earlier this year the Toronto Board of Trade had its 124th annual dinner. The event attracted the who’s who of the Toronto Business community. This year the keynote speaker was Rob McEwen, the former CEO of Goldcorp. One of the things that struck me about his speech was how he leveraged open innovation to start a march that would lead Goldcorp to become the world’s second largest gold company.

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What’s the Opportunity in the Coming Resource Crisis?

The growing middle class in emerging economies are set to create one of the largest shifts in population and wealth ever recorded. Within this global phenomenon there are many challenges around resource management as it relates to sustainable growth.

First let’s look at some of the jaw dropping statistics of the not-so-far-off-future. By 2015, India’s middle class is expected to reach about 270 million people, up nearly 67 per cent from 2010 levels. It is estimated that India could reach 547 million people who would be considered middle class by 2025.

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World sourcing innovation and emerging trends

While working on a project for a Fortune 500 company, our team presented a data set of technological innovations that impressed our client, however after the presentation they asked us if this list was completely exhaustive? And how do we know where each innovation fits in comparison to the others in that category?

These questions gave context to the rapidly evolving idea that innovations will come from any and everywhere and being able to source the innovations is just the beginning. Knowing how they fit in the broader context of globalization will be key to acting on a potential threat or opportunity.

Read more at Canadian Business Journal.ca