business model innovation design we're on a road to nowhere // on a quest to analyze and explore the design of business model innovations, i.e. 'hideous and hidden things' like organizational structures and capabilities, corporate strategies and all things related // on a yellow brick road with a girl, a lion and a straw-man wasting our time // …

Umair’s at it again, slapping Yahoo! (see here for BMID-content on Yahoo’s innovation culture, Brickhouse etc.)

Yahoo doesn’t need a Brickhouse (aka skunkworks).

Contrast Yahoo with Google. Google doesn’t just have one Brickhouse – it has thousands. That’s the net effect of management innovations Google has pioneered, which give people the space to play, experiment, and create.

What Yahoo needs is radical management innovation – it needs fresh genes mainlined directly into it’s stale, worn-out DNA.

Let me put that another way: Yahoo thinks the post-network economy demands a typical corporation, with nicer marketing. Google knows the post-network demands a new kind of firm – one which is different in it’s very DNA.

That’s the real source of Google’s advantage.

Interesting point, though I would argue that compared against the Google innovation machine almost all companies and their innovation processes would look bleak. But showing that adaptivity (“play, experiment, and create”) and connectivity (“space”) are essential ingredients for a (business model) innovation powerhouse is never wrong. So being a little bit fluffy is OK (or does anybody know how to inplement new DNA into organizations?), even when elaborated and established disciplines, complete with methods and tools, are ready and able … in fact, in my book organizational design at its best is DNA tuning …