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July 13, 2015 • Issue 15:07:01
What sparks stellar innovation?
Five leaders' perspectives
In an interview with The Green Sheet, Zaman cited five
common challenges clients must overcome to innovate
and scale their businesses:
1. Change incumbent behavior: Payment culture,
like other mature industries, has customs and
adoption patterns that may take years to change.
Legacy systems such as mag stripe cards and paper
checks coexist with emerging payment schemes.
Zaman has seen clients become frustrated by the
amount of time it takes for new products to gain
wide-scale market acceptance.
"In payments most people don't think about the
long-term need of their company; they are too
busy thinking about short-term results," he said.
uly 2015 marked the opening of the Innovation "Most people don't have customer centricity as the
Wing at the Smithsonian National Museum focal point of decisions. Costs, quarterly company
of American History. Steve Jobs' iPhone, Eli needs and other factors tend to take over."
J Whitney's cotton gin, Thomas Edison's light
bulb and other breakthrough technologies were grouped 2. Differentiate from the competition: "Many
not by industry, geography or era, but by their interre- payments industry folks use old school thinking
lated roles in the narrative arc of human progress. to differentiate their companies, such as higher
quality, improved performance, wider product
Through the years, the business world has been selection, and competitive pricing," Zaman said.
instrumental in providing the funding, tools and "Forget old school thinking! If Steve Jobs were
competition for innovation to thrive. "You can't separate
American history from business history because business
was there from the beginning, and it's what builds the
nation," said museum curator Kathleen Franz, Associate
Professor at American University. Contributed articles inside by:
Five common innovation challenges
Adam Hark ..............................................................................................30
Taimour Zaman is Chief Digital Officer and co-founder Jeff Fortney .............................................................................................33
of One Million Acts of Innovation, a Toronto-based Jefffrey I. Shavitz ...................................................................................44
social movement established in 2010 aimed at improving John Tucker .............................................................................................48
Canada's global ranking among developed nations.
One Million Acts connects business and government Scott Nelson ...........................................................................................49
leaders with university students through teleconferences, Richard A. Sachs ....................................................................................50
networking meetings and an interactive online commons
where participants can collaborate to transform ideas into TOC on page 3
projects.
Continued on page 38
