About 400 years ago, the English metaphysical poet and noted IT strategist John Donne warned against losing touch with the times: "Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." The bell is ringing frequently these days as companies in various industries stumble or fail because they can’t keep up with change: changes in customer demands, in the pace of business, in the truly strategic use of technology, and in the rise of the power of the individual. But help is on the way in the form of "The New Age of Innovation," a seminal new book from C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan, and here are 12 powerful ideas from just the Introduction and first chapter of that book. In future posts, we'll look at many more excellent ideas from each of the book's 8 chapters.

Individually, these 12 brief points are interesting but hardly game-changers. But taken together, they will help business-technology leaders grasp the scope of the challenges facing their companies as they need to adapt to the demands of a consumer-driven world that spans the globe, and inspire those leaders to begin tackling these urgent business-technology issues. Ideas 1-3 are in this post; 4-6 will come tomorrow; and 7-9 the next day, and 10-12 the following day.

1. “We noticed the emergence of newer business models, fragmentation of traditional organizational structures, centrality of information technology that enabled business processes, collaboration between then-unknown small, specialized Indian firms and considerably larger global firms, and increasingly complex demands on the managerial systems of established firms … We also recognized through our consulting and research engagements the significant gap between strategic intent and “capacity to act” in organizations.” (Introduction, p. 2) The challenge goes way beyond server upgrades, network latency, version creep, and so forth -- the real issue is that as customers demand more involvement and more customization from companies they buy from, the old models and processes described by Prahalad and Krishnan cannot support the load. Sound familiar?

2. “So too is skin care personalized by the Ponds Institute at Unilever. The Ponds Institute measures your skin conditions and seeks your views about how you want to look and feel. The company allows you to suggest your personal skin-care budget, to which the company responds by developing a recipe of products for you. It is your personal portfolio. You cocreated it.” (Introduction, p. 3) Is your company pulling customers into cocreation opportunities like this? Does your company have the mindset to do it? Do you have the technical infrastructure to support it? Do your executives encourage this type of new thinking, or do they stifle such discussions as being outside your core?

3. “Now, consider an alternative called TutorVista, a small startup. Here, each student chooses the time when he wants to be tutored. He also chooses the subjects in which he will receive help. He prioritizes his needs. He can also determine how many hours and how intense the tutoring has to be on any topic. He can also choose his teacher! His tutor may be geographically located in India or some other remote location.” (Chapter 1, p. 12) So far, the results are pretty good: 10,000 paying students can get as much tutoring as they want for $99 a month; each tutor undergoes up to 100 hours of training focused on delivering education that, while remote, is also extremely personalized. And if you’re thinking that such an approach could never work in your company, consider these questions from the authors: “If a tradition-bound institution such as secondary education can be transformed, what about other industries? Is there a TutorVista inside your corporation that fundamentally challenges the current business model?”

Tomorrow, three more table-setting ideas: the transformations in products/services terminology and processes; the move from transaction relationship to interaction relationship; and the growing irrelevance of categories such as B2B, B2C, and so on in business world that’s growing increasingly nonlinear.