I started a new class today. Its called the "Managing Creativity and Innovation" with Prof David Owens. This is the class I have been waiting for a couple of mods now because I love expressing my ideas to my classmates much to their chgrin. I was worried that I would not be able to take this course because Prof Owens left to become the CEO of Griffin Technology, however he was able to free up some of his busy schedule to teach this course. Check out his blog. http://exovate.blogspot.com/
First assignment: BusinessWeek.com and carefully examine the list of "25 Innovators, 6 Industries." Once you have a good sense of the list, please identify one (1) company in an industry in which you are familiar or interested that SHOULD NOT be ranked (or ranked as highly) on the list. Next, identify one (1) company in that industry that SHOULD be ranked (or ranked more highly) on the list. Please post a reply (by clicking "COMMENTS" below) with your insights along with a very brief explanation of your position. LINK
After spending last week taking a Healthcare Policy course, I had to take a crack at the insurance companies.
In my humble opinion, I feel that United Healthcare should not be on the list of innovative companies April 16, 2006 issue of Business Week. There are a list of reasons why but I will focus on the ethical aspect of employee incentives better known as backdating. Here is an article quoted from the Wallstreet Journal "The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) placed a call to the headquarters of UnitedHealth in Minnesota and it possible that the call was a part of broad based investigation that the SEC is conducting into the practices of awarding employee stock options at a number of companies." This company was investigated for backdating their stock options and their CEO, Dr. McGuire was “Awarded options on dates with very favorable strike prices and the chances of these dates being picked out randomly is about one in 200 million.”
Is this an innovative company through incentives process? Possibly. Are they unethical? Yes! UNH is notorious for terrible customer service and is the worst enemy of the hospital because of their aggressive tactics. Insurance companies have driven up the cost of care drastically in the last 10 years. Has anyone seen Sicko? There needs to be an ethical assessment to the innovative ideas/processes. Does it better the customer?
I would add Revolution Health to the list of Innovative companies because of the ground breaking work by former AOL CEO, Steve Case. With the trend of consumer driven healthcare, Revolution Health was started 2005 with the hopes of becoming a disruptive technology by addressing the issue of information asymmetry in healthcare. Revolution provides the tools, information and support to Americans to manage their health and wellness activity. They use open source web application framework for their design work which encourages collaboration—always a good thing. Their recent merger with Waterfront Media, an operator of health websites would combine their collective efforts of 14.7 million visitors and 11.3 million visitors each month to take on the likes of WebMD, the largest operator of health websites at 17.3 million. Use of innovation that empowers the user and promotes ethical practices is my definition of bettering the customer. Innovate but remember that we should strive to give the customer what they need not what we think they need.
