It was great fun to be part of the Forum One event in Kiev, as one of five speakers to share stage with Sir Richard Branson. The conference drew an audience of 3,000 and way highly anticipated – as evidenced by the giant posters all over the city. Our theme was how to shape the future and how to see an environment of adversity as one of opportunity. – which is highly relevant for the Ukrainian economy.

In my book ‘Slingshot’, I talk about Disney’s introduction of the FastPass in 2000.  This online reservation system finally addressed the biggest, lingering pain point of park visitors for the past four and half decades: the intolerably long waiting times. Propelled by the strong visitor response, Disney is now boldly venturing to transform the entire visitor experience.

Continuously asking and re-examining what business you are in is a key component of remaining relevant.  Here is a humorous newsflash that just might point to a whole new market space for IKEA to get into.

There is never enough fun examples of the innovation shortcut.  And the sport of table tennis is a good one, both historically and recently.  Just how does this fun sport capture the essence of combining seemingly unusual components into new value propositions? Read on.

Alas, the video of my recent TEDx Verona presentation is now accessible via this link on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HziwLXfbmps