For the past couple of weeks, I've been taking some time to investigate innovation related topics (and subscribing to more 'innovation' type blogs).  Until today, I've just been emailing my department at work whenever I found something I thought other people would be interested in ... now I'm going to also start posting these to my blog.

Today's search started with the design company IDEO - so the majority of these items are related to it in some way.

The world's most innovative companies, FastCompany.com
FastCompany.com's listing of their 2008 Fast 50.  Found this on IDEO's home page.  I think the Fast 50 is from Feb 2008, so this might be old information for some of you.

The Power of Design, BusinessWeek May 17, 2004
Article about the IDEO way Also found this on IDEO's home page.  It is around 8 pages long, but without the images it is only around 5 pages.  I haven't completely finished the article yet, but is seems to give a good overview of what the company does and a little about how they do it.

Creativity and Innovation, Stuart Varrall
Some observations of IDEO's company culture and how it fosters creativity.  A good quote from Stuart:
"Teams are flexible and dynamic, and the company structure flat, enabling people to concentrate on the job at hand, rather than office politics."

Company Culture, Stuart Varrall
Sums up some common company culture lessons learned from IDEO and Google.
Good link in the entry: Nine Lessons Learned about Creativity at Google, Marissa Mayer

Top Five Suggestions For Entrepreneurs From IDEO, Simeon Simeonov
Overview of a session from last week's Nantucket Conference with some additional resources (video clips, book links and additional information on IDEO).