BusinessWeek -- Innovation of the Week

Despite financial, economic, and regulatory pressures, companies must hurry along their product development. Standardizing or automating routine processes can help, as Asian leaders are showing

Alec Ross, senior advisor on innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, discusses how governments at home and abroad can fuel inventive thinking. Companies such as Google and Cisco, he says, have gained from public funding

Robert C. Hagerty, CEO of Polycom, discusses why he thinks videoconferencing and telepresence (essentially very high-quality videoconferencing) will spark invention and new business partnerships

Both local and multinational design firms in Shanghai are starting to explore the role design can play in addressing social issues such as education and the environment, says Tim Marshall, provost of the New School in New York.

New York innovation consultancy Fahrenheit 212 has helped the likes of Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble develop new products. CEO Geoff Vuleta tells how the firm also came up with a new vending machine for Samsung

Innovation adviser and author John Kao says that scaling up innovation projects requires acting on behalf of society, not just corporations. Could governments play a larger role?

Amid the recent hype surrounding the valuations of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Harvard professor Nicholas Christakis discusses the hidden values of being connected both offline and online

The best ideas have something missing - and that's no bad thing, says former Toyota consultant Matthew E. May. Here, he explains the importance of elegance and evolutionary innovation in business

Tim Brown, CEO of design shop IDEO, writes in his new book, Change by Design, that companies would do better by adopting "design thinking." Learn what customers want, he says, and answer their needs

Bain & Co. partner Darrell Rigby, author of Winning in Turbulence, says smart companies will assess strengths during the recession and move toward recovery with daring but calculated actions. He talks to BusinessWeek's Reena Jana

Companies are slashing budgets as sales have tumbled. But Lisa Gundry, director of DePaul University's Center for Creativity & Innovation, warns that cutting R&D now will mean stale catalogs when customers return

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Randy Komisar discusses his book, Getting To Plan B. By eschewing the traditional business plan, entrepreneurs and innovators can build thriving enterprises

Dantar Oosterwal, a former product-development exec at Harley-Davidson and Sara Lee and the author of The Lean Machine, argues that innovation can be streamlined just like manufacturing.

Most people need some coaxing to try something new, says David Midgley, an INSEAD marketing professor and author. That's why marketing is so critically important

Starbucks want to create a new, niche coffee shop. Will 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea appeal to consumers or will it inspire a backlash? Branding expert Brian Collins weighs in

Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management and director of MIT's Center for Digital Business, says Twitter can be measured by how it makes people productive, not just in monetary value

While most companies say innovation is the key to growth, they often don't know quite what their clients want. Consultant Ulwick of Strategyn has a Six Sigma-like process to figure that out and, in turn, set companies on a surer product-development ...

The co-founder of Smart Design, a New York innovation consultancy, discusses how industrial design was born in the Great Depression -- and how it can galvanize economic growth even in very tough times

Microsoft is looking to developing-world audiences for inspiration on new products for the U.S. Now it is also increasingly hunting for R&D talent among students in emerging markets. The company's Amit Mittal explains