Table of Contents

SECTION 1: Foreword 1
Chapter 1: What You Will Learn from This Book 3
Chapter 2: Becoming a Strategic Organization 17
Chapter 3: Framing the Vision for Engagement 29

SECTION 2: Assessment and Leadership 49
Chapter 4: Assessing Your Innovation Capability 53
Chapter 5: The Role of Learning Styles in Innovation Team Design 65
Chapter 6: Your Team Dynamics and the Dynamics of Your Team 79

SECTION 3: Opportunity Recognition 95
Chapter 7: Leveraging Ethnography to Predict Shifting Cultural Norms 99
Chapter 8: Design Process and Opportunity Development 113
Chapter 9: Navigating Spaces--Tools for Discovery 127

SECTION 4: Value Creation 143
Chapter 10: Value Creation through Shaping Opportunity--The Business Model 147
Chapter 11: Developing Sustainable Business Models 167
Chapter 12: Business Model Execution--Navigating with the Pivot 179

SECTION 5: Disruptive Innovation in Action--Stories from the Field 191
Chapter 13: Broad Thinking--Connecting Design and Innovation with What Women Want 195
Chapter 14: Interdisciplinarity, Innovation, and Transforming Healthcare 209
Chapter 15: Disrupting Yourself--Launching New Business Models from Within Established Enterprises 223
Chapter 16: Opportunities in Branding--Benefits of Cross-Functional Collaboration in Driving Identity 235

Afterword 255
Glossary and Resources 257
Index 271

Promotional Information

Innovation can be taught. Disrupt Together shows how. It introduces a breakthrough transdisciplinary, team-based approach to innovation that integrates business, design and engineering, and can deliver powerful results for both new ventures and existing companies.

Building on the Philadelphia University curriculum redesign that is reshaping how innovation is taught worldwide, Dr. Stephen Spinelli Jr. and Heather McGowan demonstrate the tight linkages between innovation and opportunity recognition, and show how to identify relevant opportunities more effectively than ever before. They cover every facet of innovation, including design processes, team development, ethnography, audits and charrettes, opportunity shaping and assessment, business models, value delivery, systems thinking, social and environmental capital, financial resilience, culture, strategy, and more. Spinelli and McGowan conclude with a full chapter on innovation cycles and traps.

Disrupt Together will serve as the definitive companion text for a growing number of innovation and entrepreneurship programs that either follow the Philadelphia University model or have been influenced by it.

About the Author

Stephen Spinelli, Jr., Ph.D., current President of Philadelphia University, led the university’s strategic transformation. The University’s capital campaign of over $50 million included a $20 million single gift to endow the Maurice Kanbar College of Design, Engineering, and Commerce. Dr. Spinelli previously held several leadership positions at Babson College and serves on a number of boards, including the Berwind Corporation, Nextworth, and Planet Fitness. Dr. Spinelli is actively engaged in the community, serving on the boards of the VNA of Pennsylvania, the Episcopal Academy, and the Science Center. Dr. Spinelli is a national expert and frequent speaker and consultant in the area of franchising. Steve received his Ph.D. in Economics from The Management School, Imperial College (London), his M.B.A. from Babson College, and his B.A. in Economics from McDaniel College. He began his professional life as a cofounder of Jiffy Lube.

Heather McGowan is an entrepreneurial strategy consultant who works in both corporate and academic environments to lead and communicate transformational change through crafting a vision of future state while identifying, assessing, and addressing challenges to realize the goal. At Philadelphia University she was charged with creating the strategy, architecting the curriculum, and developing the advisory network for the innovative Kanbar College of Design, Engineering, and Commerce (DEC), which won the 2012 Core 77 international competition for innovation in design education. Heather has advised senior management in several start-up companies in strategy, business modeling, and financing and has brought more than 25 products to market. Heather holds a B.F.A. in Industrial Design from Rhode Island School of Design and an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship from Babson College.