Innovation 'Doesn't Just Happen'

What's the best way for companies to tease out innovative ideas and deliver innovative new products and services amid the stresses of day-to-day operations? Hadley Stern, VP of Fidelity Labs, an 80-person incubator for financial services company Fidelity Investments, maintains that "innovation doesn't just happen." It needs to be structured.

At Fidelity Labs, that structure usually takes the form of 10 or 15 "aspirational but achievable" themes, Stern says, which the company conceives in consultation with its internal technology and other business partners, with outside experts, and ultimately with customers. The execution part then comes under the Labs' agile development methodology.

Click on the video for Stern's views on how to structure innovation -- as well as his take on Apple Watch, Google Glass, and artificial intelligence -- all recorded at the recent InformationWeek IT Leadership Summit at Interop New York.