Press


29.4.14 Huffington Post: The mother of all economic hangovers.  Click here to read full article

29.4.14 Forbes: Eyes Wide Shut: UK Businesses Falling Down On Innovation In a Global Race. Click here to read full article

28.4.14 Financial Times: UK big business lagging on innovation uptake.  Click here to read full article



14.4.14 Telegraph: SME's are getting their office space all wrong. Click here to read full article






25.2.14 Forbes: 6 tips on driving innovation, even if you think your boss will say no. Click here to read full article







4.11.13 Economia: Are we kissing enough frogs? Click here to read full article




24.10.13 Financial Times: Interview with Tim Smedley, Innovation is not all about being creative. Click here to read full article



4.10.13 British Airways Business Life: 10 tips on Innovation and Inspiration. Click here to read article



1.8.13: Management Today: Botox for your business: six ways big firms stay young. Click here to read article

As businesses mature, retaining the excitement gets harder and harder: inevitably, the corporate body slows down.

Fortunately most people I meet in large, veteran organisations don’t like wasting time, and if they are lucky they have bosses who want to keep up the business’ ‘youthful mojo’.

But as anyone over a certain age will tell you, staying agile is all about translating desire into action. So here’s are five quick fixes to keep those more mature companies young and spritely.....


31.7.13: Harvard Business Review - Matt Kingdon speaks about 'The Four Methods for Corporate Innovators' - Click Here to watch video

18.7.13: Market Leader - The Science of Serendipity



09.05.13: Ad Map - 10 rules to aid innovation




02.05.13: Times - Innovate or die. UK retail leads the way

We know the UK’s economic backdrop only too well. An economy stuck in neutral, with flat-lining growth and unemployment inching back upwards. While politicians squabble like bald men over combs with their talk of a “Plan B”, economists grope for new ways of saying “expect more of the same”....

12.4.13: Huffpost Business - Remote working, red Herring

The ban on home-working at Yahoo! by its CEO, Marissa Meyer last month, resulted in a twitterstorm of indignation. Hot on her heels, Best Buy has also stopped a programme which had been introduced back in 2005 allowing employees to work when and where they chose. Both companies are in need of a pick-me-up and both cite the need for human beings to collaborate and collide as drivers of prosperity.

But simply banning home-working is a blunt instrument that risks missing the point altogether. I've seen some terrific working practices that promote innovation, efficiency and engagement amongst co-workers - whether you work from home or not.....


15.3.13: M&M Global - The Quest for Provocation

It's a fact of life - the same route to work, the same coffee shop, the same issues pilling up in the in-tray - we can’t avoid the comfort of the familiar. Without realising it we all get very good at ‘pattern thinking’ - repeating today what worked yesterday. The history of commerce is piled high with once great businesses that were so focused on their current competencies and investments that they failed to spot the new wave of opportunities, and eventually it drowned them.....

8.3.13: Admap review - Unleash Innovative Spirit


03.03.13 - NY Times, In defense of collisions in the office

The latest progressive office playground can be found in the old Stuyvesant Polyclinic, a stately red brick building on Second Avenue near Ninth Street that was once a medical clinic. Inside, its three stories and basement have been reimagined by ?What If!, a self-described “innovation” company that works to expand the markets of businesses like PepsiCo, Pfizer and Virgin. ...

28.2.13:  Metro, Behind the Idea : Treat your ideas with loving care, Matt Kingdon reveals what turns an idea into reality



24.2.13:  Samedan Ltd (Pharmaceutical publishers) - Samedanltd magazine, Matt kingdon

Big pharmaceutical companies are not alone in having to transform the efficiency of their research and development teams. Most businesses – from banks to supermarkets – are looking hard at how their creative engines can deliver more for less. How can Big Pharma do it?...

22.2.13: The Guardian -  Building a market-leading business – from audacity to adventure

There's a unique time in life when you're rich because you have nothing. Maybe everyone has this, or maybe it's a luxury we only have in the developed economies of the world. But I was there 20 years ago. I'd been working for seven years for Unilever – a wonderful business education. But I was the son of a shopkeeper and somehow it was in my blood to start my own business one day. So in 1992, I teamed up with Dave Allan, a fellow Unilever marketer, and we formed a company with the glorious name of ?What If!....






18.1.13:  Brand Republic: Unreasonably ambitious: always pushing the boundaries

Innovation starts with someone throwing a stone a long way. Innovators are good at this. They know that stretch goals - aiming beyond your own limits - create better performance. They know that their team, brand or organisation needs to work towards a picture of something that’s truly exciting. If this picture doesn’t exist then it’s very hard to do anything other than incremental improvements - small twists and tweaks...

15.1.13:  Jazz Shapers with Mishcon De Reya and Matt Kingdon - please click to download podcast


14.1.13:  Thinkers50: The Science of Serendipity interview



14.1.13: Wired.com blog: 'The art of saying no', the follow up to 'Navigating past innovation's naysayers' below.

“Experimentation, prototyping, beta testing — sure, great for tech start-ups, but this is a pharmaceutical company. We can’t just meddle around with customers or physicians like that! There are rules.”

Some industries, like aviation, banking or health care are steeped in regulations, high capital costs, and long development cycles. Quick turnarounds seem beyond reach. But they shouldn’t give up; the danger is that these organizations don’t try anything new and become numb to entrepreneurial activity. Scour the cupboards for short-term changes. If you can’t change the molecules, can you change the packaging?....

7.1.13: HR Magazine - Capturing Creativity


6.1.13: Innovation Excellence: Marketing Editor, Lou Killeffer, interviewing Matt about The Science of Serendipity - Interview with Matt Kingdon.

20.12.12: London Loves Business - Want to be more creative, here's how

Matt Kingdon helps blue-chips come up with brilliant ideas. This is what he tells them
How do you get a focus group to talk about sex? Matt Kingdon’s answer was to ask the participants to name as many sex words and definitions as they could until even the most taboo subjects were aired and became normal....

20.12.12: Collaborative Innovation - How Serendipity fuels online collaboration and innovation

He had me at “serendipity.”
In the new book The Science of Serendipity: How to Unlock the Promise of Innovation, author Matt Kingdon promises to unpack the concept of serendipity in a useful manner so the corporate innovator can learn to harness this somewhat mysterious force to fuel innovation....

6.12.12: Financial Times, Benefits of the work place


6.12.12: Wired.com blog: 'Navigating Past Innovation's Naysayers,' how to encounter common 'naysayisms' worth forwarding on to clients who are faced with this challenge

Startups aren’t the only companies that innovate, despite our cultural obsession with them. Big organizations do it, too; they’re just more encumbered. They have the weight of history as an anchor, hard-to-unwind investments, well-worn behaviors (e.g., That’s not the way we do things around here), and more established employees. Risk tastes different to a 40-year-old in a large organization than a 20-year-old with nothing to lose....











28.11.12: Game Changer, The Legion of Innovation Doom

Innovation is a front-and-center part of the CEO agenda in business today – but all too often good ideas die on the vine. Why? Sometimes corporate naysayers are to blame.

Yesterday, I’ve received an email from Innovation Consultancy ?What If! with, what else, 4 comic illustrations of innovation’s greatest foes, including “The Silo, The Yes Man, and the Gatekeeper.” These characters personify the challenges innovators often face in the corporate landscape.
I’m sure you’ve met them before…


20.11.12: Real Business, Interview with Matt Kingdon

Matt Kingdon, co-founder of ?What If! believes we need an education revolution: if the government were to offer work experience for 16-year-olds and most company executives taught in schools, we could really power the nation....