HBS Working Knowledge: Innovation: The Best Practices of Technology Brokers Andrew Haragdon (Aug 4th) looks at some of the best practices adopted by firms such as IDEO as they look to combine and create ideas to innovate and invent. In his this excerpt from his new book, "How Breakthroughs Happen", he's identified four intertwined work processes that help them continuously come up with new stuff:

1) capturing good ideas
2) keeping ideas alive
3) imagining new uses for old ideas
4) putting promising concepts to the test

Interesting stuff - although very much weighted towards the invention rather than innovation side of things in my view - but still worth a read.