Experts and Sources of Inspiration

Andrew Hargadon is a professor, researcher, and author specializing in innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology management. He is particularly known for his work on how new ideas and breakthroughs rarely emerge in isolation, but instead arise through connections between existing knowledge, people, technologies, and environments.

​

He is a professor at the University of California, Davis, and the founder of several research and innovation centers focused on entrepreneurship, technology, and sustainable innovation. Hargadon also has a background from Stanford University, where he earned both an engineering degree and a doctorate.

​

Hargadon is particularly known for his book How Breakthroughs Happen, in which he challenges the myth of the lone genius and shows how innovation often emerges through what he describes as “technology brokering”—the ability to combine existing ideas in new ways. The book uses examples from Thomas Edison, IDEO, and historical innovation environments to explain how creative breakthroughs emerge.

​

His perspectives have had a significant influence on:

• innovation management

• service innovation

• entrepreneurship

• design thinking

• Silicon Valley culture

• and the understanding of how organizations build innovation capabilities over time

Hargadon’s work fits particularly well with the Innovation Program (see also the book Sustainable Innovation) because he combines:

​

• technology

• organization

• culture

• networks

• and human collaboration

…into a holistic understanding of how innovation actually happens in practice.

Jeanne G. Harris is an expert, advisor, and author specializing in analytics, business intelligence, and the strategic use of data in organizations. She is particularly known for her work on how organizations can use analytics and insights as a foundation for better decision-making, greater competitiveness, and more targeted business management.

​

Together with Thomas H. Davenport, she co-authored Competing on Analytics, which has become an important reference in analytics, business intelligence, and data-driven strategy. The book describes how organizations can transform large amounts of data into insights, decision support, and tangible competitive advantages.

​

Harris has emphasized that analytics is not simply about technology and numbers, but about how data is interpreted in the context of business understanding, strategy, and human judgment. Her perspectives remain highly relevant in today’s digital economy, where analytics, AI, and data-driven insights play an increasingly important role in:

​

• marketing

• customer experience

• digitalization

• innovation

• service development

• and strategic management

Her work also highlights the importance of critical thinking and contextual understanding when organizations use analytics tools and artificial intelligence as a basis for decision-making.

Steve Jobs is one of the most influential figures of the digital age—not only because he helped build Apple, but because he changed how people experience technology in their everyday lives. For Magne Bjella, Steve Jobs represents far more than computers and mobile phones. He represents the understanding that technology should be human, intuitive, beautiful, and easy to use.

​

In many technology environments during the 1970s and 1980s, development focused primarily on functionality and technical specifications. Steve Jobs thought differently. He was concerned with how people actually felt when using technology. He understood early on that design, typography, user experience, and emotion would become just as important as the technology itself.

​

This perspective makes Steve Jobs highly relevant to the work on The Invisible Capital and Value-Creating People. Many of the reflections on user experience, accessibility, service design, and digital customer journeys have roots in precisely this way of thinking: technology should not be an end in itself—it should help people.

Steve Jobs grew up in California, in the environment that would later become known as Silicon Valley. Together with Steve Wozniak, he founded Apple in 1976 in a garage in Los Altos. At the time, computers were primarily intended for technology enthusiasts and specialists. Jobs saw the potential for something entirely different: personal computers that ordinary people could use at home, at work, and in creative professions.

​

Through products such as:

• Apple II

• Macintosh

• iMac

• iPod

• iPhone

• iPad

…Apple helped transform both the technology industry and the everyday lives of millions of people around the world.

For Magne, the Macintosh revolution is particularly interesting. Apple challenged the idea that computers had to be complicated. Graphical user interfaces, the mouse, typography, and visual simplicity made technology more accessible to people without a technical background. This later had enormous significance for the internet, web design, digital services, and modern user experience.

Steve Jobs was also an early advocate of the interaction between technology and creativity.

​

He often spoke about Apple operating at the intersection of:

• technology

• art

• design

• the humanities

This perspective aligns closely with Magne’s own experiences throughout his career—from SAS and the early days of the internet to the Opera House, Navico, and Bærum Municipality. Digitalization is not simply about code and systems, but about people, culture, communication, and understanding how services are actually experienced.

​

The Apple Store concept is another important example. Instead of traditional electronics stores, Apple created open, bright, people-oriented environments where products could be experienced and tested. This became a new way of thinking about retail and customer experience—one that later had significant influence on omnichannel, service design, and modern retail.

​

Steve Jobs was also a complex and demanding leader. He set extremely high standards for quality, detail, and execution. Many described him as uncompromising. Yet that same uncompromising approach also contributed to products and services that pushed the boundaries of what people expected from technology.

​

For Magne Bjella, Steve Jobs therefore represents something greater than Apple alone. He represents the idea that technology must be developed with people at the center. That great solutions are not simply about features, but about emotion, simplicity, trust, and experience.

​

These perspectives remain highly relevant in an era shaped by artificial intelligence, automation, and digital platforms. Technology is becoming increasingly powerful—but the need for human understanding, good design, and clear communication is at least as important as ever.

​

Perhaps that is precisely why Steve Jobs continues to inspire so many:

• Because he reminded the world that technology alone is never enough. True innovation emerges when technology meets people in a meaningful way.

Ward Hanson is a professor and expert in digital marketing, e-commerce, and Internet strategy, particularly known for his work on how the Internet transformed marketing and customer engagement in the early digital economy. He was an early analyst of how digital channels could be used to build relationships between businesses and customers through data, personalization, and new forms of communication.

​

Together with Kirthi Kalyanam, he wrote the book Internet Marketing and e-Commerce, which became an important reference in eMarketing, CRM, and digital commerce at a time when the Internet was still developing rapidly. The book described how websites, databases, and digital customer journeys were beginning to change the way companies approached marketing and customer experience.

Hanson represents an early phase of the digital transformation, when the Internet evolved from a technological experiment into a central part of business strategy, communication, and commerce. His perspectives remain relevant today, particularly in customer orientation, digital services, and the interaction between technology and human behavior.

Kirthi Kalyanam is a professor of marketing at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, in the heart of Silicon Valley. For many years, he has worked at the intersection of technology, retail, marketing, data analytics, and digital transformation, and is regarded as one of the experts who recognized early on how the Internet and digital platforms would fundamentally transform retail and consumer behavior.

​

Throughout his career, Kalyanam has worked closely with both academia and business, and he has maintained strong connections with the technology communities of Silicon Valley. He has researched and taught in areas including e-commerce, retail, customer experience, digital marketing, artificial intelligence, and data-driven business development—long before many of these topics became mainstream. This is precisely why he also became an important voice at several of the San Francisco seminars, where he contributed perspectives directly from one of the world’s most innovative technology environments.

​

For many of us who participated in the seminars through the BI network, Kalyanam became an important bridge between theory and practice. He did not simply talk about technology as something abstract or futuristic, but about how organizations actually needed to change to meet new expectations from customers and society. This made his presentations highly relevant both to people from the private sector and to those of us working with digitalization, communication, and service development in other sectors.

​

What also made an impression was his ability to communicate complex topics in an understandable and engaging way. He combined deep academic insight with enthusiasm, curiosity, and strong communication skills. Through the San Francisco seminars and professional gatherings at BI, he therefore became an important part of the international professional community that helped shape many of the reflections on digitalization, innovation, and customer experience that have stayed with me throughout my career.

​

Kirthi Kalyanam is one of the experts who truly left a lasting impression through the San Francisco seminars and the professional networks around BI Norwegian Business School. For me, he became much more than a lecturer or academic. He represented a rare combination of deep professional expertise, international experience, warmth, curiosity, and a genuine interest in how technology actually affects people, commerce, and society.

​

There was also something special about the way he built bridges between academia and the real world of business. Many researchers can become theoretical and detached, but Kalyanam took a very different approach. He spoke about retail, digitalization, customer experience, Amazon, Google, data, and technology in a way that made these subjects concrete and relevant to people working with them in practice every day. This made a strong impression on many of us who came from working life and were directly involved in the digital transformation of both the private and public sectors.

​

He was early in recognizing how the Internet would fundamentally change retail, marketing, and consumer behavior. At a time when many were still debating whether e-commerce would really become important, Kalyanam was already discussing how digital platforms, data, logistics, customer insight, and multichannel strategies would transform the entire competitive landscape. In retrospect, it is almost fascinating to see how much of what he described has actually become reality.

​

What also made an impression was the breadth of his experience. He moved naturally between academia, Silicon Valley, Google, the retail industry, and technology communities. He had researched, taught, developed programs, and worked closely with business. This gave his presentations a depth that was difficult to overlook. This was not simply theory taken from books. It was experience built through close engagement with some of the world’s most innovative environments.

​

For me, much of this connected directly with my own experiences at SAS, Navico, the Opera House, and later in the public sector. Many of the reflections on customer experience, omnichannel, service development, and digital transformation were highly relevant to the work we were doing ourselves. It was not simply about technology, but about how organizations needed to rethink user journeys, service, accessibility, and the interaction between people and digital solutions.

​

Kalyanam also had an ability to communicate the future in a way that created enthusiasm. Not as pure hype, but as professionally grounded optimism. He described how technology could be used to create better services, better customer experiences, and more intelligent organizations—provided we were also able to understand people, culture, and organizations. This made him an important voice in many of the discussions that would later become central to digitalization and innovation.

​

Together with Ward Hanson, he wrote the book Internet Marketing and e-Commerce, which became an important reference in eMarketing, CRM, and digital commerce at a time when the Internet was still developing rapidly. The book described how websites, databases, and digital customer journeys were beginning to change the way companies approached marketing and customer experience.

​

Through the San Francisco seminars and the professional gatherings in Oslo, he therefore became part of a broader professional community that meant a great deal to me. Not only because he was academically strong, but because he represented a way of thinking about innovation that was open, inclusive, and curious. These are precisely the kinds of people who make professional networks more than just conferences and lectures. They become communities that inspire people throughout their working lives.

Leslie Lazar Kanuk is an expert and co-author in consumer behavior and marketing, particularly known for her work on how people develop needs, preferences, and purchasing habits. Together with Leon G. Schiffman, she helped establish Consumer Behavior as an important field within modern marketing and customer-oriented strategy.

​

Together, they wrote the book Consumer Behavior, which became an important reference in eMarketing, customer insight, and digital customer journeys. The book demonstrates how technology and marketing must be understood in the context of human behavior, motivation, and decision-making processes.

​

Kanuk’s work remains relevant today, particularly in user experience, digital services, and understanding how people interact with technology and information in a digital everyday life.

John Kao has been one of the most prominent international voices in innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship for several decades.

​

He was often referred to as “Mr. Creativity” by The Economist—not because he treated creativity as something vague and artistic, but because he was able to make innovation understandable as a practical discipline that can be learned, developed, and managed.

​

For many who participated in seminars in San Francisco through BI Norwegian Business School and the innovation communities around Silicon Valley, John Kao represented something truly special. He combined academic depth with an energy and communication style that brought complex topics to life. He did not simply talk about technology—he talked about people, culture, improvisation, collaboration, and how new ideas emerge through the interaction of different fields.

​

John Kao had an unusual background compared with many others in technology and business. He studied philosophy at Yale, trained in psychiatry, earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, and later taught innovation and entrepreneurship at Harvard. This combination of the humanities, psychology, management, and creativity gave his perspectives a distinctive quality compared with more traditional technology environments in Silicon Valley.

​

At Harvard Business School, he developed programs in creativity and innovation that attracted executives from major international companies. He emphasized that innovation does not emerge from random brainstorming alone, but through culture, training, interaction, and discipline—in much the same way that jazz musicians improvise within a structure they have mastered. This thinking became particularly well known through his book Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity, which became an international bestseller in innovation management.

​

Music was not merely a metaphor for John Kao—it was part of his identity. He was a skilled jazz pianist and, when he was young, actually worked with rock legend Frank Zappa. This gave him a distinctive way of talking about creativity. For Kao, innovation was about rhythm, listening, timing, interaction, and the courage to improvise when the world changes.

​

Throughout his career, he has advised companies, governments, and cities around the world. He has worked on innovation strategies for countries and organizations including Finland, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, European Union institutions, and the U.S. government. He also chaired innovation councils associated with the World Economic Forum and worked on how entire societies can develop cultures of innovation—not just individual companies.

What makes John Kao particularly relevant to the work on The Invisible Capital and Value-Creating People is the way he consistently highlighted the people behind innovation. He challenged the idea that innovation is simply about technology or capital. Instead, he demonstrated how creativity emerges in environments characterized by trust, openness, collaboration, and curiosity.

​

He recognized early that future competitiveness would not only depend on products, but on the ability to build learning organizations and cultures where people feel confident thinking differently together.

​

Many of the ideas that are now common in design thinking, innovation culture, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and customer experience were perspectives John Kao discussed long before they became mainstream. For this reason, he remains one of the important bridge-builders between technology, management, creativity, and human development in the digital age.

Jean-Noël Kapferer is one of the world’s best-known experts in branding, identity, and strategic brand management. For several decades, he has explored how strong brands are developed, perceived, and maintained in the face of changing markets, technology, and customer needs.

​

He is particularly known for the book The New Strategic Brand Management, which has become an important international reference in branding, marketing, and strategic communication. The book describes how brands are not simply about logos or advertising, but about identity, trust, experiences, and relationships between organizations and people.

​

Kapferer was an early voice in explaining how digital channels challenge traditional approaches to brand management. In a world characterized by greater transparency, faster change, and stronger competition, the brand becomes the sum of all the experiences a customer has—across services, platforms, and touchpoints.

His perspectives remain highly relevant to:

​

• eMarketing

• digital customer journeys

• user experience

• service development

• public-sector communication

• and strategic identity building.

B. Joseph Pine II is an American author, speaker, and strategist known for his work on customer experience, the experience economy, and value creation through human experiences.

He became internationally recognized for his work on how organizations move from selling products and services to creating experiences that build lasting relationships and emotional value.

Together with James H. Gilmore, he wrote the influential book The Experience Economy, which has had a major impact on marketing, service, innovation, and customer experience. The book describes how the economy evolves from goods and services toward experiences, where the customer’s overall experience becomes the most important source of value creation.

​

Pine’s perspectives have been particularly relevant to:

• digital customer journeys

• service design

• personalization

• brand experience

• innovation

• and modern service development

His thinking fits particularly well with today’s digital society, where technology alone is not enough—the decisive factor is how people actually experience the services they use.

Through the network around BI Norwegian Business School, Oxford, and Professor Peder Inge Furseth, many Norwegian participants had the opportunity to meet some of the most fascinating experts in innovation, retail, urban development, and customer experience. One of those who made a particularly strong impression was Jonathan Reynolds.

​

Jonathan Reynolds represents a type of academic who does not simply study business from a distance, but seeks to understand how people actually live, shop, move around, and experience cities, stores, and services in their everyday lives. He is a professor at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and has for many years been one of Europe’s most respected experts in retail, consumer behavior, commerce, and urban development.

​

What made Jonathan Reynolds particularly interesting during the seminars and within the Oxford networks was the way he connected commerce, society, and people. He did not talk about stores as isolated economic entities, but as parts of living ecosystems—places where people meet, identities are shaped, and technology, logistics, and customer experience come together.

​

For many participants from the Norwegian public sector, retail, and digital development, this was an important eye-opener. Reynolds demonstrated that great cities and great customer experiences do not happen by chance. They are built through long-term planning, an understanding of human behavior, and the ability to see the connections between physical and digital presence.

​

This also aligned closely with perspectives that would later become central to the work on The Invisible Capital and Value-Creating People. Jonathan Reynolds highlighted something that is often overlooked in economic models: that commerce and services are ultimately about people.

​

Through the Oxford community, he helped participants gain insight into how retail was being transformed by digitalization, e-commerce, and changing customer expectations. At the same time, he emphasized that technology alone is never enough. What matters is how technology is used to create better experiences, stronger relationships, and more vibrant communities.

​

At a time when many still viewed e-commerce as a separate track from physical retail, Reynolds was among those who recognized early the importance of integrated customer experiences—what we now refer to as omnichannel. He showed how the winners of the future would be those able to combine digital solutions with human understanding and strong physical places for people to meet.

​

That is precisely why Jonathan Reynolds has become such an important source of inspiration. Not only as a researcher, but as a voice capable of explaining why commerce, technology, urban life, and people are so closely interconnected.

​

Thanks to the network around Peder Inge Furseth, Norwegian participants were able to meet experts such as Jonathan Reynolds up close—people who did more than present theories, but helped shape how an entire generation began to think about innovation, customer experience, and societal development.

Leon G. Schiffman is an internationally recognized expert in consumer behavior, marketing, and consumer psychology. He is particularly known for his work on how people identify needs, seek information, evaluate alternatives, and make decisions when interacting with products, services, and marketing.

​

Together with Leslie Lazar Kanuk, he wrote the influential book Consumer Behavior, which for many years has been an important reference in marketing, eMarketing, and the study of consumer behavior. The book describes how psychological, social, and cultural factors influence people’s decisions and habits—both in physical and digital environments.

​

Schiffman’s perspectives became particularly important during the transition to digital customer journeys, when an understanding of human behavior became essential to the development of websites, e-commerce, CRM, and digital services

Fred Selnes has for several decades been one of Norway’s leading experts in marketing, strategy, and relationship-oriented business development. For Magne Bjella, Fred Selnes represents an important part of the academic foundation that would later influence his work with digitalization, customer orientation, and the understanding of how technology and relationships are interconnected.

​

Through the eMarketing program at BI Norwegian Business School, Magne was introduced to perspectives that were both modern and forward-looking at the time. The Internet was still in its early stages, and many organizations primarily viewed the web as a technological channel or an addition to existing marketing efforts. Fred Selnes helped elevate the discussion to a strategic level. He demonstrated that digitalization was not simply about websites and technology, but about relationships between organizations and people.

As a professor at BI Norwegian Business School, Fred Selnes has conducted research in areas including:

• marketing strategy

• customer orientation

• relationship marketing

• branding

• competitive advantage

• customer loyalty

• business development

He was among the early Norwegian academics to clearly demonstrate how long-term customer relationships could become one of the most important competitive advantages for organizations in an increasingly digital and global economy.

​

This perspective became highly significant for Magne Bjella later in his career. Through his experiences at SAS, the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet, Navico, and Bærum Municipality, it became increasingly clear how important it is to understand:

​

• user needs

• trust

• accessibility

• customer journeys

• experiences

• relationships over time

Many of these perspectives can be traced back to the understanding of relationship-oriented marketing that Fred Selnes helped communicate.

What made Fred Selnes particularly interesting as a lecturer and expert was his ability to combine academic depth with practical relevance. He did not simply talk about theories, but about how organizations could actually develop in response to new digital opportunities and changing customer needs.

​

At a time when many organizations were still focused on short-term campaigns and traditional mass communication, Selnes helped explain how:

​

• customer data

• relationships

• brand experiences

• long-term trust

• digital dialogue

…would become increasingly important.

These ideas later became highly significant in:

• CRM

• customer experience

• e-commerce

• omnichannel

• service design

• digital platforms

For Magne Bjella, Fred Selnes is therefore not simply a professor from a study program, but an important source of professional inspiration from a time when the Internet was beginning to fundamentally transform business and society.

What makes his perspectives particularly relevant today is that they still concern something fundamentally human: value is created through relationships, trust, and an understanding of people—not through technology alone.

In the work on The Invisible Capital and Value-Creating People, Fred Selnes therefore naturally belongs among the voices that helped shape an early understanding of how customer orientation, strategy, and digital development must be viewed together.