Strategy
Make recombination part of your business strategy
"Everything we create is just a product of recombination."
What’s the inspiration behind the Air Jordan 2010? The ability to see through your opponents and keep your intentions hidden. Just like in the world of design, in the world of Air Jordan’s the word inspiration comes up a lot. It’s safe to say that [...]
Failure is an idea not an outcome
We are all failures – at least, all the best of us are. – J.M. Barrie
As a society, what keeps us from creating anything worthwhile?
FEAR.
Rock climbing requires a tremendous amount of focus by keeping your emotions in check in the ever present fear of falling to your death. If don’t control your [...]
Change not growth
What’s very dangerous is not to evolve.
See that strange looking animal that looks like it was in the movie Avatar? It’s called a Mexican walking fish, or axolotl, and is one of the most bizarre creatures on the planet. Not just because of how it looks but because it [...]
For breakthrough ideas read the unreadable
Chaos, where brilliant dreams are born.
Do you ever get this feeling that when you read the same stuff over and over again and then you try to read something completely unrelated you become bored very easily? Well that’s a very bad problem to have if you want to get into the business of ‘doing [...]
Why should people learn to innovate?
In my entrepreneurial journey I’ve come across people who pretty much don’t care about ‘innovation’ but what they do care about is how they can extract (notice I said extract and not create) more value from their customers. It’s fair to say that those of us who preach the ‘there’s always a better way’ gospel [...]
Innovation: respect the process
Master the instrument, master the music, then forget all that shit and play. – Charlie Parker
Some say innovation is predictable, I agree. But to a larger degree it is not because you can’t really tell where it’s going to come from and who will be holding all the cards. Right now you’re probably in [...]
Strategy: Keep the ball moving
I’m a basketball junkie so I was delighted to read Fast Company’s excellent inside look at basketball start Steve Nash which examines how Nash runs his work life outside of basketball, just like the Suns offense, in constant chaos. Nash runs THE most unorthodox offense in the NBA, which is unplanned, unpredictable and all on [...]
Disrupt yourself to change the game you play in
If you can’t solve a problem, it’s because you’re playing by the rules. – Paul Arden
All a disruptor really does is change something from one state to another by breaking patterns. Google is a typical disruptor, they seek ways to ‘disrupt’ a familiar flow in how things get done to another and then change [...]
STRATEGY: Exchange the role of guest for host
Look beyond the immediate battle and build on a position of weakness to take control.
I was watching my favorite childhood cartoon movie, GI Joe, yesterday and was reminded of a very powerful strategy that the terrorist organization Cobra uses in most of the cartoons that can be applied in business. If you’re not familiar with [...]
What is strategy? Part trois
The New Strategy
View more documents from Matthew Milan.
The future belongs to those that are fluid, fast and nonlinear.
It’s always great to hear other people think about strategy as a learning mechanism and less as a detail step by step plan. Here’s a recent presentation by Matthew Milan dubbed ‘The New Strategy’ where he argues that [...]
