Tag Archives: Silicon Valley

The non-obvious innovation obstacle: charlatanism

No, we don’t need innovation offices or officers for our cities. Buzzword mania, and everyone wanting to be a part of the bandwagon make it a ignorant proposition. Most of the innovation offices want to resemble Silicon Valley, including its focus on technology.

Remember, innovation isn’t just about tech. So, another tech center does not innovation make.

Are Startup Incubators too focused on Technology?

I tackled a similar question last year, but two articles I came across recently got me thinking.

Are incubators worth the trouble for startups?

But Vijayashanker took a pass. She’d noticed that many incubators focus heavily on technology development but didn’t teach the business skills she wanted to master. “I was talking to people who had graduated from these business incubators, and the vast majority were still asking business questions,” she recalls. “They were talking about ‘How do we market? How do we find customers?'” As she did her research, she found that entrepreneurs in a variety of fields who’d built a company outside of the incubator scene “had the most knowledge and experience,” she said.

The there’s Google Ventures, which takes a more collaborative incubation approach to jump-starting innovation:

Maris’s formula includes an unusual emphasis on data–and a team of researchers to quantify elements that lead to successful investments. Then there’s his Startup Lab. According to just about everyone in the startup scene, including rival VCs, Google Ventures is one of the most hands-on, full-service funders in the Valley. “They have recruiting partners, design partners, engineering partners, user research partners,” says Somrat Niyogi, who has raised money from Google Ventures for his social TV startup Miso. “That kind of structure, you just don’t get in the VC community. Period.”

Innovation posts of the week: How Silicon Valley Innovates

Stop Inbreeding Innovation – HBR

Revealed! Silicon Valley’s Secrets To Innovation Success – Forbes

Seven Steps To Find Your “Uncommon Sense” – MIT Sloan Management Review

The Innovation Knowing-Doing Gap – Innovation Management

The Commoditization of Scale – HBR

Why Youth Has an Advantage in Innovation & Why You Want To Be a Learn-It-All –  Above The Crowd

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Ideas trump hierarchy

Yesterday I was having lunch with a buddy of mine who is looking to create a startup incubator in Tijuana. I told him that it seems to me that everyone wants to start an incubator nowadays as a good excuse for stimulating the economy.

But more importantly, what nobody is asking themselves is: How do you establish a culture of innovation?

There’s a reason why places like Silicon Valley and New York are breeding grounds for startups. They have a unique mixture of people that come there to create new things. To innovate.

Because of this diversity, the quality of ideas is very high.