Archive for: 2012

Everyone wants to follow the leader, not many want to be one

in Innovation, Leadership

We all have access to the same information. To the same quotes, to the same people, to the same sources. To the same…

Regurgitation has taken center stage.

For example, those of us ‘in the know’ have a pretty good idea about how Apple works. We know they don’t do focus groups, that they don’t follow traditional management protocol. And that they are ferocious in the pursuit for perfection. Is there anything else we need to know?

Except for all the nitty gritty details, not much else I think. Yet people still love to debate about the same stuff over and over again.…

Innovation must reads of the week: Prototyping is the process

in Must reads of the week
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What are you doing to escape old ideas?

in Innovation

change is inevitable. Change is constant

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.” – Keynes

Coming up with new ideas is a piece of cake. But escaping the pull of the tried and true is the difference between staying releant or not. Old ideas are like oxygen, we don’t even know they are there.

For example, a days ago Nilofer Merchant argued that Michael Porter’s model of Competitive Strategy needs an update. She posted her thoughts on HBR of all places. But see, it’s true. …

What 7 calls to GoDaddy can teach you about Innovation

in Innovation

For the last two days I’ve been transferring my blogs/websites from Blue Host to GoDaddy. My blog has been down since Sunday night and I just got it to work 15 minutes ago. Incredible isn’t it?

I’m writing this because I called GoDaddy a grand total of 7 times. And all 7 times I got different reasons as to why my blog wasn’t coming up. Incredibly, everything was resolved in the last two calls. About an hour and a half between them.

Thank GOD!

Anyway, what is incredible about this is that it was a simple problem that I could have resolved myself had I looked at the problem through the eyes of naive techie. Why? Because it was a basic techie issue. One file. That was it. Just one file. Programming 101.…

Ximena Valero

Innovation from Tijuana: Interview with Ximena Valero

in Interviews

I will be starting a series of interviews with fellow entrepreneurs from Tijuana, and will post one per week. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. This is the first one.

Ximena ValeroReversible/Transformable Fashion by Ximena Valero

Here is a short interview with Designer Ximena Valero from Tijuana, Mexico. Ximena Valero has dressed celebrities Paulina Rubio, Alejandra Guzmán, Lorena Rojas, Jessica Alba, Alicia Keysand Ana de la Reguera. And supermodels Tiiu Kuik, Julia Dunstall, Cintia Dicker, Juliana Imai, Zuleyka Rivera Ciara, and Daniela Kosan.

Her major contribution to fashion in 2009 undoubtedly, was the so-called “Transformable” Fashion, that is, great women’s apparel similar to the ones at LNO Greek’s Delta Sigma Theta sorority paraphernalia shop that can be worn in many different ways.

Very creatively, here then is the interview:…

A sneaky way to unearth innovation opportunities

in Innovation

Look beyond the obvious right? Ok, here’s a very sneaky way to do that and unearth innovation opportunities.

From the Businessweek article on Hybrids getting competition from plain old cars in gas mileage:

“I was surprised to see that cars like the Fiesta were actually about a nickel cheaper to run per mile than the Prius,” says Hacker. He bought a Fiesta for $16,400 instead of a $23,015 Prius. He’s averaging 37 mpg, which he says is on par with the real-world mileage of his Prius-driving friends who don’t take extreme measures to boost their mpgs. (“To get 50 miles per gallon, some dress like Eskimos because they don’t want to turn the stinking heat on,” says Hacker.)

Notice the words in bold at the end. The behavior described my friend, is a workaround. …