Tag Archives: Innovation

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.…

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. …

Innovation must reads of the week: How to reduce innovation risk

in Must reads of the week

Anti-innovation: 10 Proven Ways Not to Innovate – Forbes

How to reduce innovation risk  by @ovoinnovation

3 Ways To Predict What Consumers Want Before They Know It – FastCoDesign

Innovation Hell: Saving Good Ideas From Premature Death – Fast Company

It’s the Jobs-to-Be-Done, Stupid! by @bhc3

Why Innovation is Less Risky Than You Think by @timkastelle

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Are you applying as fast as you are learning?

in Innovation, Strategy

A few weeks go, Bill Taylor (@practicallyrad) asked: Are you learning as fast as the world is changing?

Next question is: Are you applying as fast as you are learning?

Here’s what I’ve noticed for awhile since I’ve been on Twitter, but became a little more obvious to me in the last few weeks: Those of us who spend time on Twitter, are a lot more cognitively accelerated than those who are not.

Case in point: My Mix group I told you about. They are interesting people, and have a lot of things to talk about. But none of them have a Twitter account. Or a blog. And it dawned on me that by only meeting once per month, that this isn’t going to change anytime soon.

For example, One of the Co-Founders of Serena Healthcare, who also in the group, provided me with another insight. Here’s a guy who takes mindmap notes on his iPad as you are speaking. And if he doesn’t have his iPad, he takes notes on his laptop as you are explaining things to him. But you know what? For all his note taking abilities, he doesn’t have or want a Twitter account because he feels overwhelmed by its fast paced nature.

What?

This guy’s mind moves fast. But apparently not fast enough.

So does that mean that we, ‘The Twitterati’, are a special bunch? I know some people who think so. They tell me that Twitter is for intellectuals, not for the lazy minded. Twitter is a fire-hose of knowledge no doubt (if you filter it becomes even more apparent), but that’s not where the discussion should stop.…