Monthly Archives: November 2011
The Most Important Innovation of All Time
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What is the most important innovation ever? There are plenty of candidates. Fire, the telegraph, electricity, and the internet would all have to be candidates. There’s another one though, that has had an enormous impact on every single one of us. And surprisingly, it’s not a whiz-bang piece of technology. It’s a simple process innovation. […]
How to Steal Like An Innovator
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I’ve been obsessed with this video for the past couple of days: The song is Nouvelle Vague covering Dance With Me by Lords of the New Church. It’s a great cover. The video is an even more inspired piece. Youtube user Luakabopper took the song and put it over this amazing dance sequence from Bande […]
Get Your Process Right to Innovate Successfully
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What wins in innovation, great ideas or great process? Ideally, you’ll have both. But I suspect that if it’s either/or, process wins. There is an interesting example from the world of chess in Michael Nielsen’s fantastic new book Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science. The book discusses how our improved ability to network […]
Innovation Obstacle: Social Habits
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For some insight into another common innovation obstacle, consider this quote from John Maynard Keynes: Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally then to succeed unconventionally. Because it’s pithy and quotable, it might be easy to dismiss – and just as an aside, why aren’t modern-day economists as good with […]
You Can’t Know Everything About Everything
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I had a striking reminder of my ignorance on Sunday. I’m currently in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico to give the keynote at a conference tomorrow. I arrived a few days early to get acclimated, and on Sunday, my hosts took me around town, including a visit to the new Museo de la Revolucion en la Frontera. […]
Learning From Failure
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The Property Ladder Theory of Bubbles
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I’ve always thought that the BBC show The Property Ladder provided the perfect illustration of how bubbles worked. The show ran from 2002-2006 and it was hosted by Sarah Beeny. The show profiled aspiring property developers who bought properties, renovated them, then tried to sell them for a profit. If you’ve never seen it, this […]
