Mistakes versus Experiments

One of the reasons that people try to avoid failing is that it seems like they’ve screwed up if they fail. This can certainly be the case, if your failure is major. But if you set up experiments to test ideas out, and you learn from them, then failing can be very productive. Here is […]

Where is the Intelligence in Your System?

As industries mature, they distribute intelligence differently. What do I mean by that? Here’s a diagram that I sketched out when I was at the CEEC Workshop last month: It shows that we can build intelligence about the system in two places – in people or in technology (which can be any kind of tool). […]

Where is the Australian Facebook?

“Sell enough of this software so that we get bought by Microsoft.” That was the task I was given in the startup I joined in my last job before I entered academia. I guess the fact that I’m writing this now tells you how effective I was at meeting that goal… You can actually date […]

Schumpeter & Keynes on an Innovation Dilemma

John and I were talking last week with a CEO for whom we were doing some consulting. His firm had gone through some major stress during the project when their primary customer switched suppliers. The company is remarkable – they are in a traditional industry with a history of poor workforce relations. Despite this, they […]

Are You Entering a Market or Building One?

There is a huge difference between entering an existing market and building a completely new one. To see an example, check this out – it is the very first Apple product, which Andrew Chen writes about in a terrific post: You can see why IBM didn’t view personal computers as any kind of threat to […]