As outlined in my previous post, sustainable innovation requires evolution and revolution. Over the long term, organizations need to be capable of both moving along existing growth trajectories and creating new ones when the old business matures or stalls. This can be depicted as recurring movement along innovation s-curves. In the case of a new […]
How can you learn what you need to know to become an expert? It requires deep knowledge of a field, but it also requires broad knowledge of related fields. Our current technologies support deep, but not broad. We need to figure out a way to find t-shaped knowledge.
There is often a gap between what we do daily and our long-term objectives. This gap can kill strategy, and it can kill innovation. We apply some lessons from South Park to figure out how to successfully bridge this gap.
People often think it’s weird when they hear that I study innovation – even people in very innovative jobs. The biggest reason for this is mistaking invention for innovation. If you do this, then studying innovation makes no sense at all – what can you learn about the flash of insight, the stroke of genius, […]
One of the exciting trends in innovation right now is the lean startup idea. The basic premise is that when ventures are starting out, building a scalable business model needs to be a top priority. People like Steve Blank, Eric Ries, Ash Maurya and Alex Osterwalder are all doing great work in this area. I’m […]
The blog will be under construction this weekend as I work with Todd Lohenry from e1evation to upgrade the site. Todd does fantastic work, and I recommend him highly. In the meantime, the latest online update to the UQ Business School’s Momentum magazine includes an interview with my discussing my thoughts about my recent trip […]
Here’s my candidate for the worst innovation quote ever: Now, to be fair, it’s actually a paraphrasing of Emerson. Or, to be more accurate, a misquote. Nevertheless, it reflects a very common innovation misconception – that it’s all about the idea. Andrew Hargadon has written a terrific post on this topic, which I encourage you […]
You may remember Webvan, probably the most spectacular flame-out in during the tech boom in the late 90s. If you don’t, Nicole Perlroth describes their blowup for Forbes: Of Web 1.0’s most memorable implosions, Webvan still takes the cake. The online grocer raised $375 million in an IPO, descended upon eight major U.S. cities, peddled […]
Guest Post: by Ralph-Christian Ohr Triggered by a couple of recent discussions, I’ve been pondering for a while now over the question how evolution relates to revolution when it comes to innovation. In the following, I’ll try to develop my view on this. Let’s define evolution as continuous and incremental innovations of a firm’s existing […]
The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Nancy and I saw Ruby Sparks last night, and really enjoyed it. It’s written by Zoe Kazan, who also stars, and it absolutely skewers the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. Nathan Rabin defined Manic Pixie Dreams Girls (MPDG) in his review of Elizabethtown: The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely […]
