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 […]
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 […]
We see many systems these days where all of the intelligence in the system is embedded in the technology. Some examples: Driverless vehicles, in mines and on the streets. Highly sophisticated prosumer cameras. Most tablets – they can’t be programmed at all, really. High speed stock trading. When I talked about this recently, I made […]
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). […]
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 […]
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 […]