For the second day in a row, Hugh MacLeod’s daily newsletter has sparked a thought for me. Here it is: This reminded me of a conversation that I had recently with one of our potential research partners. We are trying to find a corporate partner for my PhD student Nadja’s research work, and we were […]
A couple of recent things have struck a chord with me. Check out Mark Earls (whose book Herd is essential reading – track it down now) in his post Rethinking What Business is For – after discussing the dialog concerning public sector versus private sector, he says: But there’s precious little discussion of what business […]
Innovation is not just about having a great idea (which is why it’s a lot more than just R&D) – it’s about executing ideas and getting them to spread. Here’s a case in point: Google. I ran across this video through George Siemen’s outstanding newsletter – a talk at the Palo Alto Research Centre by […]
In 2006 I had a massive conference/research trip. I started with a stop in London to visit the Innovation Group at Imperial College, then I went to the DRUID Summer Conference in Copenhagen, the International Schumpeter Society Conference in Nice, and the Academy of International Business Conference in Beijing. One thing that was striking on […]
How can we come up with the perfect innovation? One that will last forever, and make us rich, and perfectly solve the problem it was designed for? The short answer is – we can’t. Well, it’s not completely impossible, but it’s awfully unlikely. Here’s an example that shows why. I’m in London for the DRUID […]
Can universities keep delivering education in the same way that they have been for past few hundred years? The reason this topic is coming up frequently these days is that digital technologies are having an increasing impact on the delivery of education. Consequently, Don Tapscott wonders if the university model of delivering education can still […]
How has the internet changed the innovation process? It has had a number of impacts, particularly on collaborative innovation, which is becoming increasingly important. Here is a short discussion on this topic from one of our previous Innovation Leadership Executive Education courses: George Dyson has a nice metaphor for the changes involved in answer to […]
One of the reasons that firms are often hesitant to innovate is that innovation creates uncertainty, and a lot of people are uncomfortable with uncertainty. Here is short clip from one of our earlier Executive Education courses where I talk about how we can use innovation technologies to reduce uncertainty a little bit: Innovation technologies […]
Here’s an interesting question: Why is the Retirement Age 65 in most developed countries? I’ll give you a second to think about it. Or google it. Here’s a hint: the retirement age of 65 was first selected in 1880. Here’s the answer: the retirement age was set at 65 because when it was first introduced […]
I am always skeptical of ‘everything is different now’ style arguments. If we think about the history of business, we have been trying to manage in a state of turmoil going back at least to the start of the industrial revolution, possibly longer. The introduction of railways, the telegraph, electricity and the automobile were all […]
