Veronica Vera pointed me to a great talk by Anil Gupta from TEDIndia. He talks about grassroots innovation, and methods for getting ideas to spread in poorer regions. It’s a fascinating talk: Innovation in developing countries is a wildly unappreciated phenomenon – there are incredibly interesting things going on in places like India, China and […]
Why is it so difficult for established firms to deal with disruptive innovation? In general, I think that Clayton Christensen’s model of disruptive innovation is correct. His basic idea is that since disruptions generally start in niches, the economics of pursuing disruptive innovations look really bad for large incumbents: Characteristics of disruptive businesses, at least […]
Hugh MacLeod absolutely nails it again with his business card for Joi Ito: New products, new services and new ways of doing things are all fundamentally about ideas. That is why innovation management is really idea management. Jeffrey Phillips addresses this same point in a terrific post called Ideas are a Commodity. He talks about […]
“Fresh insightful connections.” That’s how Rishad Tobaccowala defines innovation in a terrific post today called Becoming Innovative. I think this is a great way to think about innovation. I’ve already said that connecting ideas is the fundamental creative act in innovation, so it was great to see Rishad say this: Connections is a about the […]
Here are a number of actual quotes from this week. On Monday, Mark and I had a research meeting with a colleague in the business school who does business process research. When Mark asked if she has ever looked at innovation, she said: I haven’t, because innovation isn’t a process, is it? After a bit […]
One of the problems that makes innovation necessary is this: no matter how strong your current position is, if you don’t innovate, your business will eventually decline. And it might not be eventually – it might happen sooner. Why? The Think Tank blog quotes Gary Hamel to explain: “Out there in some garage is an […]
A simple question: Is All Innovation Good? The simple answer to this is: No. Which poses a bit of a problem – we know that innovation is an essential part of long-term success – as Andrew Howlett says, “The ROI on innovation is survival.” And yet, because innovations create change, and the outcome of change […]
Nothing could be less innovative than planting a garden at your house, right? Maybe – but maybe not. Take a look at this: It’s a Green Roof that’s been planted as part of an initiative put together by Sustainable South Bronx. This is initiative started by Majora Carter. The gardens do three main things. They […]