How can you tell when there is an opportunity for business model innovation? Recent events in higher education might give us a good indication. There are a few issues in university education these days. The main one is that education is information based, and over the past 20 years we have seen nearly every single […]
The earth has been around for 4.5 billion years or so. If you think of the last 10% of that time, a fair bit has happened. There have periods of major global warming, and a few ice ages. There have been asteroid strikes, and other natural disasters too numerous to count. Continents that were one […]
I don’t like focus groups. I’ve found the information that you get from them to be too shallow to be useful. However, this doesn’t mean that when we’re innovating we should just pursue whatever ideas drift across our minds. Steve Jobs was quoted last year about how Apple doesn’t use focus groups. A number of […]
One of the frustrating things about following politics is the idea, apparently deeply engrained, that you must never change your mind. If you do, you’re a flip-flopper, or wishy-washy, and you’re clearly not to be trusted. The main problem with this line of thinking is that it is utterly and dangerously wrong. We live in […]
How do business models get killed? It’s an interesting question. I was talking about business models with Jason Potts last week and he said “maybe the definition of a mature industry is one where the business model has stopped evolving.” This suggests that it’s not technological innovation that changes industries, but rather business model innovation. […]
What is the innovation that led to civilization? There are some interesting answers to this question in Why the West Rules, For Now by Ian Morris. As part of his research, Morris has developed a Social Development Index, which he uses to track the progress of civilizations from 14000 BC to present. The index tracks […]
One of my friends reminded me today about Louis CK’s great discussion of the benefits of innovation: That might not seem like an innovation discussion, but it sure is. One of the difficulties with innovating is that it takes so long to get an idea into circulation, but once it’s there, it gets taken for […]
The world failed to end over the weekend. In Los Angeles, at least, this was a bit surprising, as there were many dire predictions made about the impact of closing down the 405 Freeway for a weekend of construction. Many of the key issues are summarised in this remix from Downfall (which is funny, but […]
Is it possible to be too innovative? Helen Walters points to an interesting post by Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen called Over-Innovation Makes U.S. Firms Suck At Sustainability, which argues that it is. They argue that the high levels of US carbon emissions are due to too much innovation: The heart of the […]
