I’ve written a bit about newspapers here, and here, mainly discussing how they might change their business models effectively. As is often the case, it looks like it is new entrants that are coming up with the genuinely innovative business models. Two recent pieces have addressed this. The first is an article by Michael Wolff […]
Doyne Farmer is pretty much a genius. And a very engaging speaker. This is a talk he gave a couple of months ago, reviewing ten years of physicists’ work on finance. I saw Farmer speak at one of the first conferences that I went to, on econophysics in Canberra – and he was absolutely captivating. […]
Peter Klein just blogged about his favourite quote at the DRUID Summer Conference, from Sid Winter. One of my favourite quotes at the conference came from Peter himself, when he was discussing the three papers on eco-innovation – that people making innovation policies have to be aware of ‘the Hayek problem – can policies be […]
I hope everyone is enjoying doing whatever it is that we’re supposed to do to commemorate the Queen’s birthday. Here are a few things I’ve run across so far today: The potato gatling gun demonstrates again the difference between invention and innovation. It’s a cool thing to make, but I suspect it’ll be a while […]
There was an article in this weekend’s Australian Financial Review reviewing a book about myspace. The reviewer kept stressing that myspace did not invent any new technology, the implication being that the firm was not innovative. So how did it wipe out friendster? The answer, which wasn’t explored by AFR is that myspace developed a […]
Here’s something new – mysociety.org in the UK is introducing their new service called Mapumental. It’s a dumb name, but at least they didn’t call it Mapology… In any case, the video that explains is it well worth watching: I always talk about how innovation is often simply the act of making new connections. Mapumental […]
Right after talking about Google wave, I ran across this story about the release of Microsoft bing. I like to use google as an example in classes when I talk about intellectual property ideas. The google search algorithm isn’t patentable, and yet they’ve made a ton of money off of it. But I suspect that […]
I just wrote this for the UQ Business School Alumni publication: Innovation is particularly important in turbulent economic times. As Scott Anthony points out in his upcoming book, The Silver Lining, nearly half of the current Fortune 500 companies were founded during recessions, including firms such as Bridgestone Tires, Digital Equipment Corporation, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, McKinsey […]
