People often think it’s weird when they hear that I study innovation – even people in very innovative jobs. The biggest reason for this is mistaking invention for innovation. If you do this, then studying innovation makes no sense at all – what can you learn about the flash of insight, the stroke of genius, […]
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 […]
Guest Post: by Ralph-Christian Ohr Triggered by a couple of recent discussions, I’ve been pondering for a while now over the question how evolution relates to revolution when it comes to innovation. In the following, I’ll try to develop my view on this. Let’s define evolution as continuous and incremental innovations of a firm’s existing […]
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 […]
1969 was a pretty interesting year for the Swiss watch industry. That was the year the Omega Speedmaster became the first watch on the moon. Meanwhile, back on earth, there was a serious race to make the first automatic match that included a chronograph. Jeffrey Stein retells this story in International Watch magazine, and it’s […]
How much do we know about innovation in mining (and other mature industries)? Last week I gave a keynote speech at the CEEC Workshop aiming to facilitate a paradigm shift in comminution. CEEC is the Coalition for Eco-Efficient Comminution. Communition is the process of smashing rocks as part of the mining process. The workshop gathered […]
Innovation is all about coming up with new solutions to solve problems. But here’s an interesting question: is the problem that you’re trying to solve a puzzle or a mystery? The distinction was made by Gregory Treverton and highlighted by Malcolm Gladwell in a piece he wrote on Enron a few years ago. According to […]
Note: This is part of a series of posts explaining the individual parts of The Innovation Matrix. See this post for a description of the full model and what can be done with it. Innovation Commitment Innovation Commitment is one of the axes of the innovation matrix. One of the key insights from The Innovation […]
I’ve continued to test out the ideas behind The Innovation Matrix with senior managers, and it seems to be working its way towards becoming a useful tool. As I do this, it continues to evolve. Today, I am going to revisit The Innovation Matrix as a broad concept, then over the next couple of weeks […]
Better business models lead to better businesses. One critical part of building a better business model is getting your value proposition right. An excellent value proposition means that you have to be excellent at, well, something. But what? One framework that John uses a lot in his classes is this from The Discipline of Market […]
When I’m doing public talks, one of the big misconceptions that I have to work around is the idea that innovation is only about making new stuff – that you can only innovate if you’re making things like iPhones. Schumpeter defined innovation as the formation of new connections which drive economic growth. In The Nature […]
