Experiments are a critical innovation skill, and it’s one that you can use to build your Innovation Competence. A culture of experimentation is one of the elements that distinguishes highly innovative firms from those that arene’t quite as good at it. The best thing that I’ve run across recently on the importance of experimentation is […]
When carbon atoms connect, they most commonly form molecules built on rings of six atoms. The things that are built out of these six atom rings of carbon are amazingly diverse. Here are the structures of two of these things: graphite (A) and diamond (B): You can see the rings in both. Same material, same […]
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. I presented The Innovation Matrix at a conference last week. After the other three speakers in my session had given their […]
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. Potential Stars Some firms have a high level of Innovation Commitment, and they also have a reasonably high level of Innovation […]
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. Stars (at Risk) How do you describe firms that have a high level of Innovation Competence but no Innovation Commitment? My […]
I solved a mystery recently that had been bothering me for months. There’s about a seven minute walk from the main faculty parking lot on campus to my office. About halfway through this walk, there are two paths that you can take – one covers significantly less distance. I’ve always taken this shorter route. One […]
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. Unicorns In the last post, I discussed the three stable states in the Innovation Matrix. These are the places where Innovation […]
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. Fit for Purpose and World Class Innovators In a perfect world, as firms increase their Innovation Competence, their Innovation Commitment, should […]
I’ve written a couple of posts recently on the importance of network diversity for innovation and how dense networks can actually inhibit innovation. Since the 1970s, the dominant view in network analysis of innovation is that novelty comes from sparely connected network where ‘structural holes’ exist to preserve diversity. Weak links between knowledge clusters are […]
You probably heard about the contest that Netflix started in 2006 to crowdsource improvements in their recommendation algorithm. They offered a $1 million prize to anyone that could improve the accuracy of the recommendation algorithm by at least 10%. In 2009, a team of people hit the target, and won the prize. Awesome, right? The […]
