How can we come up with the perfect innovation? One that will last forever, and make us rich, and perfectly solve the problem it was designed for? The short answer is – we can’t. Well, it’s not completely impossible, but it’s awfully unlikely. Here’s an example that shows why. I’m in London for the DRUID […]
Consider Jared Diamond’s discussion of the lost technology of Tasmania: Tasmania is just an island of modest size, but it was the most extreme outpost of the most extreme continent, and it illuminates a big issue in the evolution of all human societies. Tasmania lies 130 miles southeast of Australia. When it was first visited […]
Can universities keep delivering education in the same way that they have been for past few hundred years? The reason this topic is coming up frequently these days is that digital technologies are having an increasing impact on the delivery of education. Consequently, Don Tapscott wonders if the university model of delivering education can still […]
How has the internet changed the innovation process? It has had a number of impacts, particularly on collaborative innovation, which is becoming increasingly important. Here is a short discussion on this topic from one of our previous Innovation Leadership Executive Education courses: George Dyson has a nice metaphor for the changes involved in answer to […]
As we keep saying on this blog, innovation is risky and hard work. Having an idea is easy but selecting the best idea and turning it into something of value is where most failure occurs. Given these challenges, it might be tempting to let others do the innovation. Clearly if someone else is going to […]
One of the reasons that firms are often hesitant to innovate is that innovation creates uncertainty, and a lot of people are uncomfortable with uncertainty. Here is short clip from one of our earlier Executive Education courses where I talk about how we can use innovation technologies to reduce uncertainty a little bit: Innovation technologies […]
Here’s an interesting question: Why is the Retirement Age 65 in most developed countries? I’ll give you a second to think about it. Or google it. Here’s a hint: the retirement age of 65 was first selected in 1880. Here’s the answer: the retirement age was set at 65 because when it was first introduced […]
I am always skeptical of ‘everything is different now’ style arguments. If we think about the history of business, we have been trying to manage in a state of turmoil going back at least to the start of the industrial revolution, possibly longer. The introduction of railways, the telegraph, electricity and the automobile were all […]
I love the story of the development of the Graphical User Interface (GUI). It was developed by Xerox in their Palo Alto Research Center. They used it on their first commercial home PC, the Xerox Star, but that didn’t sell very well. While the history is a bit muddled, Apple definitely knew of the work, […]
A significant report was released last week on Australian public sector innovation. It’s called “Empowering Change” and I think it represents a blueprint for an important sector that has traditionally had a very fragmented approach to innovation. In Australia it represents 30% of the economy and delivers services that are vital to the well-being of […]
