The Boss Has The Best Ideas…Said No One Ever.

Let's face it, despite how great a leader the boss is, not all of his/her ideas are good ones.  How do you have that conversation?  One option is to say, "That's funny boss! How about you keep creating agendas and leave creating ideas to us?"  Or (at your next place of employment) you can try …

Why Failure Has No Place In Innovation

No one likes to fail. It's bred into us at early ages and stays with us forever. Failing is bad, success is good...period.  It's a notion that is so deep, asking innovators to unlearn it and turn it into something that should be celebrated is essentially impossible. Besides, is it really failure that we're after? …

Milking The Past May Be The Best Medicine For The Future (Part 3 of 3)

Most of us thought electric drone delivery vehicles were totally new, transformational innovations. Turns out, they are old news. Here's another example of how a curious exploration of bygone innovations in our past can point to new opportunities that could  create value today. Introducing the Milk Float. Invented almost 100 years ago by our English …

Milking The Past May Be The Best Medicine For The Future (Part 2 of 3)

In Part 1, I discussed how we can discover future sources of value by looking into the past.  Resurrecting products and services that became extinct decades ago may pay dividends today.  Part 1 focused on the revival of physician house calls.  In Part 2, we'll look at a different industry as another example of milking …

Milking The Past May Be The Best Medicine For The Future (Part 1 of 3)

Spotting future signals of potential disruptions on some future horizon is challenging. We can't define what we can't see, and we can't see the future, but we can look at the past to predict what may lie ahead. Take the idea of "redefining convenience" for example. Everyone is talking about it as a trend, but …

Create An Innovation Culture Through Innovation Coaches

In most companies, there are not enough resources to infuse design thinking and knowledge of the innovation process through enough of the organization to create a culture of innovation. So how do you create a culture of innovation with limited resources? Two years ago we established an Innovation Coaches program that is becoming a game …

4 Types of Innovation & When to Use Them

When we understand that there are four types of innovation, we can better manage the company's innovation portfolio. Innovation strategy should employ a mix of these different types of innovation. Focusing on just one eventually spells disaster.  How do you optimize the mix to best fit your company's needs?  The answer is - "it depends". …

Four Disruption Scenarios You Will Experience Soon

The speed of technological advances and the swiftly changing consumer behavior landscape makes for a volatile cocktail. Disruption is a game of  "when", not "if". It's not a question of which organization has the most cash, but which one has the most courage.  Here are FOUR outcomes to disruptions.  Two will save your company. Two …

Four Signs Disruption Is Coming

Innovation leaders are always scanning the horizon for signals of potential disruptions and opportunities. In reality, it's more like looking at blips on a sonar screen. These signals have no definition, no form. All we know is something is out there. Is it an impending disruption or merely a distraction? Is it moving toward us, …

How To Spot And React To A Disruptive Trend

According to Morgan Stanley, the following are the 5 Big Disruptive Trends investors should be watching. But are they really disruptive? 1. Machine Learning 2. Autonomous Vehicles   3. Augmented Reality   4. Blockchain 5. CRISPR Are these really disruptive trends?  I say no.  I argue, these are CONDITIONS. Are autonomous vehicles a disruption?  We don’t …

Keys to Successful Collaboration

Why collaborate? To get the best outcome possible When collaboration is needed When the way forward is not clear When you have limited experience with the subject matter or area of the business When you have little experience how to get the work done When you have little experience with the stakeholder audience Which one …

Investing in Innovation Is NOT About Ideas

My previous post introduced the Understand Statement: a tightly compact way to explain why your organization should do what you're proposing it should. However, in many companies, the support often times goes to the most dynamic presenter with what sounds like a very compelling idea. Here's why that's a poor approach. If you are a …