Category Archives: Innovation

Inside Honda’s Brain

Posted on March 7, 2008 by John Hunter

Inside Honda’s brain by Alex Taylor III why is Honda playing with robots? Or, for that matter, airplanes? Honda is building a factory in North Carolina to manufacture the Hondajet, a sporty twin-engine runabout that carries six passengers. Or solar energy? Honda has established a subsidiary to make and market thin-film solar-power cells. Or soybeans? Honda grows soybeans in Ohio so that it can fill up cargo containers being shipped back to Japan. The list goes on. All this sounds … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Management, Science | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Car Powered Using Compressed Air

Posted on February 25, 2008 by John Hunter

Jules Verne predicted cars would run on air. The Air Car is making that a reality. The car would be powered by compressed air. Certainly seem like an interesting idea. Air car ready for production: Refueling is simple and will only take a few minutes. That is, if you live nearby a gas station with custom air compressor units. The cost of a fill up is approximately $2.00. If a driver doesn’t have access to a compressor station, they will … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun, India, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Science, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Innovation Strategy

Posted on February 18, 2008 by John Hunter

Six Principles for Making New Things by Paul Graham The answer, I realized, is that my m.o. for all four has been the same. Here it is: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly. Great advice. Similar to the evidence Clayton Christensen documents in the Innovators Solution on how … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

New – Different – Better

Posted on February 8, 2008 by John Hunter

Comment on New or Different? by Matthew May: So don’t worry about new and different. Ask yourself: Is this clearly better than what’s out there now? And if you think about it, that’s a question you should never stop asking. Because new and different isn’t always better, but better is always new and different. I wrote a similar post on my blog awhile back: Better and Different: The answer, as I see it, is to be better and different (when … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Management, Process improvement | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Stratification and Systemic Thinking

Posted on January 6, 2008 by John Hunter

I am reading a fascinating book by Jessica Snyder Sachs: Good Germs, Bad Germs. From page 108: At New York Hospital, Eichenwald and infectious disease specialist Henry Shinefield conceived and developed a controversial program that entailed deliberately inoculating a newborn’s nostrils and umbilical stump with a comparatively harmless strain of staph before 80/81 could move in. Shinefield had found the protective strain – dubbed 502A – in the nostrils of a New York Hospital baby nurse. Like a benign Typhoid … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Deming, Health care, Innovation, Management, Quality tools, Science, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Kaizen – Yahoo Mail Style

Posted on September 19, 2007 by John Hunter

Yahoo Mail Innovates, Gmail Stagnates Yahoo Mail has begun rolling out of beta after releasing an onslaught of innovative feature improvements along the way. On the other hand, a whopping three years into their beta release, Gmail remains one of the most popular but stagnant web-based beta email apps around. To me Yahoo is really continually improving the service, not innovating. Still an interesting exploration of visible improvement. Related: Kaizen Online – Kaizen definition –Innovation Examples – Google Innovation webcast … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Innovation, IT, Management, Software Development | 1 Comment

Seth Godin on Marketing and the Internet

Posted on September 4, 2007 by John Hunter

Once again Seth Godin does a great job of explaining the dynamics of marketing on the web: Seth Godin Video on Web Marketing. In this 6 1/2 minute video he touches on various topics including: the ease with which web users ignore ads on the web the importance of customers marketing for you (see our previous post: Lego – Innovative Marketing Podcast) the need to develop relationships with customers that then allow your to reach them, “permission marketing” (such as … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, IT, Management | 1 Comment

Six Sigma and Innovation

Posted on September 1, 2007 by John Hunter

Peter Pande adds his thoughts on how six sigma and innovation can work together. In his podcast, Innovation vs. Efficiency, he makes the argument that innovation and efficiency can work together. As I have stated many times, while bad six sigma efforts may harm innovation but there is no reason good six sigma efforts would. In fact good six sigma efforts help innovation. Related: Six Sigma Outdated? No. – Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt – Better and Different – New … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Management, Six sigma, webcast

Are Google Management Practices Worth Studying?

Posted on August 16, 2007 by John Hunter

Larry Dignan asks “Is Google reinventing corporate management or just living off the fruits of one big breakthrough?” Well, I believe Google offers a great deal for managers to study – see our posts on Google management practices. But that is not the same as reinventing corporate management. Most companies have no way of just replacing their management system with a “Google management system” – they don’t have the managers to make it work, or the staff or the systems … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, IT, Management

Corporate Blogging

Posted on August 10, 2007 by John Hunter

Good article on the topic of company blogs and the new thinking needed to manage given the new communication system created by the internet, blogs etc.: Company bloggers can help put out fires [broken link has been removed]: “Our legal people and others were e-mailing and calling and asking me: ‘What are you doing? This is bad. You can’t do that,’ ” Menchaca says of his post on the Direct2Dell blog last August. “But I said: ‘This is what blogs … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, IT, Management | 4 Comments

Great Marissa Mayer Webcast on Google Innovation

Posted on August 9, 2007 by John Hunter

Marissa Mayer speech at Stanford on innovation at Google (23 minutes, 26 minutes question and answers). She leads the product management efforts on Google’s search products- web search, images, groups, news, Froogle, the Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, Google Labs, and more. She joined Google in 1999 as Google’s first female engineer. Excellent speech. Highly recommended. 9 ideas: (inside these are Marissa’s comments) [inside these are my comments] Ideas come from anywhere (engineers, customers, managers, executives, external companies – that Google … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Innovation, Management, Popular, quote, Software Development, webcast | 6 Comments

Amazon’s Amazing Achievement

Posted on July 24, 2007 by John Hunter

I have mentioned I like the way Amazon, and Jeff Bezos, have been managing in several posts. Recently Amazon has added very strong financial results to that portfolio of things they do well. Amazon earnings announcement: Net sales increased 35% to $2.89 billion in the second quarter, compared with $2.14 billion in second quarter 2006. Excluding the $46 million favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales grew 33% compared with second quarter 2006. … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Investing, IT | Tagged , , ,

Gary Hamel on Management Innovation

Posted on July 18, 2007 by John Hunter

I have mentioned before that I think Gary Hamel is one of the leading management thinkers on innovation. Here is an interesting interview (via: brisebois blog) with him – Gary Hamel: management innovation Management innovation is innovation in management principles and processes that ultimately changes the practice of what managers do, and how they do it. It is different from operational innovation; which is about how the work of transforming inputs into outputs actually gets done. … The management innovation … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Management | 1 Comment

Process Improvement and Innovation

Posted on July 4, 2007 by John Hunter

Every so often an article appears discussing the need to change focus from process improvement to innovation (and recently they are followed with quite a bit of blog talk). I disagree on several grounds. First you have needed to focus on both all the time. Second, it is not an either or choice. Third, the process of innovation should be improved. I do not believe process improvement is bad for innovation. Bad process changes can be bad for innovation. But … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Quality tools, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Funding Google Gadget Development

Posted on June 28, 2007 by John Hunter

Google Gadgets are small tools and toys that integrate with iGoogle. Google is funding developers to work on creating gadgets through Google Gadget Ventures. Great idea. They offer: 1. Grants of $5,000 to those who’ve built gadgets we’d like to see developed further. You’re eligible to apply for a grant if you’ve developed a gadget that’s in our Google gadgets directory and gets at least 250,000 weekly page views. To apply, you must submit a one-page proposal detailing how you’d … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Fun, Google, Innovation, IT, Management, Software Development | 4 Comments

Innovation Thinking with Christensen

Posted on June 16, 2007 by John Hunter

In my opinion Clayton Christensen offers truly insightful ideas on innovation and management. He presents the rare management advice that is not only good but also new – an incredibly rare combination. The current issue of Business Week includes an interview with him: Clayton Christensen’s Innovation Brain: Yes. The problem is when you say “listen to your customers,” your customers are only going to lead you in a direction that they want to go in. Generally, that will never lead … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Innovation, Management, Management Articles | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments