Category Archives: Innovation

The Ergonomics of Innovation

Posted on September 22, 2008 by John Hunter

The Ergonomics of Innovation by Hayagreeva Rao and Robert Sutton the IHI case teaches us that innovations spread quickly when organizations focus relentlessly on selecting and spreading ideas in ways that ease the burden of thought and action for everyone … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Health care, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged Health care, Innovation, management | Comments Off

Seth Godin: Intern Program and the Internet

Posted on September 3, 2008 by John Hunter

Learning from a summer intern program: I was overwhelmed by the quality of what I got back. (The quantity was expected… interesting internships are hard to find). I heard from students on most continents, with a huge variety of backgrounds … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Education, Innovation, IT, Management | Tagged Creativity, management | Comments Off

Future Directions for Agile Management

Posted on August 25, 2008 by John Hunter

Agile management (agile software development specifically) is something that makes a big difference in my work life. David Anderson consistently provides great ideas on agile management and he does so again in this 90 minute presentation on the future directions … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Innovation, IT, Lean thinking, Management, quote, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged agile management, Manufacturing, Software Development, webcast | 6 Comments

Toyota Winglet – Personal Transportation Assistance

Posted on August 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Toyota has a long term vision. The population of Japan is aging rapidly. Toyota has invested in personal transportation and personal robotic assistance for quite some time. I must admit this new Winglet doesn’t seem like an incredible breakthrough to … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged Innovation, Investing, Japan, Toyota | Comments Off

Amazon S3 Failure Analysis

Posted on July 26, 2008 by John Hunter

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is a service providing web hosting. The cloud computing solution has been used by many organizations successfully. However the solution has experienced some problems including failing for much of the day on July 20th. Amazon … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged Amazon, disruptive innovation, Innovation, internet, Software Development | 1 Comment

Some Good IT Business Ideas

Posted on July 22, 2008 by John Hunter

Paul Graham has some excellent ideas. I have written about some of them previously: Innovation Strategy, What Business Can Learn from Open Source and Google and Paul Graham’s Latest Essay. Y Combinator, which he founded, provides seed funding. Here are … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, IT, Software Development | Tagged disruptive innovation, Paul Graham | 1 Comment

Google Knows it is a 2.0 World

Posted on June 27, 2008 by John Hunter

You can accomplish a great deal by just talking to people. Google Public Relations: I did not really expect it, but the next day I got a call from Jeffrey Korn at Google California. He explained that he was the … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Innovation, Management | Tagged Customer focus, Google, Innovation | 1 Comment

Zipcar Innovation

Posted on June 21, 2008 by John Hunter

Zipcar is an intriguing idea where you rent cars by the hour. The whole process is a significant change from the previous rental model (gas, parking and insurance included). Zipcar makes deals with local governments to secure zipcar parking near … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Deming, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Systems thinking | 4 Comments

Continual Improvement

Posted on June 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Dr. Deming used the term continual improvement (rather than continuous improvement) later in his life because that would include continuous and dis-continuous improvement (innovation, etc.). I use continual improvement for that reason also. I think the improvement process must be … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, quote | Tagged continual improvement, curiouscat, Deming, Process improvement | 19 Comments

Engineering Innovation

Posted on June 3, 2008 by John Hunter

(video link no longer works so it has been removed) In the webcast Dean Kamen discusses his latest innovation: robotic arms for people (amazing stuff). Once again he is doing great stuff. It is great what engineers can do (many … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management | Tagged engineering, Innovation | Comments Off