Category Archives: Innovation

Focus on Long Term Success

Posted on May 29, 2007 by John Hunter

Put Investors In Their Place by Clayton M. Christensen and Scott D. Anthony: The notion that managers must above all appease investors drives behavior that focuses exclusively on quarterly results. Thus, many management teams hesitate to invest in promising innovations that are likely to hurt near-term financial performance. … Perhaps it is time for companies to adjust the paradigm of management responsibility: “You are investors and speculators, not shareholders, and you temporarily find yourselves holding the securities of our company. … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Management, Systems thinking | 1 Comment

Reduce Computer Waste

Posted on May 24, 2007 by John Hunter

High-efficiency power supplies for home computers and servers [the broken link was removed] (pdf) by Urs Hoelzle and Bill Weihl – Google: Most likely, the computer you’re using wastes 30-40% of the electrical power it consumes because it is using an inefficient power supply. It’s difficult to believe that something as basic as a power supply could be responsible for that amount of waste, but it’s true. … The opportunity for savings is immense — we estimate that if deployed … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Innovation, IT, Lean thinking | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Craigslist’s Ongoing Success Story

Posted on May 16, 2007 by John Hunter

Craigslist is a great web site focused largely on local connections and local ads (jobs, housing, classifieds…). It is in top 10 sites for the amount of traffic and a total staff of 24 people. eBay bought 25% of the company a few years ago but Craiglist retains a very pure customer focus. Craigslist’s Ongoing Success Story [the broken link was removed]: We don’t even look at what other companies are doing. We’re not setting out to conquer the world … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Innovation, IT, Management | Tagged

Joel Barker Podcast

Posted on April 1, 2007 by John Hunter

Innovation with Joel Barker at the Cranky Middle Manager Show: Innovation isn’t necessarily all great. Unintended consequences are something to be considered- what Joel calls “Cascade Thinking”. What are the long-term consequences before you invest. “the answer to the problem is only the beginning of the solution”. Check out www.implicationswheel.com. How do you make sure that checking out the implications doesn’t turn into a reason not to innovate? The implications wheel is a tool you can use. You can identify … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , ,

Using Google to Eliminate Some IT Costs

Posted on March 24, 2007 by John Hunter

Computer Science 101: A Case Study In Google Applications [the broken link was removed]: Sannier plans to shut down the university’s own e-mail servers later this spring. When that happens, thousands more will move over. The portal provides access to other functions of Google Apps, including calendar (which users can now share online, something they couldn’t do before), instant messaging, and search. Within the next two months, Sannier expects to offer personalized home pages and Google’s Docs & Spreadsheets applications … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Innovation, IT, Management | Tagged , , , ,

Eric Schmidt Podcast – Google Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Posted on March 20, 2007 by John Hunter

iinnovate podcast interview with Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google. “Normal sales quotas” – oops maybe Google can learn from others in this area. I found it interesting that Eric Schmidt teaches at Standford even while being the CEO of Google, because as he says he learns from students questions. The podcast series, done by 2 Stanford students, has quite an impressive list of, I guess, visiting speakers at Stanford: Andy Grove, Alex Counts, David Kelley… via: Eric Schmidt Interviewed … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Innovation, IT, Management, webcast | 1 Comment

Game Theory Management

Posted on January 26, 2007 by John Hunter

Interesting article on applying game theory to business decisions. Game theory is a tool that is not often used. Though most organizations are probably better off improving how they use the rest of their management tools, it is fun to read about and does have merit in the right situations. 16,777,236 [the broken link was removed] – That’s the number of outcomes that are possible when eight competitors each consider three strategic options. California Institute of Technology professor R. Preston … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management, Quality tools | Tagged , ,

Innovative Marketing Podcast

Posted on January 25, 2007 by John Hunter

This podcast on Lego Mindstorms NXT, Lead Users, and Viral Marketing [the broken link was removed] is interesting. The discussion does a good job of explaining how factors like web 2.0 and “open source” can allow business to operate in a new way and take advantage of new opportunities. Understanding these ideas is much more innovative than most of what I read in the “business press.” And the message is explained clearly, so one does not need to understand these … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Fun, Innovation, Science | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Innovation Examples

Posted on January 11, 2007 by John Hunter

Two examples from 37signals: first, Pioneer Theater. Good idea. I am stretching to call it innovation, today, maybe 5 years ago it was. Today I think any reasonably sized theater should have something like this in place. The interface is a bit confused. At first the views didn’t seem to correspond to what I would expect when I click on various seats [the broken link was removed]. Then I read a little closer and the view you see is shown … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Innovation, IT, Management | Tagged | 2 Comments

How Do You Run a Business Without Managers

Posted on January 10, 2007 by John Hunter

Ask the CHO: How do you run a business without managers It seems that a lot of the problems seem to come from low to middle management and as someone who is looking to start my own software company I don’t want this to happen in my organization. A no managers approach seems pretty appealing. … So rather than have presidents, vice presidents and managers, all employees had an equal say in running the company. This was backed up by … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, IT, Management | 1 Comment

Breakthrough Thinking the Toyota Way

Posted on January 9, 2007 by John Hunter

The Elegant Solution: Breakthrough Thinking the Toyota Way (pdf) by Matthew May: One Million. That’s how many ideas Toyota implements each year. Do the math: 3000 ideas a day. That number, more than anything else, explains why Toyota appears to be in a league all their own, playing offense on a field of innovation, while their competitors remain caught in a crossfire of cost-cutting. Here’s the thing: it’s not about the cars. It’s about ideas. And the people with those … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Creativity, Innovation, Management, Management Articles, Toyota Production System (TPS)

Google’s Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm

Posted on January 4, 2007 by John Hunter

Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm. First, from a “what should I do,” view, I believe, Kevin Meyer’s advice is more appropriate: The False God of the Almighty Algorithm. But Google can do some things well that are unwise for others to try. Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search for talent among the … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Creativity, Google, Innovation, Management | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

How to Prevent Innovation

Posted on December 19, 2006 by John Hunter

Top ten tips for preventing innovation give some great ideas many companies are already doing but you may find some your company hasn’t mastered 🙂 For example: Make performance reviews easy. Create some easy-to-measure metrics (like # of sick-days taken, # of powerpoint slides created, # of meetings attended), and use those for performance reviews. People always gravitate toward the metric. We can run the reviews with a minimum of effort, giving us more time to tell them how to … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management, Performance Appraisal | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Management Improvement Carnival #1

Posted on December 7, 2006 by John Hunter

There have been a number of great post recently about management improvement: Amazon’s Long Public Haul by Kevin Meyer – “Amazon has now been around a while and has a loyal following. Their culture is apparently deep, at least for the most part. But that does not guarantee long-term success.” Jeff Bezos Risky Bet Isn’t New by Peter Abilla – “Guess what everybody — Bezos’ Risky Bet isn’t new. Amazon has been doing that for years, but they’re just now … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Customer focus, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management | 5 Comments

Amazon Innovation

Posted on November 9, 2006 by John Hunter

I believe Amazon uses technology very well. They have done many innovative things. They have been less successful at turning their technology into big profits. But I continue to believe they have a good shot at doing so going forward Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management, Popular | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Not Innovation but Still Interesting

Posted on October 5, 2006 by John Hunter

10 years of the most innovative ideas in business in not packed with ideas on innovation: it was obviously titled by someone hoping to catch the interest of those following the innovation fad. Still it has interesting stories originally published in Fast Company, including: How to Give Good Feedback [the broken link was removed] by Seth Godin The Accidental Guru (on Malcolm Gladwell) by Danielle Sacks Built to Flip [the broken link was removed] by Jim Collins A Design for … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Innovation, Management | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments