Tag Archives: Innovation

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

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

Create Your Own Book

Posted on December 26, 2006 by John Hunter

I received a custom made photo book from my brother. It is amazing. It is a hardcover book, full of photos. The quality is amazing. The book is printed by blurb. Looking on their web site the pricing is surprisingly cheap: 150 page full color hardcover book – $39.95 (for 1 copy! – 10% discount at 25 copies…), as little as $18.95 for a full color softcover book up to 40 pages. The site says books are normally printed in … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged , , ,

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

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

Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation

Posted on August 26, 2006 by John Hunter

How intellectual property influences innovation and growth in the economy depends on the application of intellectual property law. No intellectual property (IP) rights would hinder innovation. Complicated application of confusing and overreaching IP rights also hinders innovation. Now I see the USA systems as having overreaching claims of IP rights, IP rights granted for obvious ideas which then are used to extort those actually producing value and overall a system much in need of improvement. Lawrence Lessig does the best … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Innovation | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Ackoff, Idealized Design and Bell Labs

Posted on August 20, 2006 by John Hunter

Excerpt from Idealized Design: How to Dissolve Tomorrow’s Crisis…Today by Russell L. Ackoff, Jason Magidson and Herbert J. Addison: How Bell Labs Imagined — and Created — the Telephone System of the Future in the 1950s. Great stuff and another example showing the obsession with “new” ideas is wasteful. Idealized design is a way of thinking about change that is deceptively simple to state: In solving problems of virtually any kind, the way to get the best outcome is to … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Creativity, Deming, Innovation, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Interviews with Innovators

Posted on August 9, 2006 by John Hunter

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingston is an interesting looking book to be published in a few months. The book consists of interviews with founders of technology companies exploring the initial efforts to create a new company. Interviews include: David Heinemeier Hansson [the broken link was removed] (who many of our readers may not have heard of but who has recently done a great web development framework [Ruby on Rails] and development philosophy very compatible … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Creativity, Innovation, IT, Management, Management Articles, Software Development | Tagged , , , ,

Innovation Needed to Keep USA Manufacturing?

Posted on June 29, 2006 by John Hunter

ICAR touted as example of innovation needed in U.S. [the broken link was removed] “Our ace in the hole is innovation, and that’s why intellectual property is so important to develop,” Graham said. “How do we protect that advantage within the rule of the law?” Lindsey Graham [the broken link was removed] and Hillary Clinton are co-chairs of the United States Senate Manufacturing Caucus. Is innovation our ace in the hole? I don’t think so. There is no ace in … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Innovation, Management, Manufacturing, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The World’s Most Innovative Companies

Posted on April 14, 2006 by John Hunter

The World’s Most Innovative Companies [the broken link was removed] : Today, innovation is about much more than new products. It is about reinventing business processes and building entirely new markets that meet untapped customer needs. Most important, as the Internet and globalization widen the pool of new ideas, it’s about selecting and executing the right ideas and bringing them to market in record time. … Consumers increasingly are doing the innovation themselves. Consider Google Inc. (GOOG), our No. 2 … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Management Articles | Tagged

How Whirlpool Defines Innovation

Posted on April 7, 2006 by John Hunter

How Whirlpool Defines Innovation [the broken link was removed] now we say if we’re going to put any money in an innovation project, it has to sit on a migration path, it has to be something that the customer really wants, and it’s got to return an above-average profit. I’m not sure I really agree with this description. However, perhaps within Whirlpool this is a helpful definition, as George Box says: “all models are wrong, some are useful.” Perhaps viewing … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation | Tagged

What Innovation Means to Tesco

Posted on March 29, 2006 by John Hunter

What innovation means to Tesco [the broken link was removed] by Sir Terry Leahy (Chief Executive of Tesco): Innovators are all around us; innovation is after all just another word for an idea and we can all have those. Businesses must learn to harness the creativity of their workforce and encourage staff to come forward with ideas. It’s not always easy as some good ideas will fail but companies have to be comfortable with that if they are to avoid … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Respect, Systems thinking, UK | Tagged | 1 Comment

Innovation at Toyota

Posted on February 24, 2006 by John Hunter

The Birth of the Prius by Alex Taylor III: By the end of 1993 the development team had determined that higher oil prices and a growing middle class around the world would require the new car to be both roomy and fuel-efficient. Other than that, they were given no guidance. “I was trying to come up with the future direction of the company,” says Watanabe, who headed corporate planning at the time. “I didn’t have a very specific idea about … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Management, Systems thinking, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Funding Invention Vs. Managing Innovation

Posted on February 19, 2006 by John Hunter

Funding Invention Vs. Managing Innovation [the broken link was removed] by John Hagel and John Seely Brown But if we shift our attention from invention to innovation, we begin to see a much broader horizon. Innovation — the ability to create and capture economic value from invention — is what really drives both the economic prosperity of nations and the shareholder value of corporations. Innovation isn’t just confined to commercialization of new products. It can also build upon creative new … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Management Articles | Tagged