It used to be that incremental innovation was enough to compete in a mildly competitive marketplace with long product life cycles. Today, product cycles have been expedited. Innovation comes fast and hard and often. You may be wondering what the big deal with innovation is...
Frankly put, your company doesn’t innovate because your workplace culture sucks. As a management consultant working with some of the best and worst companies in the world, I have discovered that the very system of community that holds a company together is left forgotten. The...
Connection Architects The Connection Shift calls for leaders to become connection architects. This involves emphasizing a management and leadership style that promotes building bonds between people, not separating them through hierarchy and bureaucracy. It has far more to do with the connection of people, markets, and...
I have been involved in the area of innovation for more than 25 years, both as an innovation strategist and as an inventor. About a decade ago, “innovation” became the new buzzword, like “synergy” or “solutions” or “value added.” Major consulting firms took advantage by...
Innovation is as much a philosophy as it is a science. Look from the philosophical perspective and you come to a fork in the road, what some refer to as a strategic inflection point. You can continue to use the leadership and management methods of...
CRM or Customer Relationship Management Systems How would you like to take your kids to a playground where there’s a gigantic sign that says: “No Running?” How would you like to take your kids to a playground that has a big antique railroad caboose that says:...
One of my favorite Innovation Superstars is HP, and in particular, I’m impressed with the “HP Garage”. I’ll never forget my first “dot.com” consulting engagement at the very beginning of the dot.com boom. The first day of that engagement I sat in on one of their...
“I’ll tell you what brilliance in advertising is: 99 cents.” This observation from an episode of the TV drama “Mad Men” points at some relevant truths. There was a time when 99 cents didn’t exist. In turn, there was a point when people thought that selling...
"Nothing bad ever happens to you." Do I stand by this quote? Yes. When it comes to business, there's a serious power that comes with taking this statement to heart. The quote is borrowed from renowned speaker Joe Vitale. In his research, he discovered that business...
The process of natural business and technological evolution and destruction was appropriately labeled “creative destruction” by economist Joseph Schumpeter. The forces of creative destruction, especially during economic downturns, tend to speed the passing of older, less efficient businesses and technologies (especially without the intervention of...
