I Won't Work for Money
The other day I was asked to speak for a company that had a limited amount of money and could pay me only 15% of my speaking fee. Today I was asked to speak at a company in exchange for my receiving bicycle in lieu of cash (as you may guess, they manufacture bicycles). The […]
The Invention of the Mouse
Malcolm Gladwell has an excellent piece on how Apple created its first computer after visiting Xerox parc. In particular, he discusses how the mouse was developed. After Jobs returned from parc, he met with a man named Dean Hovey, who was one of the founders of the industrial-design firm that would become known as ideo. […]
How To Publish A Book In 2 Weeks (For Less Than $250)
It seems as though everyone wants to write a book. Unfortunately, most people don’t know where to start and, therefore, become under-motivated or overwhelmed. The result? Good intentions; no book. But what if you could have a bookstore quality paperback book in your hands in two weeks? And what if you didn’t have to do […]
What I Learned From An Expired Bottle Of Mayo
The late Steve Jobs once said, “Creativity is just having enough dots to connect…connect experiences and synthesize new things. The reason creative people are able to do that is that they’ve had more experiences or have thought more about their experiences than other people.” Or, in my words, in order to innovate, you need to […]
A New Innovation Book from ThinkBuzan
I recently had the great privilege of interviewing Chris Griffiths, the author of a new book on innovation, “GRASP The Solution.” He provides some very interesting perspectives on innovation. Chris is the CEO of ThinkBuzan, the organization behind Mind Mapping. Enjoy!
A Challenge to Find Challenges
Most organizations focus their energies on ideas, suggestions, and opinions. But for innovation to be efficient and focused, you need to ask better questions. What do you do when you don’t even know what questions to ask? Run a challenge to find challenges. That’s what InnoCentive is doing with the support of the Economist and […]
Is Thinking Choking Your Creativity?
As I write this, I am sitting in a Starbucks in London, England. Cars and taxis are zipping by on the street in front of me as I sip my espresso. Although I lived in London for several years, I only drove a car once while there…just once. There is an exceptional transit system in […]
10 Years Ago Today
Ten years ago today was my last day with Accenture. The day before I had my book launch party for my first book, 24/7 Innovation. October 11, 2001. I recently found a notebook from about 15 years ago. In it, I found an interesting entry from November 1996. In it, I declared where I wanted […]
Best Practices Are Stupid on ABC News…and more
My new book, Best Practices Are Stupid, has been all over the news lately. Here’s just a small sample… Interview on ABC News (click video above) Review on Fortune.com – “Why your company (probably) can’t innovate” Best Practices Are Stupid on the USA Today reading list Best Practices Are Stupid on the CIO Magazine reading list Interview […]
Customers Don't Care How Your Business Is Structured
There is one principle that I wish companies would learn: customer’s don’t care how your business is structured; they just want it to be easy to work with you. Or as the late, great Dr. Michael Hammer would call it, ETDBW – Easy To Do Business With. Sadly, so many companies have decided to make […]