Innovation Insights
by Stephen Shapiro
Tonight at 7PM ET/6PM CT on TLC, the season finale of Girl Starter will air. The winning team will get $100,000 plus support for launching their new business. In addition to yours truly as one of the judges, the show
According to Klout, there are 190,000 experts on innovation. #1 is Fast Company. #2 is WIRED. And #6 is the Harvard Business Review. And I am listed as #4. I’m not sure what criteria was used to make this determination.
I was invited to participate in the new television reality series, Girl Starter, to mentor young women in launching their businesses. The show pairs eight “girls”, ranging in ages from 18 – 24, into 4 teams. Each team develops a
This Friday, May 5 at 7PM, I will be on the new TLC television show, Girl Starter. This show encourages young women to create their own businesses through a playful, yet serious competition. Eight young women, 18-24 years old, build
I am known for wearing funky shirts by Robert Graham, Bugatchi, and English Laundry. I guess I always liked to be a little funky as evidenced by my high school graduation picture. Back in the late-70’s/early-80’s, the wide lapel was
Readers of this blog know that I am not a huge fan of failure. I think it is overrated and should be minimized. Instead, I like to view innovation through the lens of experimentation. But sometimes a failure in execution
In the past few videos I discussed the personalities of individuals and what this means to high-performing teams. In today’s episode I discuss the personality of the organization. And no, this is not the average of the personalities of the
Here are the transcripts for the last two innovation minutes. Innovation Minute #26: Is your team playing with a full deck? Twenty years ago when I started getting actively involved in the world of innovation, I thought there were some
In the last video I shared why diversity, although critical, can actually have a negative impact on the organization if people are not given the tools to appreciate one another. In today’s Innovation Minute, I share the tool I developed:
In the last video I shared why diversity is critical to innovation. However, diversity on its own can have a deleterious effect on an organization’s performance. You need one key ingredient to go from dysfunctional to innovative. Learn what it
Here’s a little self-promotion. This blog was selected was one of the top 50 Innovation Blogs on the Planet by Feedspot. (their words, not mine) I’m not sure how they determined this (my guess it is purely quantitative as I
People know they need to play to their strong suit. But did you know that a team should play with a full deck; that is, a complement of people with different personalities/experiences that work seamlessly together? In this Innovation Minute,
I was recently interviewed by Chuck Leddy for the National Center for the Middle Market. We discussed, as you may guess, what middle market companies need to do in order to innovate and why it is critical. In addition to
Crowdsourcing has always been a popular method of problem solving. In a nutshell, crowdsourcing is when you ask a large group of people (the crowd) for their answers to a question. Polling and surveys are forms of crowdsourcing. Social media
best practices = copying someone else = plagiarism Recently I discovered that someone wrote a 1,000 word article that included passages lifted straight from my book, “Best Practices are Stupid.” The examples were the same. The language was the
Have you ever had a trip that felt more like you were a contestant on The Amazing Race? That was the case for me a few weeks back when I was scheduled to be the keynote speaker in Brazil at
It is so difficult to see our own blind spots, which is why clients hire me to help illuminate theirs. Of course that’s stating the obvious since if we could see them they wouldn’t be blind spots! So let’s call
It is that time of year. Many of you created your New Year’s Resolutions last week. And although we are less than 2 weeks into the new year, I suspect that many of you have already failed in keeping your
I was recently listening to an old-time radio broadcast and heard a commercial that ran back in 1959. It shared the story of how the Colt Revolver was invented. As it is told, when he was younger, Samuel Colt, was
[see update below] I received my new MacBook Pro 13″ the other day. I was both excited and hesitant. I’ve had my old 2010 unibody MBP for a number of years and it has served me really well. I maxed
I was recently asked by a European magazine to provide my list of the most disruptive companies of 2015/2016. I thought about it and struggled to answer. For me, companies don’t disrupt; platforms, industries, and other macro forces do. Given
Today we continue the “Test”” part of the FAST Innovation Model (Focus, Ask, Shift, Test). In the last video I discussed why confirmation bias will cause you to run faulty experiments. In this episode I share several techniques for overcoming
Today we continue the “Test”” part of the FAST Innovation Model (Focus, Ask, Shift, Test). In the last video I mentioned the need to focus on experiments. Unfortunately most experiments lead to ultimate failure due to a psychological tendency we
Today we move to the “Test”” part of the FAST Innovation Model (Focus, Ask, Shift, Test). Although failure seems to be the buzzword in innovation, it is actual detrimental to an organization’s success. There is an alternative: experiments. Be sure
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