Your Customers Don't Value What You Think They Do
One week after starting my speaking business a dozen years ago, I met with the owner of a speaker’s bureau in London to discuss representation. In the meeting he expressed serious interest. So much so that a few days later he called me about a potential gig. The call came to my mobile phone as […]
Two Email Productivity Life Savers
I am always looking for ways to make my life simpler. I’ve found two that really seem to keep my inbox clean. Sanebox FollowUpThen Both work with any email client or operating system (as far as I know). Sanebox Sanebox scans incoming mail and decides if it is important or not. If it looks like […]
Continue Buying Those Lattes
The way you ask a question will have a profound impact on how you answer it. This is a fundamentally critical concept in the world of innovation. If you are working on a problem/opportunity, changing just one word can influence the types of solutions you get. I’ve discussed this concept extensively on my blog. But […]
HBR: Do You Know What Makes Your Company Distinctive?
An excerpt from my latest Harvard Business Review article… Every company has a limited amount of time, money, and resources that it can invest in innovation. That’s why they should focus their energies on opportunities that will set them apart from their competition — that is, they should innovate where they differentiate. One company that […]
Improve Your Innovation ROI Tenfold
This is the first in a series of bi-monthly articles I will be writing for Forbes.com. In an attempt to stop the flow of the oil after the Deepwater Horizon oilrig explosion, the Unified Command turned to crowdsourcing to find a workable solution. Concerned citizens were invited to submit ideas. And that they did. They […]
The Danger Of Being Too Controlling
If you want to grow your company, you’ve got to learn to let go of any task that doesn’t set you apart from the competition. *** I recently spoke at an event where attendees were mainly small-business owners and solopreneurs. One of the points of my talk addressed the need to “innovate where you differentiate.” […]
John C. McGinley on Memorizing Scripts
John C. McGinley, best known for his role as Dr. Cox on “Scrubs” was interviewed on The Opie and Anthony Show. He was asked how he memorizes a script. He gave three steps: He writes the entire script by hand. This helps cement the words in his head. In the column, he writes down the […]
How to Deliver a Boring Presentation
Think about the last speech you saw. Think about the structure of the speech. Many speakers use the “tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them” model. Using this approach, I might say, “To innovate more effectively, you need to define your challenges properly. […]
Writing for Forbes
Starting today I will be writing a regular column on innovation for Forbes.com. As a result, there may be a bit of a slow down on this blog while I write articles for them and the American Express OPEN Forum. But don’t worry. All articles will eventually be posted here too. Stay tuned!
Driving Your Differentiator Down
Imagine you are a company that produces products for consumers. It could be toothpaste or soft drinks. You decide that your differentiator is your marketing. (Read one of my articles on “Innovate Where You Differentiate“) Given this, you might assume that the marketing department is the most important part of the business. This assumption would […]