Interview on Diane Hamilton’s Take the Lead
I recently met Dr. Diane Hamilton at a conference. We started talking and I discovered that in addition to being a wonderful human being, she’s the host of a nationally syndicated radio talk show. She’s had some amazing guests, including Steve Forbes and Jeffrey Hayzlett. When she asked me to be on her show, I […]
Girl Starter Finale – Tonight!
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 features Shira Goodman, the CEO of Staples. Plus there is a special guest who will […]
What a Middle Aged Guy Learned from Girl Starters
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 new idea from scratch and goes through the process of planning it, validating it, and […]
Turning Failure into Success
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 can be a way to impress customers. I wrote about some examples of bad situations […]
Innovation Minutes #26 and #27 Transcripts
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 people who were innovative, and then there was the rest of the people. What I […]
Innovation for Mid-Sized Companies
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 a written article (where I answer 9 questions), the page also includes a much longer audio […]
The Ignorance of the Masses Cancels Out the Knowledgeable Minority
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 posts that ask for your opinion are another. And now companies are using this technique more and more […]
The Best Protection is Being Known for Your Innovation
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 same. The only original part to the article were the first two lines. After that it […]
My Amazing Race to Brazil
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 a marketing conference for 1,500 people. This turned out to be an adventure that looked […]
How “The Gun That Won the West” Was Invented
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 fascinated with gun powder and weapons. However, he was dissatisfied with the “one-shot” pistols that were […]