The Biggest Winner!
A few years back, I helped the Quill Corporation (a division of Staples) launch their innovation efforts. To introduce innovation to the employees, we kicked things off with a competition – “The Quillionaire” – based on the reality TV show, “The Apprentice.” You can read about the work we did then in an article published […]
What Can You Give Away for Free?
Today I leave for Asia and will be gone for 3 weeks. Before I go, I want to throw out an idea I have been playing with. It’s rough, and I will write more about it soon. The concept is probably most relevant to those in the “intellectual property” business – speakers, trainers, advisers, coaches, […]
Nokia Giving Away Software for Free
Yesterday I mentioned that GlaxoSmithKline is giving away a small fortune’s worth of cancer research. The idea is to speed up the process. Yesterday, Nokia announced that it will spend nearly a half billion dollars to buy a software consortium – so that it can give away the software for free. Symbian, one of the […]
Open Source Innovation vs Open Innovation
I discussed Open Innovation many times in this blog. The other day, GlaxoSmithKline announced that they are collaborating with the National Cancer Institute to make a “large body of cancer cell genomic data available to all cancer researchers.” This feels more like “Open Source” Innovation. Much like Open Source Software, GSK has turned over a […]
Play Like the Patriots – Win Like the Celtics
Regular readers of this blog know that I set New Year’s themes, not resolutions. At the beginning of the year, after the incredible regular season performance by the New England Patriots (American football), I decided my theme would be “Play Like the Patriots.” But, as many of you know, my beloved team lost the Superbowl back […]
Creative Phone Service – And Creative Billing
I just discovered a new phone service called Tabrio. It claims to provide Skype-like calling rates (ad-supported), without the need for any special headsets or hardware. In fact, this service runs through your existing phone provider – landline and/or mobile. You give Tabrio your callback phone number (via their downloadable application). When you make a […]
Do Patents Help or Hinder Innovation?
I just received a newsletter that had 10 wacky patents. Here’s my favorite: Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrifugal Force: With this invention, the mother-to-be is strapped down to a table that is then is spun to allow centrifugal force to take its course and aid in childbirth. This invention by […]
Harvard Leadership and the Presidency Debrief
The other day I attended an event at Harvard about “Leadership and the Next President.” There were some big names in the audience and on stage. Today I am going to blog about one of the panel discussions which focused specifically on leadership skills necessary to be President. Not surprisingly, these are the same skills […]
An Open Innovation Dilemma Update
On Wednesday I posted an open innovation dilemma. In summary, as I created my short-list of logos developed using an open innovation approach, certain designers decided to “build on” (plagiarize?) the concepts I liked. Although this resulted in an improved design, it also presented an ethical dilemma. Only one designer can be awarded the prize. […]
An Open Innovation Dilemma
As mentioned in my previous post, I decided to use open innovation for the development of a logo. OK, it is quite small scale, but I wanted to see the results. Here are two quick interesting observations. Signal to Noise Ratio: This is my favorite measure of the innovation process. This is the ratio of a signal […]