Open Innovation

In the past I have written several blog entries about the power of Open Innovation. The most robust open innovation website out there is InnoCentive. Yesterday I decided to try some open innovation for my own business – on a much smaller scale.  As mentioned before, we are launching a new website with a new web-strategy.  As […]

New Innovation Article

Although I have written about this many times before on this blog, we have created a formal article on “The Performance Paradox.”  This is part of an eBook being published by 21 professional speakers. You can find this, and a dozen other articles in my “innovation articles” section of the website.

My Website's Signal to Noise Ratio

In  audio, there is the concept of the “signal to noise” ratio.  This is the ratio of a signal (what you want – such as the music) to the noise (what you don’t want – such as the background noise).  Higher ratios are better. Over the past few months, we have been doing some interesting […]

Quoted in Forbes

I was quoted in today’s online edition of Forbes. Read the article, How to Unlock Your Company’s Creativity Also be sure to click on “In Pictures: Six Tips For Fostering Innovation At Your Company” I am quoted in Tip #4 and Tip #6

Instant Replay Computer Crashes

When my computer is not working, life is miserable.  Unfortunately, over the past few months, my computer has crashed nearly every day.  To make matters worse, the expert technicians could not recreate my problems, so they could not fix the underlying issue. What if your computer had a TiVo-like device that recorded all of your activities and […]

Blizzards and the Birth of the ATM

“Build it and they will come.” We hear that mantra a lot. But with innovation, it is often more like, “Solve a pain and they will come.” The ultimate success of the automated teller machine (ATM) is a great example of this. The other night I was having dinner with someone who in the mid-1970’s […]

"21 The Movie" and Innovation

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsK1c9ZBpuw[/youtube]  “21: The Movie” is in theaters today in the United States.  Last week I wrote a blog entry on what innovators could learn from blackjack card counters.  Today, to celebrate the formal release of the movie, I am including a downloadable pdf with a full article on the topic of statistics, probability, card counting and […]

Analogy-Driven Innovation and Pavlov’s Fish

What if you could train a fish like you train a dog?  What if you could create a Pavlov’s fish? And why would you want to? According to an Associated Press article, “The idea is to train fish to return to a feeding source when they hear a particular sound.  Scientists are testing a plan to train […]

What Innovators Can Learn From Vegas Card Counters

Which will help your business be more successful: statistics or probability? Underwriters at insurance companies use statistics to assess future risks. This is based on years of collected data. Probability is what card counters in Vegas use to increase their odds of success. This is based on real-time, real-life experience. If you want to play […]

Simplification is Innovation

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince, once said, “Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away.” This is a brilliant quote because it describes the challenge many innovators face.  Too often, new products are overly complex and end […]