Three Good Uses of Best Practices

Today I was interviewed on SiriusXM’s “Business Radio.” The conversation started with the show’s host, Dave Robertson, a Wharton professor, asking me why I thought best practices are stupid. I gave him the three reasons that you’ve read about before on this blog: While you are implementing someone else’s best practice, they’ve already moved on to the next practice […]

How to Fool Penn & Teller

One of my favorite TV shows is Penn & Teller’s “Fool Us.” Each week, aspiring magicians perform their best trick, hoping to fool P&T. Anyone who succeeds wins the right to perform with famed duo in their Las Vegas show. As an amateur magician, I see if I can figure out how each trick was […]

Your Fragile Reputation

At one time, Paula Deen was the queen of food television. And then her reputation took a massive hit when she made racist remarks. Practically overnight, her entire empire crumbled and her show pulled from television. She recently bought the rights to all of her Food Network episodes and is launching an online television network, […]

Innovative Online Delivery Process

Ordering a product online is often like a black box. You order. If you are lucky, you get an order confirmation with a tracking number. However you typically get very little visibility into the process. A more advanced order method is the one Dominos Pizza uses. You get to see where your pizza is in […]

2 Ways to Change the Outcome of Anything

If you want to see real change in your business, you need to change the process of getting there. Fortunately, it’s a lot easier than you think. You read about it all the time—amazing stories of survival. Regular humans enduring extraordinary conditions to stay alive. This is not a complete surprise if you understand that […]

The Real Power of Purposeful Tangents

In a blog entry of mine last year, I discussed the concept of “Purposeful Tangents.” (if you’ve not read it, I encourage you to do so) In that article, I mentioned I was going to take a class with master magicians. Well, I just completed the training, and it was beyond my expectations. I felt like […]

Discovering Your Blindspots

Here’s a video I recorded for “The Art of Sales” event in Canada. In it I talk briefly about two common innovation blindspots, and how to shine a light on them.

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 […]

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 […]