Is Thinking Choking Your Creativity?

As I write this, I am sitting in a Starbucks in London, England. Cars and taxis are zipping by on the street in front of me as I sip my espresso. Although I lived in London for several years, I only drove a car once while there…just once. There is an exceptional transit system in […]

Customers Don't Care How Your Business Is Structured

There is one principle that I wish companies would learn: customer’s don’t care how your business is structured; they just want it to be easy to work with you. Or as the late, great Dr. Michael Hammer would call it, ETDBW – Easy To Do Business With. Sadly, so many companies have decided to make […]

One Week Until My New Book is Available

In one week (September 29th), my new book will be available in book stores, online, and on the Kindle. It is published by Penguin’s Portfolio imprint.  For those of you who are new to this blog, here’s a description… Best Practices Are Stupid: 40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition Well-intentioned leaders, in their attempts to […]

Freedom Can Limit Innovation

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had the identical conversation with several different clients. Apparently, there is an existing belief that if you want to instill a mindset of creativity, you need to have less “structure.” To some degree that is true. But unfortunately, most companies, when undergoing this kind of change, swing […]

Let's Get Some Terms Straight!

Last night I was at an event where I woman said, “I want to get in touch with my creativity.  I used to paint and play music, but no longer do that.” This got me thinking about how we throw around a lot of terms with no real clarity around what they mean. Here are […]

Ask the Wrong Question, Waste a Lot of Money

Innovation is accelerated when you “ask the right question, the right way, of the right people.” It may seem obvious, but if you ask the wrong question, you may be led down a futile path. An example of this comes from Colgate-Palmolive (shared at a recent open innovation conference). While asking customers what they wanted […]

Best Practices Are Stupid on BNET's The Live One

Today I was interviewed on BNET’s The Live One. Check out this 20 minute video for some perspectives from my new book, “Best Practices Are Stupid.” This book will be available on September 29, 2011.

How I Used Crowdsourcing The Wrong Way And What You Can Learn From It

We often hear the expression “Wisdom of crowds.” And if you have read my articles, it will be apparent that I am an ardent fan of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing makes the argument that the aggregation of information produced by groups, result in decisions that are often better than those that are made by a single individual. […]

The Path of Least Resistance Creates Mirages and Kills Innovation

While at a skeptics convention last week in Vegas, one of the speakers talked about why mirages are the result of light taking the path of least resistance. Instead of light from the sky going straight to our eyes, it is actually easier for it to first go to the ground and then to our […]

Cover for New Book

As I previously announced, my next book, “Best Practices Are Stupid: 40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition,” will be published by Penguin’s Portfolio imprint on September 29, 2011.  For those of you who have not seen it, here is the cover: Although the cover may change slightly, this is pretty close to the final version. […]