Categories: Innovation InsightsA few months ago I went to visit DaimlerChrysler in Stuttgart. I arrived early for the meeting, and was able to spend some time in their museum. There I was able to see the earliest cars, and how they evolved over the years.
I was running a little late for my afternoon meeting, so [...]
Entries from August 2005
August 30, 2005
Innovation – Old Cars Teach Us Lessons from History
August 30, 2005
Naked! Idea Management Software Exposed!
Categories: Innovation Insights, Innovation SoftwareI was working on a client project recently – a large, tough one. The most senior sponsor at the client had said all the right words – he wanted his company to be an ‘innovation company’ and therefore engage all employees in the process. Then a wonderful form of ‘Lost in [...]
August 29, 2005
Book Review: True Change – Janice Klein
Categories: Book Reviews
We have all got our favorite consulting jokes (I am sure there is one about a watch…). In this age of cost reduction, many firms have lost their spare capacity to work on new projects, develop deep insights into a market or technology, or they lack the skills and brainpower to solve intractable [...]
August 29, 2005
Book Review: They Made America – Harold Evans
Categories: Book Reviewsspan>
It is hard to tell anyone working in innovation that the products or services they are developing today will fail. The future is uncertain, but on balance we believe it will be good. The past, though, is a different story, and ‘They Made America’ tells the remarkable tale of INNOVATION in the land [...]
August 29, 2005
Let’s be realistic – IT departments have no time for Innovation
Categories: Innovation Insights, Innovation Software
My experience over the last 10+ years in this area is that IT departments have got enough time to listen to the business requirements (as an overview), help conduct a cursory review of systems, handle the software procurement process, and then vanish. Worse, some IT departments are stuck on providing systems [...]
August 29, 2005
Book Review: Democratizing Innovation – Eric von Hipple
Categories: Book Reviews
The democratization of innovation, according to von Hipple, means that users of products and services – as individuals and firms – are able to innovate for themselves, and that this user-centric approach is significantly better that classic manufacturer-centric methods. The concept is that users have a better grasp of what they value from [...]
August 29, 2005
Look at the walls – you will know if you are in a high margin business
Categories: Innovation Insights
On a recent client visit, I remarked on the incredible modern art on the walls of every meeting room, lobby, and executive suite. There were statues in front of the car park. It was a nice place to work.This company was not dissimilar from one of GE’s divisions. I had visited one of [...]
August 29, 2005
Update on Thinking Time / The Importance of Tools
Categories: Innovation Insights, Business Life
I recently went through a weirdly unproductive research time. I was coming up with new insights in my work, but I was unable to actually write any of it down. It took my two months to work out why…I used to own an HP ipaq handheld with a fold-out keyboard. This [...]
August 29, 2005
Searching Books – Trying out the new print.google.com search
Categories: Resources / Links
I came across this in a recent BusinessWeek article [The Web Hits The Stacks - By Stephen H. Wildstrom - July 25, 2005 - subscription]. They mentioned a new search tool from Google – print.google.com.
For example, I tried the search: http://print.google.com/print?q=innovation
Interesting – the results are colorful, but I know I am missing [...]
August 28, 2005
Category: Resources / Links
This category covers helpful tips, web site resources on innovation, etc that can help corporate innovators.
Searching Books – Trying out the new print.google.com searchMore web searches – “innovation” with Google Scholar
