To Create New, Breakthrough Innovation Stop Focusing on Products
People don’t buy stuff. They buy what stuff does for them—producing their desired results or at least helping them make progress towards their desired results.…
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Nobody Wants to Buy Your Products or Services. Here’s Why!
Just as organizations have jobs for which they hire and fire employees, customers have jobs for which they hire and fire tools or solutions. Customers…
ROI2 – Return on Innovation Investment – Is Just as Important as That Other ROI
Lord Kelvin said, “When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it”[i] If that’s true,…
To be Successful, Participate in the Outcome Economy
No matter what business you think you’re in, you’re in the tool business. Your customers are not buying a set of features. They’re hiring the tools…
Innovation begins with an Eye
Leon Segal is quoted in, The Art of Innovation[i], as saying, “Innovation begins with an eye,” though it’s not so much about what you look…
Fixing Your Misaligned Innovation Strategy
Successful innovation is only possible when an organization’s strategy, culture and capabilities are all aligned. An innovation strategy unsupported by or in conflict with either…
Innovation: You Can’t Get There From Here
Innovation extends from our current knowledge, technology and ethnography into what theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman coined as the Adjacent Possible.[i] Described by innovation theorist Steven…
The Report of Brainstorming’s Death has been Greatly Exaggerated
At least once a year some self-proclaimed pundit decries that brainstorming is ineffective. Is it? Or is it more likely that brainstorming just didn’t work…
Innovation is a Team Sport
Great innovations are not achieved by solitary work, created in a vacuum or emerge fully mature when first conceived. Innovations are not the product of…
To Avoid Obsolescence Forget Everything You Know
Organizational Learning, the process of creating, retaining, and transferring knowledge within an organization, is a perennial management topic, but Organizational Unlearning is far more important.…
Innovation: What You Think Matters Little
No matter what business you think you’re in, you’re in the tool business. Your customers are not buying the set of features you offer. They’re…
Disrupt Yourself before Anyone Else has a Chance
When trying to solve new problems or capitalize on new opportunities, individuals and organizations often look inward and apply familiar mental models, tools and techniques…
Questions are the Answer
Why is it that everything is always in the last place you look? The obvious answer is that once you find it you stop looking.…
The Case for Short Words
Sagacious writers would be wise to eschew polysyllabic Latinate words. Or as Richard Lederer put it in The Miracle of Language, (Pocket Books, 1992): “When…
Differentiate to Dominate
This is part two of my second of three hybrid strategies you can use to win against your big-box competitors: Differentiate to Dominate! You can…
