CES 2023 Subtle Innovation: Early Impressions of Subtle Innovation
CES 2023 Subtle Innovation: Early Impressions of Subtle Innovation Fresh off the CES Unveiled event which highlights innovations from start-ups and major brands, I would characterize what I saw as subtle. Laptops LG’s new Gram laptop embeds its touchpad into the wrist area, as do many laptops. The difference: no physical visibility of or for…
Continue Reading CES 2023 Subtle Innovation: Early Impressions of Subtle Innovation
A Serious Insights How To: Creating A Maturity Model Assessment
A Serious Insights How To: Creating A Maturity Model Assessment For several years I worked with GlobalEnglish, a data-driven English learning company (now part of Learnship) that assessed people’s English competencies and offered learning experiences to shore up their deficiencies and take them to new levels of mastery. As an industry analyst, I have developed…
Continue Reading A Serious Insights How To: Creating A Maturity Model Assessment
An Interview with OWC CEO Larry O’Connor on Innovation and Customer Centricity
An Interview with OWC CEO Larry O’Connor on Innovation and Customer Centricity I recently had the pleasure of hopping on a video conference with OWC CEO and Founder, Larry O’Connor. The following is a transcript of our conversation about innovation, the history of computing, and the power of the customer. This interview has been edited…
Continue Reading An Interview with OWC CEO Larry O’Connor on Innovation and Customer Centricity
The New Vulcan Inc. Holodome at Seattle’s MoPOP Offers Trippy View Into Future of VR
The New Vulcan Inc. Holodome at Seattle’s MoPOP Offers Trippy View Into Future of VR Most virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (VR) experiences remain cumbersome. Although headsets have become lighter even as speed and resolution increases. But AR and VR participants still must don hardware for an experience. And then they must master the…
Knowledge and Innovation: 21 Critical Innovation Principles that Benefit from Knowledge Management
Knowledge and Innovation: 21 Innovation Principles That Benefit from a KM Perspective Knowledge management often sounds like a controlling function, but it can also be a liberating one. Seeking knowledge, examining problems from different points of view, and synthesizing content and context to create new, often unique possibilities requires an openness that the process view…
Innovation: More Poetry than Science
An earlier version of this post originally appeared at Fast Company Innovation: More Poetry than Science Practical lessons from 35 years of writing poetry to help individuals and teams deliver more innovative products, processes, and services. In a conversation with Phil McKinney, former HP Chief Innovation Officer and author of Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game-Changing…
Challenging IBM’s Innovation Findings in ‘Insatiable Innovation’
Insatiable Innovation? I was intrigued by the IBM Institute for Business Value report titled Insatiable Innovation. I like the title. America has lead the world to desire, expect and consume innovation at an increasingly rapid pace. The report passes no judgment on this phenomenon. The researchers, however, should ask if this is a good or bad…
Continue Reading Challenging IBM’s Innovation Findings in ‘Insatiable Innovation’
New Report: Ten Innovations That Should Drive Collaboration Technology
Ten Innovations That Should Drive Collaboration Technology Download Ten Innovations That Should Drive Collaboration Technology here: This report outlines ten areas of technology innovation led by a variety of vendors. None of the areas mentioned here have become fully realized, nor do any of them currently dominate the requirements of organizations seeking to acquire or…
Continue Reading New Report: Ten Innovations That Should Drive Collaboration Technology
Rasmus Quote at “One CIO’s Musings”: Innovating Around the Candle
Spending all day innovating around the candle does not get us to the light bulb. Daniel W. Rasmus Thank you to Kyle Johnson for the shout-out on a Gilbane Conference keynote quote, and his riff on innovation. Here’s a quote from his blog post: Innovation is messy. Higher education is messy. Innovation in higher education…
Continue Reading Rasmus Quote at “One CIO’s Musings”: Innovating Around the Candle
Why Tech’s Biggest Players Favor The Illusion Of Progress Over Real Innovation
Science fiction promised a future of intelligent devices designed to serve their owners. But today’s technology serves its manufacturers more than its end user. Read the entire post at Fast Company.
Continue Reading Why Tech’s Biggest Players Favor The Illusion Of Progress Over Real Innovation
Eliminating Your Company’s Fear of Change
This post has been updated to include COVID pandemic perspectives. Eliminating Your Company’s Fear of Change It’s time to argue with bloggers over at Harvard Business Review again. In Cure Your Company’s Allergy to Change, Brad Power discusses how to break the cycle in the failure of change programs. Let me just focus on the list at the…
How Innovation Is More Poetry Than Science now up at Fast Company
In a recent conversation with Phil McKinney, former HP Chief Innovation Officer and author of Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game-Changing Innovation, we discussed innovation and theory. McKinney said that much of the literature about innovation comes from theorists, not practitioners. I responded that some of us assert practical innovation insights informed by…
Continue Reading How Innovation Is More Poetry Than Science now up at Fast Company
New Fast Company Blog Post: Redefining Diversity For The New Global Workforce
Our views of diversity in America are changing, but they aren’t keeping up with the global reality that now faces American companies. Traditionally, diversity-focused on the integration of people from racial, gender, physical ability, and religious perspectives inside of large corporations motivated by political or operational imperative, or social good. The idea was to create…
Continue Reading New Fast Company Blog Post: Redefining Diversity For The New Global Workforce
Innovation in Education Requires Smart use of Resources, Including People’s Time
Education Innovation In Kevin Pashuk’s post Why Your School Needs a Sandbox, the CIO argues that creating a sandbox reinforced education innovation and creates a mechanism for executing experiments that people want to try, and that the academic administration thinks might be successful. The model is a good one. I think what is more important…
Continue Reading Innovation in Education Requires Smart use of Resources, Including People’s Time
Retro Thinking During A Difficult Kodak Moment
Way back in 2005, Bloomberg Businessweek ran a piece called “A Tense Kodak Moment.” “Low-margin digital sales aren’t picking up the slack of disappearing film profits, and debt is coming due,” the piece proclaimed. This provided some prescient perspective for Eastman Kodak’s (NYSE: EK) current struggles, which it now appears to be betting on printing…
Continue Reading Retro Thinking During A Difficult Kodak Moment
3 Reasons CIOs Need Scenario Planning
3 Reasons CIOs Need Scenario Planning Scenario planning is the art and practice of imagining multiple futures to create a strategic context for planning and decision-making. Pioneered by Royal Dutch Shell in the ’60s and ’70s, the technique is now widely used by businesses and governments as an important element of strategic planning. Functional departments…
Must Listen: Reinventing Discovery: The New Era Of Networked Science
A must-listen interview from Seattle’s KUOW THE CONVERSATION. Reinventing Discovery delivers a highly recommended new way to see science. It hints about how the Serendipity Economy is becoming reality for scientists. Michael Nielsen is the author of “Reinventing Discovery: the Era of Networked Science.” http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=25124
Continue Reading Must Listen: Reinventing Discovery: The New Era Of Networked Science
Shakespeare in Theory – and Why Computer’s Aren’t As Interesting As They Used to Be
or Shakespeare isn’t Anonymous In light of the fun, interesting, and I think, utterly fictional Anonymous, I thought I would repost this item from my now defunct Future of Information Work blog. Be challenged, but enjoy. 4/7/2008 2:45:59 PM Shakespeare Wars I have finally finished Rosenbaum’s Shakespeare Wars. I love Shakespeare, but why include comments…
Continue Reading Shakespeare in Theory – and Why Computer’s Aren’t As Interesting As They Used to Be
Confronting the Pace of Change
Thinking out loud about the pace of change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWh-YxdqoGo For more serious insights on innovation click here.
Lady Gaga, Angry Birds and the Separation of Social Media States
Yesterday I experienced the equivalent of a one-day best seller for my blog post about innovation lessons derived from studying Lady Gaga (“The Tens-Ten Lessons You Can Learn About Innovation by Studying Lady Gaga”). This little blog shot up from closely-held respect to international destination. Why? Because this blog post was elevated to the Freshly…
Continue Reading Lady Gaga, Angry Birds and the Separation of Social Media States
Lady Gaga Innovation: Ten Lessons You Can Learn About Innovation by Studying Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga Innovation: Ten Lessons Experiment Innovation requires the ability to experiment, and along with that, the ability to let go of things that don’t work. Failure should be a lesson, not a marathon to rehabilitate the mistake. Don’t experiment in a linear, overly cautious way. Experiment with a bit of abandon and watch carefully…
Balancing the Education Equation with Execution, Transformation and Innovation
Education Innovation In a society driven by industrial age economics and measurements, it isn’t surprising that we have slowly transformed the first knowledge economy work, education, into a factory, complete with six sigma performance objectives and assembly line views that treat all children of a given age or class of learner the same. Of course,…
Continue Reading Balancing the Education Equation with Execution, Transformation and Innovation
What Can Twitter do for Facilities Management?
The European Facilities Management Conference in Vienna featured a student poster contest. I was taken by Tilburg University’s Dorian Teensma’s and his Twitter idea. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fit it into my Social Media in Higher Education report, so I thought I would share it here. I’ll let Dorian’s poster speak for him. Download…
Continue Reading What Can Twitter do for Facilities Management?
Six Cautions for IT in the Cloud Planners, or Why Bernard Golden is Wrong
CIO Magazine ran a story this week (July 29, 2010) on six predictions on how cloud computing will change IT, taking it from the hodgepodge of today’s options into the smooth waters of a post-cloud world where IT only has one choice. Even the opening premise leaves me flat, because as we move to a…
Continue Reading Six Cautions for IT in the Cloud Planners, or Why Bernard Golden is Wrong
A Simple Change: Outsource Lectures, not Homework
In July 2011 Wired printed an article titled: The New Way to Be a Fifth Grader, which outlines how the Kahn Academy is changing education for schools and for individuals. I think the simple idea of outsourcing lectures and doing homework in the classroom is powerful. Children listen to their iPods or watch TV or…
Continue Reading A Simple Change: Outsource Lectures, not Homework
Being a skeptical conference presentation consumer
Conference presentations are difficult work: take a big, messy concept or idea and distill it down to fit into some arbitrary time constraint pre-determined by the conference leaders. Credibility wanes when positioning that idea and the forced-simplification that follows. If the presenter is honest he or she will admit to their constraints and briefly cover…
Continue Reading Being a skeptical conference presentation consumer
5 Strategies for Entering Emerging Technology Markets
Entering Emerging Technology Markets: After reading RIM PlayBook reviews (good summary by InformationWeek) when it was announced, and I think there are lessons to be learned that go well beyond the tablet market. Here are 5 strategies technology companies need to consider when entering an emerging market. 5 Strategies for Entering Emerging Technology Markets Features…
Continue Reading 5 Strategies for Entering Emerging Technology Markets
The Tens—Why Google Shouldn’t Focus on Facebook
It seems nearly every article about Google these days focuses on the competition between Google and Facebook. If Google believes the trade hype, they will be in more trouble than if they stay focused on their original mission of organizing the world’s information. 1 Information is still king Most of the information on the Internet…
Continue Reading The Tens—Why Google Shouldn’t Focus on Facebook
Why Devices will Rule the Future
I have watched a number of vision videos, and almost all of them have one thing in common: major infrastructure assumptions. Glass walls with controls, rooms with special speakers and microphones, sensors in inexpensive mirrors, projectors and sensors in open spaces. It isn’t that these things aren’t possible, but look around your house. If it…
The other side of the jobless recovery?
Reposted from The Future of Information Work: 11/2/2009 5:28:51 PM It has been speculated recently that technology has significantly contributed to the restructuring of labor markets. Today’s Computerworld ran the following article that reinforces this perspective (read it here: More Jobs Vanish: IT’s Gains Are Real People’s Losses). The question now is: what next? If…
The Microsoft Tablet Strategy: Time to Redefine
The Microsoft Tablet Strategy: Time to Re-examine My first review of a Tablet PC was posted this morning at Tablet PC Magazine. I looked at the Dell Inspiron Duo. The hardware was solid but was missing a few key features (like video out). The real problem was Windows 7. Windows 7 is not designed for…
Continue Reading The Microsoft Tablet Strategy: Time to Redefine
HP Breaking the Redmond Dependency–A Tale of Two Strategies, Two Futures
Nokia’s Stephen Elop is getting some grief for his choice of Windows to fuel his company’s new SmartPhones. (see Grief and disbelief greet Elop’s Nokia revolution) Over at HP, CEO Apotheker is dumping Microsoft in favor of its own OS (Global CIO: HP Mobile Dump Of Microsoft Is Brilliant). These are two strategic visions heading…
Continue Reading HP Breaking the Redmond Dependency–A Tale of Two Strategies, Two Futures
Where Next for Nokia and Microsoft?–Be the Best Windows Phone Partner or Be Irrelevant
So Nokia has decided to partner with Microsoft. The details may have changed, but my strategic advice to them remains the same. They need to analyze their strengths against the competitors and combine those with the strengths of the Microsoft platform in order to out innovate Apple and Google. They will not survive if they…
What We Won’t Learn from IBM’s Watson Playing Jeopardy!
The game show Jeopardy! will host an unusual array of contestants on Februrary 14-16, 2011. Two of the shows superstars, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, will be pitted against Watson, an artificial intelligence (AI) created by IBM engineers. Watson will not teach the world anything new about a generalized artificial intelligence. In the moment, as…
Continue Reading What We Won’t Learn from IBM’s Watson Playing Jeopardy!
Management by Design: What’s in it for Your Organization? #MBDBK
I do a fair amount of marketing consulting, and we spend hours talking about value propositions. So I thought I would share the value proposition for Management by Design. And today is a good day to have this discussion, because the Conference Board just released their latest numbers on worker satisfaction (see I Can’t Get…
Continue Reading Management by Design: What’s in it for Your Organization? #MBDBK
Why Start-Ups Need More Strategic Planning, and Why Investors Should Help Provide It
Single-minded passion for the idea. That is a typical of what people think about when think about the success of a new product or service. The individual and his or her team that tirelessly drive toward their vision. The problem is, visions don’t exist in a vacuum. I have said this to startups for years.…
Why I Wrote Management by Design
I have never worked at a company that really thought about its workplace experience, nor one that encouraged it managers to do so. We praise design in everything else, but the places where we spend our days, we leave under designed. Management by Design was written to address this issue. It outlines a methodology that…
VR Education: 5 Reasons to Integrate (more) Virtual Reality into Learning Now
VR Education: Exploring Reasons to Increase Using in Learning As costs for education continue to increase: human capital costs and real estate costs (and its related costs of energy and maintenance), virtual reality environments may well prove the valve that allows expansion without bankruptcy. Consider these five ideas (and look for a special bonus at…
Continue Reading VR Education: 5 Reasons to Integrate (more) Virtual Reality into Learning Now
Internet Evolution: Microsoft’s Missing the Boat on Kinect for Office
Here’s my conclusion: Microsoft argues that its divisions are more innovative together than apart. Kinect presents an opportunity for this cross-fertilization to manifest itself. Perhaps if Microsoft can get its business units to work better together we will see a bit more out of its anemic stock, a little more fire in the eyes of…
Continue Reading Internet Evolution: Microsoft’s Missing the Boat on Kinect for Office
Scenarios and Innovation: Where in the Process?
In a past post I explored into scenarios and innovation in great depth (see How Does Scenario Planning Help Drive Innovation). I was reading a piece in the Financial Times called Another Way of to develop ideas (on the web as Another form of creative thinking) which looked at practices for Open Innovation. It does…
Continue Reading Scenarios and Innovation: Where in the Process?
Being Steve Job’s Boss: Understanding Vision
I don’t know if the follow quote from the Bloomberg BusinessWeek article of October 25-October 31 2010 (Being Steve Job’s Boss) will get to you as much as it did me, but I talk about vision all of the time and try to coach companies into finding their vision. Steve Jobs and Dr. Land understand…
Continue Reading Being Steve Job’s Boss: Understanding Vision
Public Institutions, Planning and Budget Cuts
Planning for the future can seem like a waste of time when just keeping the lights on is a struggle. Budget cuts are hitting many public institutions, including schools, colleges and universities. The gut reaction is to put the future on hold and deal with the present. That approach some major drawbacks. First, if you…
Continue Reading Public Institutions, Planning and Budget Cuts
First Pass: What’s Wrong with the Grand Challenges for Engineering
At the risk of committing more overthinking of the Grand Challenges for Engineering, I want to take a first pass at discussing what I think is wrong with them in a very specific way, and honing the list into something more grand. Here is the current list: Make solar energy economical Provide energy from fusion…
Continue Reading First Pass: What’s Wrong with the Grand Challenges for Engineering
City Planning: A Prescription for Cities
A response to the Huffington Post piece on 10 Local American Economies That Have Change Forever. City planning. Cities have traditionally been opportunistic. Some entrepreneurs select a city as a site for something, a railroad headquarters, a large government facility, aerospace manufacturing, or a software company. The city then grows up around that industry. That…
The Problem with Housing Starts: Why we need new national economic metrics
Toward new national economic metrics: Housing starts (New residential construction) and foreclosures offer insight into the current economic malaise in the United States. They also reflect an ingrained view of consumption measures as the yardstick for economic health. Our measurement system is driving us to establish conditions similar to those before the recession. If we…
Continue Reading The Problem with Housing Starts: Why we need new national economic metrics
My Approach to Innovative Thinking: Moving to An Innovative State of Mind
An Approach to Innovative Thinking An approach to innovation…I was asked recently by one of my former Microsoft colleagues to answer five questions about how I approach analysis and solutions as part of an ongoing employee mentoring program. Here are my answers. Idea evaluation I start with an outside-in perspective on all ideas. If one…
Continue Reading My Approach to Innovative Thinking: Moving to An Innovative State of Mind
Scenarios and Innovation: 6 Answers to How Scenario Planning Helps Drive Innovation
Scenarios and Innovation: How Do the Differing Contexts of Multiple Scenarios Help Drive Innovation? When discussing scenarios and innovation, I am often asked how scenario planning helps drive innovation. Here are six key points to consider: Scenarios increase the productivity of brainstorming and idea discovery. Because scenarios force people into other social, economic, political and…
Continue Reading Scenarios and Innovation: 6 Answers to How Scenario Planning Helps Drive Innovation
