I was at ITS2011 in Tampa last week watching Carlos Dominguez give a presentation about innovation and how the best companies approach it. After giving a handful of examples he asked the crowd “How many of you take time out of your week to actively envision what the future will…
For reasons I can’t get into, I’ve been struggling with the decision to pivot my business model over the past week. I’ve had three alternate product concepts in reserve just in case the situation developed and I needed to use them. But when the time came I found myself asking…
There’s times when you’re heads and down pounding shit out that you forget how much progress you’ve made. At one point I was keeping track of stuff to do (aka “Action Items”) with Things on the Mac but about 30 days ago stuff started happening so fast that I didn’t…
In 13 years of overseeing databases I got caught without a backup exactly one time. Luckily it was for a dev system and it wasn’t a catastrophe but it did remind me of how important they are. Actually, they’re not just important, they’re your ass if things fall apart. Same…
Actually, there is. But I’m actually referring to “catchup” as in the type of activity you do to catchup to your competitors. At this point the “next big thing” could just about be any-thing, why in the hell would you spend your time building what your competitors have already done?…
Don’t pitch ideas, pitch results. And never say “I’ve got a great idea!” I’m working on two separate types of presentations – one for investors and one for strategic partners. For investors the key points are how much money can we make, how fast can we expect a return, what’s…
Not a whole lot of progress over the past two days, basically refining strategic partner and investor pitches as well as getting access to credit and operating cash. There has been a huge breakthrough but I’m not yet prepared to share it. But I can share this… Someone said to…
For those creative individuals that are submitting new cost cutting or product ideas, the incentive may not be strictly financial. That may be a portion of it, but the overall thrill of creating something may be from getting an opportunity to participate in bringing the idea or product to fruition.…
In reality, the 80/20 rule is 90/10 when it comes to innovation. Only 10% of “ideas” that are generated could be considered in the “good” category. However, of the entire population of ideas, 1% would be considered “great.” The difficult part to begin to grapple with is that of all…
If you’re setting out to brainstorm new ideas and concepts, here’s some things I’ve experienced over the past few years that may help. 1) Get a great facilitator. Someone that’s open minded, will keep people on track and will get people to contribute. 2) Put a great question together and…
Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want (Strategyzer) by Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith
Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game-Changing Innovation by Phil McKinney