Keynote speaker at upcoming Business & Process Innovation Summit

July 28, 2006

I’m looking forward to making a keynote speech at the Business & Process Innovation Summit, October 16-19, 2006 in San Diego. An abstract: Innovation at the Intersection of Media and Technology David Eckoff Tuesday October 17 – 4:45pm – 5:30pm David Eckoff will present lessons learned from his experience taking new media and business ideas […]

Read the full article →

Article: With ‘open innovation,’ no idea is left behind

July 21, 2006

In traditional product development, many ideas are thrown into a pipeline, most are filtered out along the way based in part on fit, and a few eventually become shippable goods. An article today on News.com talks about “Open Innovation” – an approach in which good ideas that are developed internally by a business – but […]

Read the full article →

Article: Are You An Innovator?

July 20, 2006

Just read an article in Forbes titled “Are You and Innovator?”, written by HBS professor and author Clayton Christensen. According to this article, a 2005 survey by the Boston Consulting Group found that 90% of executives believed that their company’s growth and success requires true innovation. However, as Christensen notes (and I think most people […]

Read the full article →

Notice the value in interesting accidents

July 6, 2006

An interesting read in HBR: “The Accidental Innovator“. In this Q&A, Robert D. Austin suggets that many innovations are the byproduct of accidents – and that the key is to be prepared for the unexpected. Examples cited: the microwave oven was conceived when a scientist from Raytheon (where I worked from 1987-1990) noticed a candy […]

Read the full article →

Smartsourcing: The New Way To Drive Innovation

June 29, 2006

In his new book, “Smartsourcing: Driving Innovation and Growth Through Outsourcing,” Thomas M. Koulopoulos, CEO and founder of Delphi Group, believes that companies must shed non-core business activities. He says this type of outsourcing, smartsourcing, will allow companies to focus on innovation which is what differentiates one company from another. From a Q&A article with […]

Read the full article →

PC World: 100 best products of the year

June 24, 2006

PC World published an article “The 100 best products of the year“. Of PC World’s top 100, products that I use regularly include #17 Google, #36 Apple iPod, #45 Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro and #69 Rhapsody I would add the following favorites to the list: MovableType bloging software Ultimate Ears UE-10 in ear monitors: […]

Read the full article →

First Look: Wetpaint launches technology that lets anyone start a wiki-type website

June 21, 2006

Just received a note from my friend Ben Elowitz in Seattle saying that his company, Wetpaint, has launched a new free hosted wiki service that enables people to easily create websites. What’s so special about a new wiki service? In this case, it is the ease of use. Wetpaint’s new technology makes it possible for […]

Read the full article →

Article: Microsoft looks beyond Gates for new ideas

June 19, 2006

Microsoft is developing a wiki-like internal communications system to let its employees contribute ideas about the future direction of the company. Employees will be able to make suggestions and collectively debate and refine ideas. It’s part of Microsoft’s effort to make the company less dependent on any particular individuals, including Bill Gates as he continues […]

Read the full article →

Article: How brainstorming works best

June 13, 2006

Everyone presumes the best brainstorming is group brainstorming – but is it? The Wall Street Journal has an article about the pros and cons of brainstorming. John Clark, a former university dean of engineering, says brainstorming sessions come in handy to distribute blame in the event of failure. But in his experience, most often someone […]

Read the full article →

Article: How Sony failed to Connect

June 1, 2006

A fascinating inside look at what went wrong with Sony’s Connect digital music project. A case study in how not to manage the engineering side of a digital media consumer business. What happened at the start? Digital media start up Kinoma had developed a specialized code base called FSK, a new system for handling multimedia […]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →