One major barrier to innovation is certainty of what can and cannot be done. There are epic tales- like Lord Kelvin, President of the British Royal Society of Science declaring “Heavier than air flying machines are impossible” (1895) just 8 years before the Wright Brothers had their first successful flight. Or, better known- the ‘physiological Read the full article…
During a 2001 company workshop, Volvo employees heard an expert on marketing to women say that women wanted the same things men wanted in a car- and more. According to an article in Edmunds, the consultant said “When you meet the expectations of women, you exceed the expectations of men.” The fact that women influenced Read the full article…
One of the major barriers to creativity and innovation is the fear of looking foolish. “Foolish” means different things to different people: silly, unwise, senseless, irrational, thoughtless, nonsensical, ridiculous, absurd. Ultimately, it’s concern about how others perceive us. Too often we control our actions because we worry about what other people will think about us Read the full article…
Early in December, Inc announced the 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year: Kevin Surace. Innovator of the year would be an equally appropriate title- as well as social entrepreneur. Kevin is based in Silicon Valley (my home territory). High tech startup, you’re thinking. Wrong. The company is Serious Materials and the products are used in construction- Read the full article…
One of the lead articles in today’s Wall Street Journal is “Crisis Compels Economists To Reach for New Paradigm”. The story focuses on John Geanakoplos, a Yale economist whose observations of the machinations of the economy in the late 1990’s led him to believe that the market was not as efficient as economic theorists had Read the full article…
When I was on an assistant professor of organization behavior at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, the students (about 30% were engineers) complained about the required class on the subject. They were there to learn how to be captains of industry. That meant mastering finance, marketing, accounting, and quantitative analysis, not managing people. Few “got” Read the full article…
The Ansari X-Prize for development of a vehicle that could carry three people about 62 miles above the earth, twice within two weeks demonstrated the power of competition to stimulate innovation. The prize was $10 million. But there was more than money driving the effort to succeed. It cost more than $20 million (funded by Read the full article…
The 2009 Nobel Prize winners have just been announced. Most years, winners have all been men. A few years there was one woman, a couple had 2 women, and in 1999, three women were given the honor: one each for the categories of Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. This year, there were 5 women Read the full article…
This morning I received an email from my friend Almaz Negash, CEO of Entwine Global, announcing that her colleague Dr. Laura Stachel, an obstetrician and founder of the volunteer organization WE CARE Solar, was one of the winners of Nicholas Kristof’s Half the Sky Contest. WE CARE “promotes safe motherhood and reduces maternal mortality in Read the full article…
For years, the answer was the US. But that’s been changing. According to a 2009 Economist Intelligence Unit study ranking the world’s most innovative countries, the US ties with Finland for 3rd place; Japan and Switzerland are 1st and 2nd. The Innovation Imperative study from Boston Consulting Group & The Manufacturing Institute, using different metrics, ranked the US Read the full article…