The Unicorn Innovation – Address Dumbed-Down Basic Needs
Unicorns are so….fashionable. You know what they are right? Startups valued at at least $1 billion, amazing right?. Right now in the US there are over 80 unicorns, mainly in Silicon Valley. One of them, Square, just went public at a valuation of $6 billion which was felt to be a low figure now. Hmmm. […]
Are Narcissistic, Uncaring People the Most Successful Leaders?
I just saw the Alex Gibney’s documentary about Steve Jobs, “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine”. It’s more true to the man than Danny Boyle’s “Steve Jobs”, also showing now. I’ve already showed my hand in my blog post on the 2013 film “Jobs”: “Can a Narcissistic Bully be a Good Leader? So what’s […]
Does Work-Life Balance Reduce Innovation?
Did you notice that Goldman Sachs (of all companies!) has just forbidden its interns from working after midnight? Seems like their HR people, if not the pooh-bahs, have just suffered an attack of political correctness aka social responsibility. So even if one of their starting interns wants to work his version of overtime (like into the […]
Cheating is a form of innovation
Have you heard about the scandal with cheating on the SAT? It’s particularly prevalent in Asia with Chinese and Korean students being repeat offenders. The organizations behind the cheaters go to some considerable lengths to get the SAT questions. They send questions to phones by text and other means. The stakes are rising though. Some cities in China are actually […]
Most innovators are spotters not creators – but that’s fine
Over the last couple of weeks I have been conducting coaching for innovators identified using our psychometric assessments. This has reminded me of an important issue that usually gets overlooked in discussions on innovation. In the conventional wisdom, an innovator is someone who thinks up an idea and then (maybe) does something with it. I […]
There’s no innovation without innovators
You know the usual approach to innovation in a corporation. Hold an offsite for brainstorming and to stimulate creativity. Get a big-name consultant. Team comes up with an idea, makes a plan. Does a public relations blast announcing their breakthrough idea. Fails. Do again. Fail again. If that wasn’t the case the vast majority of […]
What’s the Difference between Entrepreneurship and Innovation?
You can’t lift up any piece of news or commentary these days without seeing a discussion or article about entrepreneurship and innovation and how to improve one, the other or both. Prescriptions abound. But my question is: are entrepreneurship and innovation the same thing or are they different? I ask that because you usually see […]
Peter Thiel “Zero to One”: Monopoly-ness is Closest to Godliness!
I just read Peter Thiel’s new book “One to Zero”. You know Peter Thiel right? Co-founded Paypal, founded Palantir, well-known for his scholarships that give chosen entrepreneurs $100,000 if they quit college and start a company. Quite a guy. The book is really a series of reflections on innovation and entrepreneurship whose quality varies more […]
Ripples In Corporate Space-Time: Do Companies Have An Internal Clock?
Did you hear all the latest buzz about those boffins (at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) who just discovered gravitational waves? So we can actually measure time back almost to the time of the Big Bang? And they did it by actually showing the super-imposition of these waves on the Cosmic Microwave Background (Ok don’t ask […]
Are you confusing creativity and innovation?
OK this is one of my pet peeves; the frequent confusion between creativity and innovation. As in: “we are teaching people to be innovative by showing them how to brainstorm and create new ideas.” Sorry folks; that’s not innovation. Let me give you an example; when two people make love they can also make a baby. […]