Here’s a story I’ve heard too many times. I spoke recently with a businessman who developed an advanced formulation for a product that beat the market leader. He invested thousands in the product and found a manufacturer that expressed interest in his work and offered to be a partner in commercializing it. The businessman invested …
For years, China has been making progress in creating laws and systems that enable protection of intellectual property. Respect for IP rights is essential in creating a culture where innovation and collaborative partnerships can succeed. If individuals and companies lose trust in a government’s ability to respect such rights, the incentives to innovate are reduced …
Trust and Sound IP Systems: An Essential Component for a Nation’s Innovation Success Read More »
I was reviewing some information from one Venture Capital firm that described their annual efforts. Far from the laid-back lifestyle that some people imagine, this successful VC firm spent much of their year traveling to meet with over 6,000 companies. A few hundred would be selected and screened more carefully, and then a dozen or …
In Conquering Innovation Fatigue, we explain how “Patent Pain” is one of the external innovation fatigue factors that can slow down innovation. This factor includes actions by courts and lawmakers that add to the difficulty and expense of protecting intellectual property rights. A new aspect of this problem is the recent explosion in risk to …
Used Patents: A Potentially Deadly Part of Your Portfolio Read More »
So much of innovation these days involves creative new business models rather than improved tangible products or manufacturing processes. Netflix, Dell Computer, Quirky, and McDonalds, for example, have innovation in their business models at the core of their success. The sharp folks at the Board of Innovation in Belgium Sweden have developed a cool free …
Innovation Around Business Models: Building Blocks for Easy Tinkering Read More »
The world of automobiles today is radically different than it was a twenty years ago, based on several metrics. In the area of fuel efficiency, it was once an automotive maxim that if you wanted good fuel efficiency, manual transmission was clearly the best way to go. Automatic transmission was more convenient but far more …
Design matters in innovation. Sometimes good designers and engineers working together can find ways to combine functional and decorative elements for elegant success. Sometimes two elements can be combined into one when synergy between two formerly distinct features or products can be found. Today we bring an example from Japan to illustrate this. Toppan Printing …
Finding Synergy Between Function and Form: An Example from Toppan Printing Read More »
In May 2010 I was invited to speak at a conference of WTA (the Wisconsin Telecommunications Association) about innovation lessons for the telecommunications industry from our recently published book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009). Here is a condensed version of the presentation. I’ll do another Pixetell soon with some additional content. Can’t …
Without wishing to be political, I have to say that I am worried about the future of innovation in light of “external innovation fatigue factors” that arise when government creates imposing barriers for innovators, especially for small businesses and lone entrepreneurs. As we note in Conquering Innovation Fatigue, the problem is often one of unintended …
The Summer 2010 issue of American Educator (a publication of the American Federation of Teachers) ably illustrates one of the lessons we teach in Conquering Innovation Fatigue: metrics to drive performance can have unintended consequences that may actually hurt rather than help. Indeed, unintended consequences are a major theme of our book, as we explore …