Innovation

How to selectively forget the past.

A recent edition of Fortune describes innovations in computer gaming that are likely to be as disruptive to incumbent players like Electronic Arts and Activision as the move toward cloud computing is to providers of shrink-wrapped software. While the incumbents have been engaged in the innovation equivalent of an arms race – ever more powerful […]

Don't trust your spreadsheets.

Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of potentially valuable innovations flop because the companies sponsoring them were using the fundamentally wrong logic in managing them. For instance, as Clayton Christensen recently described in the Harvard Business Review, they insist on valuing projects in terms of Net Present Value. A different approach, we’ve argued, is […]

Some years ago, doing some research for our book MarketBusters, my colleague Ian MacMillan and I ran across some interesting experiments Progressive Insurance was doing to change the business model in the car insurance market. The idea was that, rather than basing one’s insurance bill on demographic factors such as how expensive your car is […]

Never stop listening to your customers.

Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of potentially valuable innovations flop because the companies sponsoring them were using the fundamentally wrong logic in managing them. For instance, as Clayton Christensen recently described in the Harvard Business Review, they insist on valuing projects in terms of Net Present Value. A different approach, we’ve argued, is […]

Tom and David Kelley, authors of "Creative Confidence," believe that creativity lies within us all; we just need confidence to rediscover it.

The news from Google this week is that it has launched a ninth version of its Chrome browser, with the biggest change being that it incorporates the “instant” capabilities the company introduced in 2010. As you probably know, Google Instant is the enhancement to Google’s search engine that begins suggesting results even as you type. […]

Too often, companies launch sustainability programs with the hope that they'll be financially rewarded for doing good, even when those programs aren't...

Nowhere in a company is the need for coordination more acute than between the people who are responsible for product design and those responsible for manufacturing. As Daniel E. Whitney argued in these pages recently (“Manufacturing by Design,” July–August 1988), most companies have operated for years in an environment where design and manufacturing communicate infrequently, […]

Should governments accept the dictates of markets? It’s the question raging across the econoverse in the wake of demands for austerity from bondholders. But it’s the wrong question. The right question is: are organizations and markets making decisions that help make people, communities, and society better off in the long run, by allocating their scarce […]

In large organizations, design is moving closer to the center of the enterprise. This shift isn't about aesthetics and product development, however. It's...

The skills taught in engineering courses don’t always lead to new ideas.

I couldn't help but notice the recent unveiling of the "Bloom Box," and the claims from its financial backers that it represents a "disruptive" play in...

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has announced that they’re going to stop suing people for pirating music on P2P networks. For people under 30 years old, this has been the cause of much rejoicing. For those over 30, it may come as a surprise that the record companies were suing random individuals for […]

What do you do when the very breakthrough strategy that once made your business uniquely powerful now threatens to turn you into a commodity? That’s the question stationery supplier Staples is facing. I still remember when Staples changed my life. Before its 1986 opening, buying stationery and office supplies was a time-consuming, inconvenient, and expensive […]

Big companies return to the city.