Gregg Fraley

Guerilla Innovation, Chapter One, Point of Difference Innovation begins with a desire to create something. When you use your creativity to make something, to actually be innovative, it has to have a point of difference. Even a pizza shop has some point of difference right? Thin crust, deep dish, by-the-slice, or even, the only pizza shop in Three Oaks, Michigan. Those are minimal points of difference but in the pizza business that might be enough. At the heart of it, Innovation is all about new and different. Or at the very least, significantly better. You’ve got it in mind you want to start a business, and maybe you have a firm idea of just what you’re going to do and

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I participate when I can in a Twitter-based chat session, called Innochat. It happens every Thursday around noon USA eastern time. Most of the participants are innovation geeks like myself, consultants, writers, company innovation directors, professors, etc. — tune in, it’s interesting. Last Thursday we were chatting about innovation books. There are a ton of innovation books out there, some of which I’ve reviewed here. The insight that seemed to dawn on several of us at the same time is that there really isn’t a great innovation book geared for small business. Scott D. Anthony’s recent Little Black Book of Innovation comes close, but, forgive me for saying so, there is a certain “MBA-speak” (and just MBA ‘think’) even in

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It’s a shame that the reshoring trend (of manufacturing back to the USA) will take years to be realized. I’m a fan of course, I’ve written about it here before. Like many trends, it’s emerging in dribs and drabs; and some dispute it’s even really happening. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to raise funds for new manufacturing ventures in the USA. It’s a sad truth today that VC’s are more interested in funding the next iPhone app than a start-up that actually makes something. It’s also not good that the most likely candidates for reshoring — high tech equipment intensive/low labour requirement operations — are very expensive to set up. The business case can be hard

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Ask John Sculley, the man who fired Steve Jobs — would he do it again? Probably. As Michael Corleone once said about a fellow mobster taking sides against him just as he took power — “it’s the smart play.” MBA’s are trained to manage, and that usually doesn’t mean disrupt. Let’s be frank, people who think different (high innovators on the KAI scale, a measure of cognitive style) are a pain in the ass. Even those who are very self-aware and have trained themselves in social graces eventually show their true colours in classic corporate settings. They can’t help it. They are less problem solvers than they are problem finders. Many of you know that I recently posted a piece

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Who’s Lukas Rosol? He’s the 100th ranked tennis player in the world. A virtual “no name” with only 19 professional level tour match wins. A 26 year old, 6 foot 5 drink of water at about 170 pounds. Bad haircut. Czech dude. Major tat on his left calf. Lean and mean. As of tonight he has 20 wins. This evening at Wimbledon, against long odds, he upset one of the greatest tennis players that ever lived, Rafael Nadal. Nadal won the French Open just a few weeks ago, this is not an old champion fading away. It’s a stunning defeat for Rafa, a player known for his ultra fitness and competitiveness, at the peak of his game. Absolutely nobody would

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It’s easy to understand why many managers are not interested at all in heading up an innovation team. Saying no is the sane choice. The truth is Innovation Team Leadership is usually a thankless job. It’s often a job on top of another job. In other words, a lot of extra work spent on innovation initiatives means it’s a killer to keep up with the business-as-usual-operational job. So, that’s usually enough to kill innovation leadership motivation. But wait, there’s more! Not only is it a ton of work, it’s high risk. Many, even most, innovation efforts fail. Failure doesn’t look good come job and salary review time. People spout a lot of happy talk about learning from failure but the

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I was in France a couple weeks ago and was delighted to help someone learning English. They asked what is the most useful phrase in the language. I knew immediately. The phrase? “It depends.” It’s the answer to nearly any complex question. It buys you time to think, and actually, it’s nearly always true. And of course it allows you to pretend to know something you don’t. So, when I am asked how to begin an Innovation Initiative, the ultimate complex question, this is my answer — it depends. If I know context I can do better than It Depends, but it takes time, effort, and money to know context well enough to give a good answer. What does it

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Briefly noted: The New York Times ran an article this morning about how Starbucks is moving manufacture of pottery mugs to a small shop in East Liverpool, Ohio. This is notable because it’s another example of “reshoring” — that is, bringing manufacturing from China and other cheap (aka slave) labor markets back to the USA. This is how restoring the economy happens, one job at a time. Kudos to Starbucks for being a good corporate citizen, and doing something that is just plain smart as well. Sales from the mugs will help support Starbuck’s Create Jobs for USA Fund. I’ve blogged about both reshoring and the Create Jobs for USA program here before — nice to see it’s an active

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My partner Indy Neogy at KILN is one of the most brilliant people I know. An MIT trained engineer who is also an MBA from Leeds, he’s both entrepreneurial and a masterful cultural scanner. He’s going to publish a book soon related to cross cultural communication, Where Culture Matters, so, you get he’s a star right? He’s a star — and — he’s an introvert. It’s not a bad thing. We can thank Susan Cain and her recent book Quiet for a new awareness about the value of, and large number of introverts who have a very challenging time with classic group work. Introverts have a great deal to offer the innovation process, and, they tend to be under-utilized resources. On average,

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Birmingham Alabama — Monday May 14th, 2012, Gonzeaux #7 It’s an image that was so arresting and shocking at the time that I’ve never forgotten it. It stained my memory like indigo on fine white linen, never to be washed out. I was nine years old. I’m talking about the sight, on national television, of black people being attacked by German Shepard’s in the Birmingham, Alabama race riots of 1963. The high-pressure water hoses were cruel, but the dogs, those vicious dogs, made my skin crawl, and it flipped a switch in my head. From that point forward I was a social progressive. I’ve not ever visited Alabama. I’ve been to nearly every state in the USA, but never had

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