I was in London for a meeting last week and due to my “on time” compulsion, arrived quite early. I was killing time window shopping, and I spotted a cool looking linen walking hat on display at a men’s store.  On impulse, I went in and bought it. I had a nice conversation with the clerk at T. Fox & Company. They had some high quality hand-made knit ties — got one of those as well.  I resisted the lovely leather baggage, but was delighted to hear all their goods are made in the UK. Made in the UK means jobs in the UK.  The UK and the USA certainly need more brands like this.  Started me thinking, again, about

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Pecha what?  Pecha Kucha (sounds like “peh-cha koo-cha”) is a pithy presentation format, 20 slides, 20 seconds each.  You have six minutes and 40 seconds to get your point across.  People all around the world are doing Pecha Kucha. My friend Simon Strong of Human Zoo is organizing a series of Pecha Kucha events in the suburbs of London, and stay tuned for more information. Be looking for Rhyme Not Reason, later this year, in: Guildford Woking Farnborough London High Wycombe (I’ll be helping organize this one!) Oxford Reading Simon’s events won’t be focused on innovation per se, but I’m thinking this public speaking format/phenomena is a great innovation stimulant — no matter what the subject.  Why?  Well, first of all

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Call me a Johnny-come-lately but I’m suddenly enamored of what’s going on with electronic book readers (or “e-readers” as they are sometimes called) and the potential for a whole new kind of reading experience. This is an area of exploding innovation. I’m talking about devices like the Kindle, and the iPad.  And there are others — from Sony and Barnes & Noble — that I’m less familiar with. I’m going to leave it to others to do a cross compare of features and functions, this post is more about the potential for innovation in this space. Apologies to Sony and Barnes & Noble, I may try to do you justice in a future post. Up until now I’ve thought of

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When I’m traveling one of my rituals is to drop by an airport bookstore and pick up something entirely new. I do a quick survey of what’s hot, and poke around for some hidden gems. It’s often quite difficult to pick out a book; there’s just too much to choose from. Last week, under the gun to get to my gate, I begged help from a shop person and, I’ll be damned if she didn’t pick a winner.  ShopClass As Soulcraft is a newish book by Matthew B. Crawford. The subtitle is “an inquiry into the value of work”.  I guess it wasn’t too much of a risk, it’s a “notable” book by the New York Times, and a best

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The big news coming from the World Cup play this weekend was the “howler” score allowed by the English goalie. By all accounts the British team fairly dominated the US team. The USA allowed a goal very early and it appeared as though they might get steamrolled. However, they hung tough, and a fairly weak shot at goal slipped through the fingers of Robert Green. It wasn’t a tough shot to block, it was right to him, he had it, then he lost it. As I watched the replay I could only feel for Green, this is an embarrassing moment he may live with for the rest of his life. It had me thinking about the concept of failure. First

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Walking down a street in North London last week, I spotted this chair in a store window. Ice cream for the eye!  It had me wondering why we “hold back” on color so much.  I’ve often resisted the urge to wear colorful clothes for example.  Why are we sometimes color restrained?  And, what does this chair suggest to us in terms of ways to use color more effectively in everything we do? In our innovation projects? This picture goes into my “forced association” picture deck, so, I can use it as a tool for ideation, but what else? I recall that Motorola once had a huge success with pagers with color. By simply adding color it opened up the consumer

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Simple concept here.  In my view this is how BP turns this oil spill situation around. First, stop the freakin leak.  Second, become the world leader in environmental clean-up and prevention technology. BP has done irreparable harm to the Gulf of Mexico. How irreparable remains to be seen, and, it depends on BP’s commitment to making things as right as they can be.  Now. BP will forever be known as the evil, money-grubbing #¢#∞¡!itches  who befouled the Gulf of Mexico if it doesn’t do the right thing by humanity and invest billions in learning how to prevent and manage disasters like this.  BP, listen!  Hire the scientists, spend the money, partner with governments, other oil companies, NASA, anybody who can

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I grew up drinking beer.  I always took nips from my Dad’s quart bottle when he wasn’t looking.  Taste develops that way. Wine  entered my life in high school. Boone’s Farm Apple Wine I am sad to report (nice label). I thought I was moving up in the world when I started drinking Mateus from that stone-like bottle a couple years later (the bottle felt “old world” to me). As a young adult I often drank “wine from a box” usually at family gatherings (those boxes never seemed to run out). As I write this I only imagine the horror my French wife will experience knowing the sour grape juice passing for wine that has passed through my uneducated lips.  Over

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When IBM says it you have to listen — Creativity is the new management Kool-Aid. In a study just released they  say that the “creative” management style — which is marked by taking calculated risks and communicating in new ways — will lead to more success as companies struggle to find their way in an increasingly complex world. The study, titled Capitalizing on Complexity is a synthesis of interviews from 1,500 CEO’s and senior public sector leaders.  This is what these CEO folks now believe — that creativity is more important as a skill, now, than it has ever been before.  Creativity is Now More Important than other qualitites like management discipline, rigor, or operational acumen. Personally, I think this

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The Clay Christensen school of innovation has been saying this for some time and have published scholarly papers about it — we’re under investing in innovation.  In a previous post I talked about the studies that have proven financial models that indicate how much to invest are based on false assumptions.  Now, new analysis further supports the argument, see this study from HP Enterprise Business. People, do we need more proof? Aren’t eminent Harvard professors and a stalwart of the technology industry, Hewlett Packard, enough?  The Harvard study is enterprise wide, while the HP study focuses on IT investment.  Suggestion: print out both of the studies and distribute them to the executive team of your organization, and schedule a brown

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