clair075

I've had a really good laugh lately at the people running around tripping robots .  I wonder if that's an actual job description (Robot Tripper) or if Google and others simply look for volunteers who are willing to trip the robots. Aren't the people doing this afraid that one day the robots will seek revenge?  But here's where innovation turns down a potentially blind alley.  Why do we need bipedal robots, and is being upright and bipedal a evolutionary feature that may have had an advantage in the past, but no longer?  In other words, if the robot gets tripped, so what?  We humans evolved to operate only in an upright position, but that doesn't mean that robots need to.  If a bipedal robot gets tripped, why doesn't it simply sprout wheels and go on its way? In all seriousness, what we view now as advantages and features may eventually be bugs.  There are few activities that demand that a robot have bipedal capability or propulsion, when other forms of...

So many companies make so many claims about innovation, and yet so few are really, deeply engaged in innovation.  In the next decade we'll say goodbye to some of the firms who are talking about innovation but aren't exercising the muscles.  Disruption and market transformation will occur (will? is occuring) at a far faster clip than before, and as Warren Buffet likes to say, when the tide goes out we'll know who was swimming in the buff. How do we get a better understanding of who is merely talking about innovation, and who is actually practicing it?  Beyond that, is there a way to determine who is merely sustaining a veneer of innovation, and which firms are driving innovation into the core of their business?  Can we create a barometer of innovation capability and engagement?  I think the answer is "yes", based on evidence we can observe and measure. Three maturation paths There are at least three ways we can determine if a company is truly engaged and serious ...

There's a real sense that we in the corporate world are standing on the brink of an amazing transition, moving from relatively older, static models of competition based on corporate size and mass, to new competitive realities dictated by speed, agility and innovation.  For at least a couple of centuries, as we look back over the dominant corporations of the past, we can see that size and scale were the predominant factors.  Whether we think about some of the original corporations (like those that governed the tea trade in India and England) or more modern corporations like the US automobile companies or banks, the prevailing wisdom has been to grow large and use size, mass and reach to defeat other competitors.  Embedded in this thinking, or perhaps even dictated by this thinking, is an inherent business model:  size matters.  By growing large you can distribute costs more effectively, serve more customers from the same basic set of products, scale revenues and ...

It seems fitting that on the first day of a new month, early in a new year I'll pen what is my 1000th post on innovation.  Looking at that number makes me think that innovation is either a vast topic or that I repeat myself quite frequently.  Happily, I believe both alternatives are true, keeping with the both/and mantra of innovation. You'll forgive me for being a bit reflective here in the first section of this post.  I started writing Innovate on Purpose over a decade ago, as innovation seemed poised to take root in corporate America.  My colleagues and I at OVO Innovation created our consulting practice to assist large corporations in their innovation journey.  I decided to write about my assessments, my discoveries and the lessons learned along the way.  And over that time I've seen a lot of innovation, and innovators come and go.  I have to express my disappointment at the commitment to innovation that we've seen over the past decade, and I have...