On the Utility of Thinking in Terms of Jobs-to-Be-Done
In a recent post examining the future of retail, I used the jobs-to-be-done approach to break down the industry. And I’ve been using it more in other ways. It’s quite useful as a basis for innovation. The premise of the jobs-to-be-done approach is that it provides a much better basis for innovation. The focus is [...]
Europe Sets Course for Cloud
There’s a perception that cloud computing has become a “mature” technology, a perception shared by few but anticipated by most everyone else with the exception of those trying to preserve their self-interests. I don’t blame them – each person inherently protects self-interests. They’re wrong though. Cloud is not mature. It is evolving. The paradox is [...]
Carrot Beats Stick
WooHoo: You’ve just unlocked the URL of Blogville Badge! With Hostess becoming as bankrupt as the nutritional information in a Ding Dong and Kodak redefining the Kodak moment of another kind of bankruptcy, I immediately thought of my childhood. Thankfully those cheerful marketing images that blanketed the store shelves were replaced by a different set [...]
Four Innovation Insights Customers Provide
Customers, properly, have been having a renaissance of sorts in terms of business thinking. Peter Drucker famously espoused a very customer-centric business philosophy. Nowadays, social CRM represents the return of a customer-first orientation. Last year, Altimeter published the 18 use cases of social CRM. Included in those use cases were several that relate to innovation. [...]
Bangalore Embodies The Silicon Valley
I spent a few days in Bangalore this month. This place amazes me every single time I visit it. Many people ask me whether I think Bangalore has potential to be the next Silicon Valley. I believe, it’s a wrong question. There’s some seriously awesome talent in India, especially in Bangalore. Don’t copy the Silicon Valley. [...]
Innovation – today’s Golden Calf
This week I had a conversation about Innovation and IBM. Vijay Sankarav wrote a follow-up post on that as he was forced to “leave early” – this is my reply to that. I think the three of us usually agree pretty much on pretty much everything. And this was an awkward one really It all [...]
Little Bets = Greatest Hits Of The 2000s
I’ve just completed reading Peter Sims’ new book, Little Bets. I’ll admit that I’m horrendously biased because 1) Peter is an old friend, and 2) he quotes me on page 75 of the hardcover edition, but I think that Little Bets is a great book. (Apparently the world agrees; Amazon has 17 customer reviews for [...]
Taking The Quotes Out Of "Design Thinking"
Bruce Nussbaum, a design thinking thought leader and a professor of Innovation and Design at Parsons The New School of Design, recently wrote that Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment. He claims that: Design Thinking has given the design profession and society at large all the benefits it has to offer and is beginning to [...]
Innovation Thrives between the Lines of Chaos and Control
Innovation killer #4: Create an obstacle course for ideas. Guaranteed way to kill the innovative spirit? Model your processes on Kafka’s The Trial or your typical parking clerk’s office. CIO Magazine, July 24, 2007 On the heels of the SpigitFusion release, I’ve had the opportunity to hear from a number of people on the topic [...]
Rethinking the Technology & IT Analyst Industry
(Guest post by Zia Yusuf, CEO, Streetline, formerly Executive Vice President, SAP) Over my last twelve years working as a senior executive in the technology industry I have had an opportunity to engage with a broad section of technology and IT analysts and researchers – both from established firms (eg. Gartner, Forrester etc.), smaller more [...]
InnoPrise – Call for Startups
Two words you don’t see so often together are innovation and enterprise. Innovation is often associated with young upstarts that intend to disrupt the established order – better, faster, cheaper. Enterprise conjures images of large organizations that were, at one time, innovative upstarts. But we know that is not true. Large enterprise organizations can be [...]
10 Business Books In 2010
These are the 10 business books published in 2010, that I would recommend you to read. Originally, I wrote this on Quora, in response to “What are must read business books of 2010?”. Yes, I have read all of them, and no, they are not in any specific or…
Innovation Mullet: Simple in the Front, Complex in the Back
On a LinkedIn discussion, someone asked: “Structured or un-structured innovation. Which works better?” There are a number of ways that could be answered. I look at it this way: What’s the simplest structure you can live with? I’m focusing on the application of simplicity as much possible in the innovation process. But I’m also a [...]
Great Analytic Dashboards on the BlackBerry PlayBook
Corporate tablet alternatives to the iPad are now on the horizon.
At the recent Adobe Max 2010 conference, Mike Lazardis demonstrated SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards running on the brand-new Adobe-Flash compatible BlackBerry PlayBook.
iPad’s Climb Up the Disruptive Innovation Cycle
Blockbuster’s recent bankruptcy filing was yet another chapter in the Clayton Christensen annals of disruptive innovation. A major brand with convenient locations that got disrupted by a website and the U.S. Mail. Note that we’re seeing the backend of the disruption, when it all seems so clear. How easy is it to see such a [...]
