I often read about the creative geniuses in the world like Steve Jobs. If you believe what you read you might come away believing that the only way to be innovative and improve your life is to take giant risks. I want to disagree with that statement. Not only disagree, but vehemently disagree.
Topics:
innovation,
changes,
small changes
I love the term minimally viable product. It means your product can be used; it’s just not ready for prime time. It’s where you start to get feedback from customers on whether you’re on the right track. I recently wrote a post on this topic for the NY Times.
Too often I see companies wait until they’ve built the perfect mousetrap before they let others see the work they’ve done. My advice is get your new product out there as fast as possible. It helps you do several things:
Topics:
cultural change,
value creation,
innovation
I just finished reading an interesting book on innovation called The Innovators Solution. In the book there is an interesting question posed, “Do you need profits or growth first?” Interestingly enough, the answer is it depends. It depends on the culture and the needs of the investors.
Understand the needs of your investors.
Topics:
profitability,
value creation,
innovation
Innovation never goes in one direction. You’ll take one step forward and two steps back. Then, you’ll take three steps forward and one step back.
Managing the forward steps is easy. Everyone is excited about positive changes that are being made. The hard part is when you take a step or two back. It’s easy to say things just aren’t working and stop the project all together.
Topics:
key metrics,
cultural change,
innovation
Innovation is an important thing. If we don’t innovate, eventually our business will die. At the same time, not every new idea that we come up with is a good one. Having a way to figure out whether an idea is a good or bad one is a good idea.
You might want to ask yourself the following 7 questions before you go charging off on a new project. Taking a step back and asking if it’s really worth the effort is important. If you never get an answer of yes, then you have a problem. If you always get the answer yes, you also have a problem. There is a balance and these questions will help you make wiser decisions.
Topics:
business coaching,
value creation,
innovation
We all know that innovation is one of the keys for success in any business. For many benchmarking is one of the ways we believe we innovate. Benchmarking is good and it’s important. Is benchmarking enough to help your business move to the front of the pack?
Benchmarking is just the first step. Yes, you should benchmark in your business. You need to know what opportunities for your business are obvious. You need to know how you stack up against your competition. You need to know whether you use best practices in how you run your business.
Topics:
business coaching,
Focus,
innovation
Topics:
Strategic Thought,
innovation,
Change
Topics:
operationally irrelevant,
business coaching,
innovation,
passive ownership
Anyone that knows me knows that I’m in the bag for Apple. I’ve been an Apple customer since 1978 and have owned dozens of their devices over the years. My belief is that many in the media and the blogosphere don’t really get what makes Apple a special company.
Here are four things I think make Apple unique and all are things that keep drawing me back to them:
Topics:
innovation,
specialists,
free publicity
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