Innovator Inside

Bottom-up innovation is often dismissed by innovation consultants and theorists as being mainly incremental, and therefore strategically uninteresting. Why have your front line employee suggest some minor change to a process when you can spend your time designing a strategic new product or service that’s material to the top line of your organization? But for [...]

“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” — Vincent van Gogh When I was very young, I couldn’t read. But then, in second grade, I was lucky enough to have a brilliant teacher who took me under her wing and [...]

So, succumbing to the hype, I rushed out the other day and bought myself one of those new Nike FuelBands. I first saw one on the wrist of my colleague Gareth, who pronounced it the deus ex machina of exercise and weight loss reduction. I saw it and imagined myself tipping into a mid life [...]

Idea management has gotten quite boring lately. Everyone, it seems has a tool. And they all do the same old thing. Put your idea in. Vote a few times.. Be irritated when no one cares. Repeat until you shut down idea management in disgust. I’ve been dark for the last month or so on this [...]

What’s the reason so many great ideas turn out to be terrible ones once they’re out the door? Over time and many years, I’ve learned there are only a few reasons: “I did that” You know these people: they’re great at self promotion and talking loudly, but very poor at doing much else. They take [...]

Over at Management Matters, David Chassels has this to say about my guest post on my new book, : David is the CEO of a software company called Procession Software. He made a pitch to me and my team when I was Chief Technology Officer at the DWP. He continues in his comment to say [...]

I’ve just completed reading Inside Apple by Adam Lashinsky. Other reviewers elsewhere have noted it is a quick and easy read, and it does offer some fascinating insights into a company we all follow slavishly, no matter our feelings about its products. I read this book having completed Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs a few [...]

PoopPiles: defn: all those things people leave around which will derail your programme if you go near them. Don’t look forward, look downward! When you’re building brand new things, here are five points to note if you want to avoid PoopPiles : PoopPiles are everywhere.  They’re strewn around like landmines, and, if you step in [...]

I think the professionalization of innovation is something that companies must do sooner rather than later. One of the interesting things about working here at Spigit is you get to meet lots of different innovation teams, across many cultural, sector and national boundaries. Invariably, the innovators are people who’ve been thrown into the role from [...]

So I have this dirty little secret. It is that I quite like Glee, that show about an American school choir. I like it enough, in fact, that I watched the Glee Concert Movie on Satuday. In fact, I like it enough that I even watched the 3d version, and put the glasses on my [...]