Innovation Archives
Here you’ll find a collection of blog entries published under the Innovation category.
The Myth about the Myth of Crowdsourcing
By Bruce LaFetra on October 7, 2009
Is Jigsaw the only true example of crowdsourcing? Dan Woods, writing in Forbes, thinks so.
Hope or Hype: Data in the Cloud
By Bruce LaFetra on September 2, 2009
Nilofer, just back from FOO Camp this past weekend, reports the underlying current in discussions involved data in the cloud and how valuable it will be. I’m on the record as a believer in cloud data, but maybe see it happening in a different way.
If all you have is a PowerPoint hammer, everything starts to look like a bullet point
By Bruce LaFetra on August 25, 2009
Why do we use PowerPoint so much? Is it to convey information more effectively or merely to communicate more information? How much thought do you give to your choice of tool in light of the objective in communicating the information: instruction, background, decision aid, or don’t know?
The truth is that we communicate information for a variety of reasons, but the rise of PowerPoint has caused people to stop linking how they communicate with the business objective. PowerPoint is a powerful tool for some purposes, but actually an obstacle to others. T.X. Hammes has an excellent article on how PowerPoint is changing decision making in the military.
Understanding Twitter’s growth and usage
By Michael Mace on April 22, 2009
One of the hottest recent stories in the tech industry has been the rapid rise of the messaging service Twitter. Starting from a small base of enthusiast users, the service has rapidly risen to prominence in the media, with extensive coverage of its adoption by celebrities. In the last month, Google counted about 65,000 news stories mentioning Twitter, and the web tracking service Alexa reported a remarkable 400% increase in traffic to Twitter.com in the last four months. In April 2009, Alexa reported that daily visits to twitter.com surpassed those to cnn.com:
Ars Technica - Don Reisinger on Amazon’s Kindle
By Marsha Keeffer on July 22, 2008
Don Reisinger wrote a very comprehensive opinion piece on Ars Technica yesterday. He has quite a wish list for the next version. But even though he covered its sales, a still too-high price, its ability to let you read more…
What was Ford’s Alan Mulally thinking?
By Bruce LaFetra on January 30, 2008
Unless you are selling talking beer openers or donuts, comparing your product to Homer Simpson defies conventional wisdom. When your product is a slow-selling car, your actions are certain to leave people saying, “D’oh!”
Yet, this is exactly what Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally did recently. He wasn’t subtle, in a public speech he projected an image of Homer over a picture of Ford’s Taurus sedan while being critical of the design and talking up future models as much better. We can be pretty sure that this will not rally sales of the Taurus over the coming months, so has Mulally gone mad or is he actually smart?
Okay, here’s a Statistic
By Nilofer Merchant on November 4, 2007
So Bain has done a growth survey that shows “senior managers spend less than 3% of their time on the long term view of the future.” In comparison, the same study shows, they “spend 40% of their time focused on the things that go on in the 4 walls of the company”.
Value Chains Come and Go
By Nilofer Merchant on March 29, 2007
The PC era came into an end when open took over. Dell, IBM, Microsoft all had market power. And then Open Source + white boxes came along. Now decentralization is driving innovation. No one owns web 2.0. Small teams of…
We think we know… but we don’t
By Nilofer Merchant on March 29, 2007
Product Managers and Marketing people often think we know our customers and what they want from us. But let me challenge that thinking. If we knew more about our customers or even our prospects, we might change what we product…
Execute revenue growth, or not
By Nilofer Merchant on March 12, 2007
I was just reading Double Digit Growth by Michael Treacy. Yes, during work hours. Call it my version of eating bon-bons. I needed a break. And his book is one of many in my recent pile of acquisitions. Recent being…
Grow it .. bigger and wiser
By Nilofer Merchant on January 29, 2007
If you were to purposely grow your smarts, you might: - Surround yourself with more creative people, or - Study more (content) ideas, or - Talk more at length debating with others, or - Get better educated, right? I’m going…
Web 2.0 Investment Opportunities
By Nilofer Merchant on November 9, 2006
At the web 2.0 conference here in San Francisco and will be doing a series of posts. I would guess 30% of the attendees are VC / Capital / Investment / Analyst types. And between them and the web start-ups,…
Two types of Advisors: those that Critique and those that Create
By Nilofer Merchant on October 28, 2006
Have you ever had the feeling that the people around you are there to tell you how something won’t work? Those are called critiques. Having a critique around as an advisor would be like being in the middle of the country and lost trying to get to NYC let’s say, and having someone come by to say, “this freeway won’t take you to there”. Okay, fair enough. But don’t just leave me there, dude. Tell me which one does!
Alpha Dog: Strategies for Entrepreneurs
By Nilofer Merchant on September 10, 2006
This last week, I was on a much, much (MUCH!) needed solo vacation. No client, staff, or family responsibilities. No email, no phones, no computer. Instead, I packed the normal trashy magazines so I could read about shoes and frivolity….
Dash used Stealth just Right
By Nilofer Merchant on August 28, 2006
Is there ever a good reason to not tell everything to everybody? Yes, there is. Surprise you that I would say that? In relationships, power is not the key to connection. So, don’t deceive or cajole in personal relationships, where…
Reminder to Self: Networking is a Must
By Nilofer Merchant on August 22, 2006
Okay, I normally don’t network. I’d rather be at home, in my pajamas with either a good book or my laptop. And networking itself has a bad rap. But I do believe that people can bring joy to our work…
Don’t be the Dinosaur Brought down by Mosquitos
By Nilofer Merchant on August 10, 2006
Emerging Business Models can destroy your current business Working in Silicon Valley, there are a few hundred new acronyms and technologies introduced each year that need to be understood. Being a trusted advisor means that clients need my firm and…
Adaptability & Change is a High Class Problem; 5 things to review
By Nilofer Merchant on August 3, 2006
As a CEO of my own firm, and a change leader working with CMOs of world-class brands, the constant in my life is helping organizations to adapt to new situations and challenges. As Bryan Ward used to say, this is…
Reserve seems key to Creating
By Nilofer Merchant on July 17, 2006
I am sitting in Logan airport with a clean email inbox. First time in weeks, if not months, I think. I’ve been swimming pretty hard lately as there have been several client things really needing attention. But sitting here with…
Hype vs. Real Emerging Models for High-Tech Industry
By Nilofer Merchant on June 3, 2006
I’ve been home sick a lot lately. First a cold that needed steroids to knock out, later a stomach flu which the whole family bonded over, and now a fever my son and I are sharing. (Let that explain…
Capturing Ideas = Yes!
By Nilofer Merchant on May 11, 2006
Paper + Organization — ways to capture ideas… Love it! I’m always looking for new paper and organization books. When I give one to a friend, I’m saying something to the affect of, I care. Because ideas are like gems,…
10 Ways to Convince Other Execs to Follow YOU!
By Nilofer Merchant on May 7, 2006
At a speech last month at a women’s exec group, one audience member asked “how do I build a business case so I get heard”. Great question. In my day job, I help execs form business cases all the time,…
Video, video — oh how you’ve changed
By Nilofer Merchant on May 3, 2006
A brainiac Rubicon teammate, Bruce LaFetra did a commentary in our last newsletter on the changing drivers of digital video capture. The premise is that the 15 second shots of video capture on digital cameras made more sense to…
Ecosystems now matter
By Nilofer Merchant on April 19, 2006
I know I’m becoming more of an introvert. I now think about things that happened 2 weeks ago and assign meaning to them. Or does that mean, I’m pondering. Hmmm. Well, anyways, that’s the context to my writing about Software 2006…
Great Product Management starts with…
By Nilofer Merchant on March 31, 2006
One of the more common questions I hear from product management teams is based on figuring out why company A is successful and company B is not. Perhaps it’s that company A somehow does a better job of listening to…
Hey what’s that in the corner?
By Nilofer Merchant on March 25, 2006
I had another late night meeting last week, where my firm was involved in helping a company evaluate a decision to an upcoming product launch. Sorry for not being able to provide details; maybe one day. While we presented…
Cinching creates more value
By Nilofer Merchant on March 20, 2006
I’m always worried about the Valley companies that have too much funding, too much venture capital, too much valuation. In this day of American ‘more is better’ philosophy, you might think me contra-culture (or, worse, old-school) to even mention it….
Finding the Core Value Proposition is Key
By Nilofer Merchant on March 14, 2006
I recently got introduced to an up-n-coming PLM (product lifecycle management) software vendor who shall remain nameless. There are several notable vendors already in the PLM space including IBM, PTC, Borland, UGS (a division of EDS) , and about 40…
Making a Better Widget isn’t a Competitive Strategy
By Nilofer Merchant on February 24, 2006
During my day job, I help both start-ups and billion-dollar tech companies pick market niches and position themselves to compete successfully no matter what size. Most of them start with a competitive mindset that is something like “we make…