The Ingredients For Innovation
Inventing new things is hard. Getting people to accept and use new inventions is often even harder. For most people, at most times, technological stagnation has been the norm. What does it take to …
Innovation
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Innovation doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Doers and thinkers from Shakespeare to Jobs, liberally “stole” inspiration from the doers and thinkers who came before. Here’s how to do it right. *** “If I have …
The Value of Play As a Driver of Innovation
Innovation does not always have to be the result of serious study and agonizing progress. As Steven Johnson so eloquently argues in Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World, many of the activities …
Hares, Tortoises, and the Trouble with Genius
“Geniuses are dangerous.” — James March How many organizations would deny that they want more creativity, more genius, and more divergent thinking among their constituents? The great …
Warren Berger’s Three-Part Method for More Creativity
“A problem well stated is a problem half-solved.” — Charles “Boss” Kettering *** The whole scientific method is built on a very simple structure: If I do this, then what will …
The 10 Qualities of Creative Leaders
David Ogilvy was an advertising legend and perhaps the original “Mad Man.” The Unpublished David Ogilvy offers a remarkably candid glimpse of the private man behind the public image. Ogilvy was fond …
The Single Best Interview Question You Can Ask
In Peter Thiel’s book, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future there is a great section on the single best interview question you can ask someone. When Peter Thiel interviews …
The Creative Process in 10 Acts
“It’s good to understand that it’s all a process and it’s going to take you to a new place. And I try to remind myself … to enjoy the process.” *** In this short …
Peter Thiel: Zero To One
Peter Thiel’s book, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, is about building companies that create new things. But more than that, there is a lot of wisdom in this book. We …
Rory Sutherland Offers 4 Interesting Reads
I asked Rory Sutherland (Vice Chairman: Ogilvy & Mather) what books stood out for him last year. I’ve had the privilege of chatting with Rory a few times now and I think you’ll agree, …
Ten Pairs of Opposite Traits That Creative People Exhibit
This beautiful excerpt from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention beautifully illustrates why it’s so hard to pin down creativity and …
Seuss-isms: A Guide to Life for Those Just Starting Out and Those Already on Their Way
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was the famous children’s book author. He was also a philosopher. Seuss-isms! A Guide to Life for Those Just Starting Out…and Those Already …
Giving up Your Best Loved Ideas and Starting Over
“Any year that passes in which you don’t destroy one of your best-loved ideas is a wasted year,” says Charlie Munger. If only it were that easy. It’s mentally hard to come to an opinion and even …
Innovation: The Attacker’s Advantage
Innovation isn’t a single act, it’s an ongoing process of battling against what’s already established. Change is often not noticeable until it’s too late. The attacker’s advantage is the ability to …
Google and Combinatorial Innovation
In his new book, How Google Works, Eric Schmidt argues that “we are entering … a new period of combinatorial innovation.” This happens, he says, when “there is a great availability of different …
Edward Hess, Interview No. 6
This interview with Ed Hess is full of amazing insights but I don’t know if you’ll read it because a) it’s long and we live in a world of increasingly short attention spans and b) it’s an actual …