Innovation is hard, but sometimes we make it harder than it needs to be. It’s a lesson we could all use, but especially big companies betting millions on sustaining innovations.
Maria Meyers of U.S.SourceLink offers a nice perspective on the different types of entrepreneurs in any given community and the different community resources they need to succeed.
A very good post from Vivek Wadhwa, influential commentator on "things entrepreneurship-related," Why I No Longer Advise Startups to Hire M.B.A.s. Not all his points are fair ones but, as with any good post, he's just rational enough to spark some good conversations.
The question often stumps executives, who tend to think innovation is something outside the normal work routines, not something that can and should be directed. Yet how much of your company’s strategic plan depends on innovation — on the development of new products, new processes, or (often) both — that will provide tomorrow’s competitive advantage?
The valley of death is an hackneyed term used to describe where startups run out of money. This can be solved, early earlier-stage investors and policy-makers contend, by giving them more money. I’ve argued before this is misguided. The reason why is a cautionary tale to anyone leading a new venture.
Ideas are overrated. I've said this before, but I just ran across this quote from Isaiah Berlin, describing Leo Tolstoy's approach to understanding war and history. If we take his meaning to heart, we could all be better students of innovation.
Innovation is about making the possible desirable and the desirable possible. But which direction innovation takes depends in large part on what choices we have when it comes to expressing those desires and who wants to control those choices.
A recent Kauffman report offers new and valuable insights into where venture-driven growth comes from. Literally. Not from what attributes of social media founders or which San Francisco coffee shops, but rather which sectors of the economy and which regions of the country. The findings are surprising and important for entrepreneurs thinking of starting a business, and policymakers thinking of helping them.
I'm not a big fan of ideas. Sure, ideas are great — some of my best friends are ideas. But managers tend to let our national obsession about having new ideas distract them from the hard work of building good products and successful ventures around what are almost always old ideas. So it was fun to see the great design OXO have at a competitor who claimed to "own" an idea that both had built products around.
