Over at Daily Writing Tips, one of my blogs, we just published a very detailed article about creative writing. What is it all about? Here is a definition:
Creative writing is writing that expresses the writer’s thoughts and feelings in an imaginative, often unique, and poetic way.
So if you would like to know more about […]
An Israeli start-up called Modu Mobi has brought a new mobile to the technology landscape that it believes will make people rethink the concept of mobile phones. The product is a bare bones phone that measures 0.3 inches in thickness and 1.5 ounces in weight.
An excerpt from Technology Review
This tiny phone, which is slightly larger […]
Miniaturization of electronic circuits has been one factor driving the drastic changes in the technology industry. The technique to squeeze smaller components into still smaller areas results in reduced form factors and more powerful yet smaller devices.
Organic electronics is one emerging field that is is very promising when it comes to continuing this trend of […]
The Harvard Business School Working Knowledge website recently published the list with their 20 most popular stories of 2007. Below you will find my favorite stories: you can check the whole list here:
Handicapping the Best Countries for Business: India? South Africa? Russia? Which are the best countries for a firm to invest in? In a […]
What are the personal computer innovations that had a greater impact on our lives? The guys from Maximum PC gathered a list with 100 of them. Below you will find the top 10:
USB (1996)
3dfx Voodoo 1 (1996)
Intel Pentium II (1997)
NCSA Mosaic (1993)
Windows XP (2001)
Quake (1996)
Hayes Smartmodem (1981)
IBM 5150 (1981)
Doom (1993)
DirectX (1995)
You can see the complete […]
If you are interested in technology and Internet news, I am pretty sure that you will like my new website, DailyBits.com. I have a team of writers there, and we’ll be focusing on Web 2.0, software, online marketing, open source and more.
Here is a quote from the first post there:
“Back in 2004 Google carried out […]
They are to a certain extent, that is beyond discussion. But can they make or break companies? There is a recent article over Business Week discussing that issue, the title is “What’s in a Name?”
“A name can help a brand to enter the public consciousness (think Google) or disappear quickly (haven’t heard of Ultraviolet Man […]
Ever experience a power failure that made you lose a precious document that you were working on? What about files or programs that get deleted accidentally (sometimes not even by yourself if you share a computer…)? Those are quite annoying, but with the right software you should be able to overcome such hassles.
Handy Recovery […]
One of the most important factors affecting the balance between in-house generated, and externally acquired, technology is the degree to which company strategy dictates that it should pursue a policy of technological differentiation or leadership. For example, Kodak distinguishes between two types of technical core competencies: strategic, i.e. those activities in which the company must […]
I had heard about 3D sounds (also known as binaural recording) before, but the audio file contained on this link, called Virtual Barbershop, is the first time I experienced it.
Let me tell you, it is just amazing. Make sure to grab a good pair of headphones, close your eyes, and enjoy!
If so you should check my new blog, DailyWritingTips.com. Actually I think that the answer for the question above is “Yes” for the majority of us. That is why I decided to create a blog focused on simple yet effective writing tips.
Like it or not people will judge you by the quality of your writing. […]
Guy Kawasaki has an interesting post covering 10 reasons why PR deals might not work, check it out:
The client doesn’t understand the publicity process.
The scope of work is not detailed and agreed upon by both parties.
The client has not been properly trained on how to communicate with the media.
The client and the […]
Oftentimes, in both corporate structures and small business, it is necessary to build teams to accomplish one thing or another. This is equally true in innovation. The thought is when you have a team, the collective experience of all of those people will be greater than just one individual.
I want to take a […]
Regarding the recruitment of new writers, you can get in touch with us through the Contact Form. Do you have passion for innovation, business strategy, technology or marketing? If so do not hesitate to submit your articles, should they get published we will include a small bio of yourself and a link to your blog or website.
Optimize has a great article on Global Innovation. More notably, how IBM has leveraged the venture capitalist group in order to anticipate innovation.
“We spent a year determining how best to address this emerging opportunity and ultimately decided that building an ecosystem of partners—working together rather than in competition—would be essential to our […]
The Technology Review website released its annual list of 10 emerging technologies. What are those? According to the website’s description “10 technologies we find most exciting and most likely to alter industries, fields of research, and even the way we live”. Below you will find each of the 10 technologies with a direct link to the article describing it:
Innovation Insights is an annual conference that takes a look into several innovation facets, including: sourcing strategies, globalization and innovation, tools and methods to foster innovation, core technologies and so on.
What makes some countries grow faster than others? Why China was able to achieve such an outstanding development over the last decade? The Harvard Working Knowledge website published an interesting interview with Richard Vietor who wrote a book called “How Countries Compete”.
Below you will find the most popular posts of February 2007, check them out if you missed any.
India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and its business leaders are determined to keep the engine working. Recently, in fact, they concluded the annual Leadership Forum to deal with the issues of innovation and scarcity of theme, specially on the IT industry.
Fast Company just released the sixth “Fast 50” list. Those are companies and initiatives that are supposed to write the history for the next 10 years. Below you will find the first 10:
There is an interesting article over the Fobes magazine titled “How to be a Disruptor”. In the article Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, argues that for every successful disruptor dozens have tried and failed.
The best thing, however, is the fact that our first sponsor is a very innovative company! Bresslergroup integrates user research, product design and engineering services to create innovative product solutions. They won more than 80 major design awards and authored over 100 patents.
Below you will find the most popular posts of January, check them out if you missed any…
I came across the quote below reading through an old book of mine, and I realized that it represents quite an analogy to innovations and the business world.
Innovation Zen has a new page called Resources. It will feature innovation resources like books, blogs, interesting sites, software, educational links and so forth. I will try to update the page weekly, so feel free to contact me if you have any suggestion about resources that I should include there.
Below you will find the most popular posts of December, check them out if you missed any.
New year, new design! I will be customizing this new template for the Innovation Zen website over the next weeks, so bear with me if you happen to see colors changing and stuff flying around. The content will continue to come on a regular basis, stay tuned!
The Harvard Business School Working Knowledge website released a list of the most popular articles in 2006. The list included 25 articles, and below I will list the articles that talk about innovation.
I will be taking a couple of days off, the articles and posts will return to normal schedule on January 2nd 2007. Happy new year to everyone and stay tuned in 2007!
Two months ago I decided to quit my job inside a multinational company to pursue some entrepreneurial projects. Many people criticized my decision, arguing that at the age of 22 I lacked the necessary experience to succeed alone. Well, maybe I do lack the experience, but I can not imagine going back into the corporate world, the freedom I gained on the meantime is priceless.
Jason recently tagged me with the “5 Questions Interview”, meaning that I will answer 5 questions about myself and then tag 5 other people that I would like to know more about. Below you will find the 5 questions:
Forbes released a good interview with IDEO’s CEO Tim Brown. IDEO is a consulting firm focused on design and innovation, some of the companies that they worked for are Apple, Nike and Procter & Gamble.
Innovation Zen was created back in July of 2006, and when I started it my only goal was to have fun and to share some of my ideas related to innovation management and business strategy. Despite the humble purpose the blog started gaining attention and today, only a couple of months later, Innovation Zen has reached almost 200 RSS subscribers and it is averaging 50,000 page views monthly.
The initiative should make the general public more familiar with patents, inventions and both the limits and opportunities of protecting intellectual property. Some people argued, however, that the tool that Google created offers little or no value to inventors, lawyers or anyone else that deals with patents professionaly.
The Harvard Business School Working Knowledge series has an interesting interview with professor Pankaj Ghemawat about globalization. Despite the popular belief that globalization is gaining traction in market all around the world Ghemawat said that there is still little economic evidence for that.
Quoting Chuck “At this time of year, many people often reflect on the past year, including their successes, failures and lessons learned. Here’s an opportunity to share what you’ve learned, and gain new insights from the experiences of other InnovationTools readers. Please respond to this question: What is the most important lesson you learned regarding innovation, creativity or brainstorming during 2006?”
The end of the year is approaching and the “Best of 2006” lists start popping out. One good list that you will probably want to check out is the “Best Innovation and Design Books for 2006” which was compiled by the people over Business Week. The list included:
The Business 2.0 magazine has a very interesting story on the cover of the December edition: “How to Succeed in 2007”. They basically asked advice to business leaders, CEOs, nobel prizes and other people regarding how to succeed on the coming year. Here are some of the topics covered and some of my favorite respondants.
Below you will find the 4 most visited posts of November, check them out if you missed any.
The Business 2.0 magazine has an interesting article covering what they called “crowdcasting”, which could be seen as open source innovation. The article basically describes how established companies like General Electric, IBM and DaimlerChrysler are turning to crowds of students to foster innovation within their companies.
I am sitting at the Madrid airport as I write this. I know that you could care less but hey, those are the benefits of writing a blog, you can talk about your personal experiences once in a while. Unfortunately there was no direct flight from Milan to Sao Paulo so I was forced to get a connection through Spain.
Apparently yes. Forbes has an interesting article describing VIPP, a danish company that sells trash cans. The side note is that those cans sell for $400 a pop, and sales are growing by 30% yearly. When I saw the price I thought “hhmm, for 400 bucks those trash cans must walk around the house collecting garbage here and there…”
I am launching a new blog called Daily Blog Tips, where I will share what has worked for me in the past, what has not worked, blogging tips and the like.
That is right. I have been planning to do so for a couple of weeks, but now it is official. The reason is quite simple, I want to walk with my own legs.
Last week Innovation Zen was officially recognized as a SOB, which stands for Successful and Outstanding Blog. The SOB project is maintained by Liz Strauss over the Successful-Blog.
Probably most of you already know that Edmund Phelps won the 2006 Nobel prize for economics (the real name of the prize is The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2006).
An old professor of mine used to say that the best way to make people review their assumptions, to generate commitment and to promote change is through the use of manifestos. Then again, when we talk about change we inevitably talk about innovation.
Some time ago I remember what a struggle it was to keep up to date with my favorite websites over the net. Basically I would run through my bookmark and check each one individually. The process was time-consuming and inefficient, to say the least. Then one year ago I discovered RSS, and things changed, for the better.
Can we use design as an instrument to foster innovation? Apparently (certainly!) yes, and that is the argument of a recent Business Week article titled “The Talent Hunt”. According to the article many corporations – including Nike, GE and Intel – are turning to design schools to discover innovative managers.
I have been accepted as a Guest Editor over the House of Innovation. There is a lot of good content related to innovation over there, make sure you check it out. Hopefully I will be able to post something there once a week.
Product upgrades represent a delicate matter. If not handled properly they might mess your product portfolio, hassle your customers and damage your company’s image.
Looks like more and more people are starting to use the power of the crowds (click here to read Top 10 Crowdsourcing Companies). BusinessWeek released an article describing how the crowdsourcing phenomenon is gaining traction within mainstream corporations.
The article also outlines 4 basic guidelines to achieve smart crowdsourcing:
Be focused
Get your filters right
Tap the right crowds
Build […]
When I started Innovation Zen I was not sure if I would be able to write articles on a consistent basis, nor if people would want to read them that way. But so far I am very pleased with the results.
I couldn’t agree more with that. Actually I think there are many terms to call innovators such as knowledge activists, corporate rebels and so on.
It is not that difficult to understand why poorly managed companies go bankrupt. The real question is why smart and well managed companies fail. Guy Kawasaki has a great post over his blog titled “Why Smart Companies do Dumb Things”.
Innovation is all about challenging the status quo. Often times organizations get trapped in their culture because managers are not able to change the way the collect information, take decisions and implement strategies.
Yesterday I mentioned Guy Kawasaki’s presentation called “The Art of the Start”. Well, I just came across a great article over the KnowHR blog titled “Top 10 Best Presentations Ever”.
The role of technology on our society has been discussed widely. But is technological advancement the single, most important factor shaping our future? There is a very good article over the Neuromarketing blog titled “Futurehype: The Myths of Technological Change”. The article reviews a recent book with the same title by Bob Seidensticker.
There are many controversies regarding executive salaries within companies. Over the years different people have proposed different theories to solve the problem. How much should they earn? Upon what variables should the salary be based?
In my opinion those two theories are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary. Innovations do start with the observation and understanding of customer needs, and the fact that customers will not always know what they need until they see it will only reinforce the idea that a company needs to “observe” the customers and not “ask directly” to them.
There are many similarities between managing marketing and managing innovation in our fast paced, information based society. Marketers will need to revise their assumptions regarding how people interact with advertising just like managers will need to revise their assumptions regarding how customers adopt innovations.
There are many interesting issues being explored, even if not all of them are necessarily novelties. The report mentions for example, confirming what we have already discussed here, that according to CEOs the main obstacle to innovation is the corporate culture.
In 1975 electronics giant Sony Corporation introduced the Betamax, the first consumer video cassette recorder. It packed state-of-the-art technology and represented Sony’s bet to dominate the segment. Late in 1976 Victor Company of Japan, also known as JVC, brought to the market a rival technology called VHS, inferior to Betamax under most technical parameters. Ten years later, 1988, Betamax is out of the market, VHS becomes the winning standard for video recording. Sony Corporation decides to start producing its own VCRs using VHS technology.
RSS Feed
Email Subscription