When Howard Schultz became the President and CEO of the Starbucks Corporation in 1987 the company was selling basically whole-bean coffees, and it counted dozens of stores across the United States. Less than 20 years later Starbucks is one of the most popular brands in America. It has more than 12,000 stores around the world, … Continue reading Why Starbucks is not present in Italy?
Month: January 2007
You must run twice as fast!
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.
Are business plans obsolete?
Despite those (supposed) qualities, however, some recent studies are starting to show that the practice of using formal business plans as a corner stone of business ventures is not as widely spread as the theory suggests. Caddell mentions, for instance, a recent study that appeared on the Inc Magazine, outlining the following statistics…
Innovation Zen Resources page
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.
Innovation lessons learned in 2006
A couple of weeks ago I announced that Chuck Frey was collecting “innovation lessons learned in 2006”. The Innovation Tools website already published the result, with almost 60 answers. Below you will find the most interesting ones (in my opinion):
December Roundup
Below you will find the most popular posts of December, check them out if you missed any.
Innovation Zen Redesign
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!
5 Disruptive Technologies to Watch in 2007
The InformationWeek website has an extensive article covering 5 disruptive technologies that will (according to the article) make its entrance into mainstream applications in 2007.
The Invention of the the Matches
The first attempt to come up with something similar to a match as we know it today appeared late in the seventeen century. Godfrey Haukewitz was the assistant of the famous chemist Robert Boyle who had discovered the phosphorus. Haukewitz designed his invention using pieces of wood, sulphur and phosphorus, and it would produce a small flame when frictioned. The only problem with the pseudo-match was the fact that it was poisonous and expensive.
Top Harvard Business School Articles in 2006
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.