Category: Innovation Quotes

If the flattening of the world is largely (bur not entirely) unstoppable, and if it holds out the potential to be as beneficial to American society in general as past market evolutions have been, how does an individual get the best out of it? What do we tell our kids? My simple answer is this: … Continue reading Innovation Quotes: Think Globally

“As the world starts to move from a primarily vertical — command and control — system for creation value to a more horizontal — connect and collaborate — value creation model, and as we blow away more walls, ceilings and floors at the same time, societies are going to find themselves facing a lot of … Continue reading Innovation Quotes: Connect and Collaborate

I am a New Economy fanatic. Thence a Creativity fanatic. Thence an Intellectual-Capital fanatic. Thence … a … DIVERSITY fanatic. Doest that mean I’m an Affirmative Action fanatic? Not necessarily. And in any case, that’s beside the point. What is the point? It’s really quite simple: Creativity and Great Leaps Forward come from… mix/match/mess. That … Continue reading Innovation Quotes: Diversity

Marketing focuses on the needs of the customer, and therefore should begin with an analysis of customer requirements, and attempt to create value by providing products and services that satisfy those requirements. The marketing mix is the set of variables that are to a large extent controllable by the company, normally referred to as the … Continue reading Innovation Quotes: Learning from the Market

Countries engage in international trade for two basic reasons, each of which contributes to their gain from trade. First, countries trade because they are different from each other. Nations, like individuals, can benefit from their differences by reaching an arrangement in which each does the things it does relatively well. Second, countries trade to achieve … Continue reading Innovation Quotes: International Trade

Because of Apache’s proficiency at allowing a single-server machine to host thousands of different virtual Web sites – music, data, text, pornography – it began to have “a commanding share of the Internet Service Provider market.” IBM was trying to sell its own proprietary Web server, called GO, but it gained only a tiny sliver … Continue reading Innovation Quotes: IBM Joins the Open Source

We champion innovation. Then we genuflect when a giant customer “urges” us to cancel a risky new product that would upset the status quo. We beg for “more risk taking.” Then we videotape the “be daring” speech featuring the boss in a Brooks Brothers suit, sitting stiffly behind an old oaken desk. We exhort people … Continue reading Innovation Quotes: The Innovative Organization Chimera

“Why don’t you invent something which will be used once and thrown away? Then the customer will come back for more.” This advice, from his boss William Painter, inventor of a disposable bottle-cap, haunted the 40-year-old salesman, King Camp Gillette, from Fond du Lac, Winconsin. In 1895 the vision splendid came as Gillette stood before … Continue reading Innovation Quotes: The Safety Razor

“Behavior change happens mostly by speaking to people’s feelings. This is true even for organizations that are focused on analysis and measurement, even among people who think of themselves as smart in a MBA sense. In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help others see problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, … Continue reading Innovation Quotes: Change and Emotion

Invention is the creation of new products and processes throughout the development of new knowledge or from new combinations of existing knowledge. Most inventions are the result of novel applications of existing knowledge. Somuel Morse’s telegraph ,patented in 1840, was based on several decades of research into electromagnetism, from Ben Franklin to Orsted, Ampere and … Continue reading Innovation Quotes: Invention and Innovation