Innovation: The Who's Where's and How's

A large part of Innovation thinking is to be open to inputs from the World around us and in a sense be hyper-engaged with the same in order to derive valuable insights. Didn’t someone say, “Things happen for a reason?” Isn't the reason to teach us? This point has been brought to me many times courtesy of life experiences that for most people are just life’s passing and go unnoticed and unexamined. The other day I had such an experience that taught me a good lesson and motivated me to write this entry. As I have noted before in this blog, it has been my philosophy to look for insights wherever one can find them. In fact I have made a practice of recording these insights on the go via personal recording devices, journals, photography, etc…In no other time in history, by the way, has this been easier to accomplish. If one is open to receiving, accepting and exploring, digital technology is making it easier by the day. Case in point is the mobile phone. If you permit me a di

It wasn’t too long ago when we were patient with the response times and overall experience when accessing and using the Web. This is absolutely no longer the case – at least not with me. As broadband speeds increase, so does the customer expectation for speed and ease of use. For technology and service providers the challenge comes from the fact that every incremental increase in customer expectation demands a marginal increase in the performance of the next iteration of a web site, product or service. In essence, one is always behind the customer perception, as it were. In my view this is the way it should be. It challenges us to Innovative- always. That said, in doing so Web designers and service providers need to be aware of the “permanency” of evolving expectations and outright intolerance for certain web-site functionalities that detract from the overall experience. This insight was brought to me courtesy of my less-than spectacular-experience utilizing the Ticketmaster web-site t