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

Just today I read a post from an Innovator in LinkedIN that Innovation is painful and that we should just accept that it will be so. Companies will resist and will fight those 'doing' innovation inside corporations and this is a fact that we must accept. As one that has endured the struggles and negativity of innovating in deficient environments I have to say: I categorically disagree. The danger with 'accepting' is that we may forget that a piece of the mission is to endeavor to make the world a better place and as such we have to always try to change the ecosystem around us to be more supportive of innovation initiatives. The World does not need more naysayers and corporate organizations that are against Innovators. We need the opposite. We need more new ideas making it into production faster for the benefit of all.  We need more innovators with minds that can blend new trends into new ideas.  We need organizations to actively support, encourage, inspire in

There are many reasons I wanted to start an Innovation practice (in the new lexicon: Innovation Lab) inside a large corporation that is at the front end of dealing with the digitally-based disruptive onslaught. The initial co-founder and I suggested such a practice to our management in response to a lunch we had with an Innovator from Nokia back in 2006 and the pre-iPhone era. (Yes, the same Nokia that is now fighting for its life.) There are huge lessons learned just from that lunch that may explain why Nokia finds itself in the situation that it is in. I will expound on that lesson at a latter date, for  now to the subject of this post. I wanted to learn and feel what it would be like to go against the grain, delve into emerging new ideas and to institute new thinking. In retrospect this is what I had always done in my career and thus wanted to put those abilities into a "legit" environment where that was "the" job. Now in its 6th year, the practice has chan

We all know the feeling of uncertainty and how it can affect our behaviors and way of being. What is more tragic, in my view,  is the inability of those with power to reduce uncertainty and to not do so because of their individual emotional and/or ideological perceptions. As they say: "most see the world as they are and not as it truly is." This ailment seems be even more pronounced in those with power, I guess because they have more to loose. So what happened to empathy, searching for common good, collaboration, vision, passion? It seems like we are at the end of doing things the old way so when will these qualities and attributes kick in and be recognized for what they can bring to the World?  I don't have the answers but one thing is for sure, we need for this to happen sooner rather than later and for those of us with these qualities, we need to force ourselves into environments where we can effect positive change and reduce uncertainty. One way to start is to s

So here is the thing.  I downloaded the last upgrade to my Facebook (FB) app and without warning (that I was able to read readily and was not embedded in legalize that no one can understand) it added two icons to my Android desktop: FB camera (another one that I do not need or want) and FB messenger. I was a bit taken aback by this action. I find it presumptuous of FB to think that I would want those two additional icons on my phone (I don't, btw). I am not a Facebook power user and I have a life and actually have to work all day so I really do not need these two icons to help FB in their pursuit of "frictionless sharing" (as I discussed in another blog entry). This "sharing" is becoming a study in inane self promotion and "churnalism." Very little of what is posted is actually original and worth a read. The short of it is that I don't appreciate the presumptuousness displayed by FB. This is arrogant and once a company (free service or no) starts

There are many reasons I wanted to start an Innovation practice (in the new lexicon: Innovation Lab) inside a large corporation that is at the front end of dealing with the digitally-based disruptive onslaught. The initial co-founder and I suggested such a practice to our management in response to a lunch we had with an Innovator from Nokia back in 2006 and the pre-iPhone era. (Yes, the same Nokia that is now fighting for its life.) There are huge lessons learned just from that lunch that may explain why Nokia finds itself in the situation that it is in. I will expound on that lesson at a latter date, for  now to the subject of this post. I wanted to learn and feel what it would be like to go against the grain, delve into emerging new ideas and to institute new thinking. In retrospect this is what I had always done in my career and thus wanted to put those abilities into a "legit" environment where that was "the" job. Now in its 6th year, the practice has chan

Riding in a small plane from Philadelphia to my home town of Washington DC the other day, I could not help but hear (it was one of those small regional jets) the stories of a returning marine coming home. A very self-assured man of no more than 20 years old relating his experiences to the row in front of me. It was indeed an interesting 45 minute flight. You see, he was a crew member in a helicopter. Not sure if he was a machine gun gunner but suffice it to say that his days were packed with dynamism as he so eloquently related about his days running missions to and fro. An "adrenaline rush" and "Intense" and "exhilarating" were some of adjectives he used to describe his daily missions. He then moved on to talk about his home-town visits and how he could not understand how people could live such boring lives with very little to do. No wonder, I thought. His mind and experience-map had expanded to the point that going back to his old world was a very limiti