Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: September 29, 2009
Louis Pasteur said that “chance favors the prepared mind.” To which I have always suggested that we go get prepared in case we might get lucky. I was talking to a high school friend this weekend who happens to have invented and patented the “on screen” television guides that have become ubiquitous. I asked him where that [...]
Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: July 7, 2009
“The winners in downturns are the companies that find ways to innovate in spite of everything.” This quote comes from Brian Walker, CEO of Herman Miller. Many companies believe this is true because they consider R&D an investment. Unfortunately, since Marketing is considered an expense in most companies, these same companies often cut their Marketing spend in [...]
Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: September 18, 2008
Innovation is still getting a lot of press, most recently we read an interesting piece in Business Week. (Can’t find it on their site, so no link, sorry.) In the September 22nd issue they published some results from the 2008 BW/BCG Most Innovative Companies survey. They lumped innovation into four primary types:
Innovative products
Innovative processes
Innovative customer [...]
Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: June 13, 2007
I have just a bit more to say on this process vs. innovation issue, and then I’ll move on. (I have some thoughts on the Intel “comeback” reported by Forbes in their June 4th issue that I will be posting in the next few days.
While most of the Business Week article is very good, it [...]
Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: June 6, 2007
Many pundits argue that the current path to competitive advantage is by out-innovating the competition. This is as opposed to focusing on being more efficient than the competition. The unstated theory being that one of these two approaches is the strategy of success. A cursory review of business history shows that these two pendulum end-points [...]
