Something amazing happens when large market forces and high-quality research come together in your product development process — a wave of innovation moves through your company, lifting up and carrying the ripest ideas all the way to market without losing their freshness and vitality. However, most companies are actually doing the opposite — they are […]
Like so many others in our field, I devoured the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs the moment it hit the shelves. I was struck by just how far Jobs was from our current managerial ideal, being as he was notoriously difficult and exacting in his vision. Many thousands of hours of managerial training have been […]
As a young product manager in the mid-90’s, I was sipping champagne and enjoying company cafeteria cake in Finland with the executive team of a multinational cell phone company. We were celebrating their new cell phone, whose battery life was measured in weeks, not days. But as I sipped my champagne from a plastic cup, […]
Getting the Call I was on my normal early morning commute when my cell phone rang; it was the leader of an advanced technology task force for the government of a large Midwestern state. I had been collaborating with this team on securing a multi-million dollar national grant for their region. The promise of our […]
We slunk back to our conference room and stare at the walls and table littered with papers. Weeks of pulling data, drawing graphs, running complex simulations: REJECTED. Our team’s substantial capital request to increase raw material production capacity had been denied! If our forecasts were correct, we’d be unable to meet customer demand in 12 […]
I believe that continuous innovation is the key to a vital firm. Yet in looking for areas to innovate, many business leaders steer clear of markets adjacent to large companies, worried that the big guys will crowd them out. In times of economic pressure, however, these markets can create very fertile ground for new growth […]
