Human beings have long been fascinated by time. It’s very hard to see and taste; yet its effects are indisputable. Its progress is unstoppable and forward momentum irreversible. Man is working on changing his perspective both in the long term (see this link for efforts to build a clock that will run for the […]
Please take a minute to watch this amazing video. It’s a very moving story about how a poor community of 2,500 people living on a landfill in Paraguay spotted an opportunity to create instruments from trash. Aside from being an incredibly inspiring story, there are some powerful lessons here about innovation and the ability to […]
I recently spoke to a group of entrepreneurs in Minneapolis, where I shared strategy, tips and techniques for successfully approaching large organizations with their inventions and cutting-edge breakthroughs. The group was made up of inventors, investors, serial entrepreneurs, corporate business developers and others who support the incubation of innovation. As we were gathering, I introduced myself […]
I’m a fan of the Apollo 13 movie on many levels, but today I’d like to highlight the scene where the team must recommend a change to the CO2 filter. Suddenly faced with the realization that the cabin filters in their disabled craft are not operating, the crew has a very short amount of time […]
What is it about garages that drives such amazingly committed environments for nascent business startups? To give us a ground-level view (no pun intended) into this motivation, let’s explore an experience I had last week at AirVenture2013 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. For a few days, I had the good fortune to join thousands of aviation enthusiasts […]
The garage located at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto is famous for where Hewlett and Packard made it happen. It’s nothing more than a simple building with swinging doors – so what made it work? Today, we continue our examination of this question with a look at how the element of low overhead plays a […]
Picture this: An entire third-shift maintenance crew waxing floors and dancing to country music at one in the morning. After a week of grueling hours to solve a technical problem at a remote site, improvising a “rodeo” to chase the rats out of the basement with brooms in the middle of the night. Engineers riding […]
When I first began running large-scale programs for a global organization, I quickly found out that multiple time zones created an enormous strain on the team. If you are in the central US, here’s what your day might look like: a 4 A.M. wake-up call to check in with your Asian team at the end […]
In 1988, when Chrysler president Bob Lutz tasked design chief Tom Gale to create a version of the Ford Cobra, he gave the production team a charter consisting of these three parameters: A $50 million budget 36 months to get it to production (in time for the ’92 Detroit show) “Be ethical, moral, and don’t […]
Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google and Hewlett Packard all started in one. The garage is a uniquely American icon and metaphor – and it has happened too many times to ignore. Some of my earliest experiences in design, innovation, materials and fabrication occurred in the family garage under the mentorship of my father and uncles. Between […]
