Needing to break out of the long winter here in the Midwest, I took a cruise last week into the western Caribbean. One of the simple pleasures of cruising is figuring out the physical layout of the ship, particularly the vertical and horizontal passageways that lead to all manners of entertainment, food and sunshine. Those […]
When I was a younger man, I had a long string of back problems that resulted in repeated episodes of injury, muscle relaxants and rest in an effort to live a normal life. It was only a relatively short time ago that I finally saw an orthopedic doctor and a physical therapist who found I […]
It’s that time of year, with article after article citing the trends that will matter most in 2014. Do a quick Google search and you’ll see what I mean — right now there are over 1.5M total hits for the term “2014 trends” alone: About 1,540,000 results (0.30 seconds) As an innovation leader or sponsoring […]
One of the biggest trends in how enterprise organizations operate is the peer-to-peer sharing of ideas across large numbers of employees. InformationWeek recently published some research about a long-term study that showed impressive gains in internal measures (projects on time) and customer-facing results (sales associates exceeding plan). Tools such as Salesforce.com and its formation of […]
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 […]
There has been an across the board shift since the 2008 financial crisis that has made the job of business development in large organizations much different than it was in the early 2000’s. Some of the biggest changes include an increased pressure to do more with less resources, an increased need for collaboration and more […]
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 […]
The recent news of the Microsoft offer to acquire Nokia’s handset business has brought many layers of responses regarding technology, market niche and global footprint. Very few commentators have hit on what I see as the real issue, however: culture clash. With the button-down, northern European hardware culture of the Finns in stark contrast to the software-centric […]
I had the good fortune to travel through Cedarville, Michigan this summer and take a tour of the Great Lakes Boat Building School, the only wooden boat building school in the Midwest. Bud McIntire, their director of development, took us on a tour of their operation to give us a behind-the-scenes look at the fascinating […]
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 […]
