John W Lewis

Category: innovation

  • The discontinuous nature of innovation

    Making sense of the field of innovation is not simple. This is partly because of the range of aspects of innovation that are frequently discussed. In this interview with Brightidea, the leading provider of innovation management systems, Keith McConnell, of Sara Lee, makes a distinction between innovation and “continuous improvement” in the first 25 seconds, when he…

  • Some things work now

    Some things work now

    It’s 2014! Some things still work (and some things don’t work any longer) Some things work now (and some things don’t work yet) You choose.

  • Gordon Edge, remembering a great innovator and leader

    It was with great sadness that I learned of the recent death of Gordon Edge. These are some of my memories of a great technology innovator and business leader. For a period of almost three years, during the 1980s, I was privileged to work at PA Technology, near Cambridge. This was a great place to…

  • Tesla in Texas: two innovations interacting?

    Selling innovative products If you are selling something, then you want people to buy it, but how? The challenge is greater if your product is more innovative. But maybe other innovations can come to the rescue. Resistance from existing distributors For Tesla, the electric car manufacturer which is shaking up the motor industry, Texas is…

  • How much fun will your three year old child have learning to ride a bike?

    Training wheels don’t work If you have a young child who will learn to ride a bike sometime soon, you probably have recollections of the bike that you learnt on, and the awkwardness of bikes with stabilisers (also known as: training wheels). Recently, I came across this article about training wheels and balance bikes and it…

  • Unified communication, this is not!

    In this world of increasingly diverse communication, our conversations are becoming scattered across channels. A few channels in a few minutes Yesterday, my ex-partner sent me a text (SMS) message which approximated to: “Will you please reply to my email about …?”. A few minutes later, she sent me another: “Actually, it might have been a…

  • Simply social

    Where are you looking? When innovations appear, it can be hard to see their potential benefits … especially if you are looking in the wrong place! That seems to be the case in this superbly simple story, told to me by Aren Grimshaw when we met up last week.

  • We like differently

    It is a very simple idea: we like differently. And a wide range of consequences flow from it. You and I like different things. Also you and I like or dislike the same things for different reasons and to a different extent. A significant hurdle to understanding this is the difficulty we frequently have in…

  • To innovate or not to innovate? That is not the question!

    Sooner or later continuous improvement, by any individual or organisation, runs out of steam. Marching up the slope ahead of us makes sense as an effective way to move onwards and upwards, until we reach the summit. But the summit of what? Most likely it is not the summit, it is just a summit. There…

  • Opportunities: how can we look for them?

    We are all looking for opportunities, aren’t we? Or do we focus mainly on problems? How often have you heard that every problem is an opportunity? Is this true? So what is the difference between a problem and an opportunity? Opportunities and problems are opposites. Usually, we do things because we can see the benefit of…