A book on World War II teaches a lesson for today on innovation. In Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom by Pulitzer-prize winning author Thomas E. Ricks (New York: Penguin, 2017), we learn about some of the reasons England struggled to defend itself effectively in dealing with Germany. A key problem discussed by Ricks …
Innovation Fatigue: How Britain Almost Lost the War Against Hitler Read More »
Many leading IP professionals working with the US patent system are growing increasingly concerned about the weakening of the IP system there. Some are so concerned that they are wondering what steps can be taken to save it. Save it from what, you might ask? Save it from erosion of the basic property rights that …
A Need To Save the US Patent System: A Warning from Dana Rohrabacher Read More »
A small start-up company fighting one of the great giants of all time: it’s a classic story of David vs. Goliath, or in this case, David vs. Googleliath (a.k.a. VSL vs. Google). Many small companies have claimed that Google misappropriated trade secrets or other IP, but rarely has Google graciously (and accidentally) cooperated in providing …
At the Marcus Evans Innovate 2014 Conference in Shanghai today, I met Rosalie Wu, the head of marketing in China for the rapidly growing startup, Uber. Rosalie was Uber’s first hire in China and exemplifies the energetic, entrepreneurial spirit that is driving Uber to global success. She spoke about the development of Uber’s innovative business …
A painful message from the CEO of Nokia, shared below, reminds us that the pain of disruptive innovation often catches major incumbents unaware. As they listen to their existing customers and improve existing products and services, often incrementally, they may not sense the tsunami of change that is coming from afar. The innovations that will …
A Burning Platform: Nokia Faces Its Own Innovation Fatigue Read More »
Doug Gross at CNN has a list of the top 10 tech product failures in recent years (hat tip to Greg Aharonian’s Patnews newsletter). The list includes: LaserDisc Apple Newton Google Wave Segway Microsoft KIN Pets.com TwitterPeak Atari Jaguar HD-DVD Virtual Reality Some great ideas and even some cool technology went into most of these …
I am delighted to see Wired Magazine feature a story about the new book on the largely untold story of one of the original inventors of the computer. Nearly everyone has heard the standard story of the invention of the ENIAC computer at Penn State by a team led by John Mauchly and J. Presper …
The Invention of the Computer: Pulitzer-Prize Novelist Will Tell the Untold Story Read More »
The world of automobiles today is radically different than it was a twenty years ago, based on several metrics. In the area of fuel efficiency, it was once an automotive maxim that if you wanted good fuel efficiency, manual transmission was clearly the best way to go. Automatic transmission was more convenient but far more …
In May 2010 I was invited to speak at a conference of WTA (the Wisconsin Telecommunications Association) about innovation lessons for the telecommunications industry from our recently published book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009). Here is a condensed version of the presentation. I’ll do another Pixetell soon with some additional content. Can’t …
The latest Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM), an excellent journal from PDMA for those interested in innovation and new product development, has an article that describes an approach to disruptive innovation that we developed at Kimberly-Clark Corporation when I was there as Corporate Patent Strategist. “Disruptive Innovation and the Need for Disruptive Intellectual Asset …
Disruptive Intellectual Assets: New Article Published in JPIM Read More »