Greetings!

Successful decision making is linked to discerning the differences between what is desired (wanted) and what is required (needed). That applies to innovation, too.

Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...

Greetings!

One of the most common and difficult decisions for an inventor is whether or not to invest in a patent for his invention.

Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...

This week's newsletter aims to shed some light on a topic that may seem somewhat mysterious to lay persons (and even to some industry insiders!): how do companies decide which solutions to adopt for their technical challenges and needs? It's time to shine some light in the black box.

Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...

Many people (myself included) see real merit in the idea of "embracing failure" as a means of furthering learning in a business setting. It is a noble idea in principle, as realistically not every new initiative is destined to succeed. However, many of us also know that "success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan".

Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...

Greetings!

Online professional social networks such as LinkedIn make it easier than ever to create business connections. However, one should not lose sight of the fact that successful professional networking is predicated on actively creating and nurturing real interpersonal relationships and not simply making virtual connections.

Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...

Most open innovation web portals currently offer users a pretty impersonal experience. By design, they enable the company to collect, circulate and review internally large numbers of external technology submissions without prematurely needing to directly interact with submitters. Unfortunately, while this hands-off approach is efficient for the program's administrators, because virtually all submissions are routinely rejected it contributes to users feeling anonymous and unable to build any kind of relationship with the company.

Greetings!

April is finally here. Summer is drawing nearer. If you have school aged children and have a need to think about what to do with them once school lets out...read on, dear friends...

BFS Innovations Summer Camp:

The Once-In-A-Lifetime (Tech) Scouting Experience For Your Innovator-in-Training

The starting point for any technology sourcing endeavor is articulation by Marketing of its Business Needs, which are subsequently translated by R&D into Technical Needs. This step makes the technology search mission clear (it should also describe the success criteria). In effect, it should set the stage so that if R&D finds what is sought, Marketing has tacitly agreed to "buy" it from them. However, what happens if the Need is ambiguous, or is subject to multiple interpretations? That, my friends, represents a moving target...which, as we all know, is much, much harder to successfully hit.

In a recent survey by leadership development and training company Fierce Inc., 86 percent of respondents said that ineffective communication or lack of collaboration was to blame for workplace failures. (Source: Rieva Lesonsky) This doesn't surprise me at all. These failures can have myriad causes. Experience tells me that the most likely contributors to failure are:

As marketers, it's always a good idea to remind ourselves that we don't know what consumers want and need better than they do. Further, it's useful to recall that insight is typically at the heart of innovation. It took a phone call with my 85 year old mother the other week to reinforce these messages.