InnovationCamp is Now on the Calendar and on the Map

May 18, 2008

InnovationCamp is an ad hoc, unconference for people who want to learn about innovation by doing rather than by listening. It’s also a mashup intended to get the people necessary for ground-breaking innovation together in one place—executives, entrepreneurs, users, engineers, designers, managers, anthropologists, artists.
With Julie Gomoll’s help, InnovationCamp now has a date (Saturday, June [...]

X/MediaLab

May 6, 2008

(Picture from XMediaLab 2006, Singapore) 
Reading through a past issue of Fast Thinking magazine recently, I came across the Australian-based XMediaLab concept.  It is an open-space creative incubator event, held a couple of times a year, where teams of creatives from different digital media industries bring forth issues, problems and possible new businesses (yes, for investing) for brainstorming and [...]

Press Q&A for Innovation Acid Test

April 30, 2008

Q & A with Andrew Jones, author of the Innovation Acid Test

Why is innovation so important to companies today?

Because cheap capital is no longer freely available, companies’ ability to grow through acquisition has been significantly limited. Thus, for firms to grow in the current environment they need to grow internally, i.e. organically.  Innovation (and new [...]

Build or Sell

April 27, 2008

Reading some Google history.
Meanwhile Sergey set up a business office, and the two began calling on potential partners who might want to license a search technology better than any then available. Despite the dotcom fever of the day, they had little interest in building a company of their own around the technology they had developed. [...]

Austin Inc.

April 26, 2008

 
 (photo from Nick Mehl Architecture)
Reflections on Jellying in Austin yesterday… My instinct is to echo what Bandit said yesterday in his Biz Hacker piece, where he suggests that, like Mary, There’s Something About Austin (too).
There has been, and continues to be, a distinct style or signature to the way businesses develop in Austin.  The culture [...]

Where Does the Rubber Hit the Road?

April 25, 2008

  
I spent yesterday at The Creative Space in Bryan, Texas.  Don’t know much about Bryan, but The Creative Space rocks!
Software development firm Downtwon Cartel was cranking out work for a Houston based client, and design/media oriented Always Creative was jamming to euro-club grooves in the office one over as I talked with Cody Marx Bailey [...]

Biz Hacker

April 25, 2008

I hate the trendy “blah blah blah hacker.com” sites (lifehacker.com, this means you, punk). They co-opted the term “hacker” and stripped it of its edge… It’s like picking up a shot glass expecting whiskey and swallowing sweet-tea instead.
Screw the “skilled programmer” neo-definition. A hacker was and is a skilled technician who gains [...]

Note to Self… HBR on Innovation at Google

April 23, 2008

podcast
Google’s success with innovation is due to a combination of traits. Some, like their ownership of the search and online advertising categories, can’t be readily emulated. Other operational and cultural traits can be emulated (I wonder how many CEOs who read HBR will actually try).

Build platforms that scale so you can move from [...]

Thinking like the Herd: Sometimes Diversity isn’t Beneficial

April 23, 2008

What does this picture tell you?
It tells me that space and opportunity for denatured, corn-syrup laden, puréed apple-based products is at its limit.
We have an entire shelf section filled with varieties of applesauce. We have original, we have green apple, we have unsweetened, we have organic, we have colored (everything except white and [...]

InnovationCamp

April 22, 2008

Think BarCamp for innovation. Few rules. No titles. No hierarchy. Just people exchanging ideas, solutions, and possibilities around innovation: business innovation, social/cultural innovation, environmental innovation, whatever…
Welcome to InnovationCamp! We invite all to attend, both those in the cowork/collab community and our good friends who live and work at BigCo. We all [...]