Blog
Find A Way To Say ‘Yes’ To Non-Obvious Ideas
The world is made up of ‘yes’ people and ‘no’ people. We need more optimistic — more hopeful people who find a way to say yes to non-obvious ideas. During Thomas Jefferson’s presidency in the early 1800’s, he and a group of travelers were crossing a river that had overflowed its banks. Each man cros
Find A Way To Say 'Yes' To Non-Obvious Ideas
The world is made up of ‘yes’ people and ‘no’ people. We need more optimistic -- more hopeful people who find a way to say yes to non-obvious ideas. During Thomas Jefferson's presidency in the early 1800’s, he and a group of travelers were crossing a river
Innovate to Get Ahead of the Competition: The Sputnik Moment
On October 4, 1957, Russia launched a beach-ball-sized satellite named Sputnik, which orbited the Earth in just over ninety-six minutes. The previous frontrunner in the space race, the United States, was now the runner up. Our only competitor had trounced us, seemingly out of nowhere. A month later
Innovate and Adapt to The Changing Customer Base
Lately I’ve been hearing a lot about the impending retirement surge caused by baby boomers finally leaving the workplace and how it will affect changes in the tech industry. The combined worth of this market segment is roughly in the $2 trillion bracket. That’s a lot of disposable income—and a lot o
How to Stay Relevant as an Innovator
Do you sell atoms or bytes? Do you think that your answer could change over the next five years? Think about Amazon and the Kindle. Jeff Bezos asked, What is my role going to be if the nature of books changes? He realized that to stay relevant and necessary his company needed to retain control […]
Finding Ways to Offer Underused Resources
I’m an innovation guy. It may not say so on my business card, but that’s what I do. I encourage people, whether inside HP or in my meetings with customers around the world, to accept that they and their product are going to have to change. No matter how popular and successful your work is, […]
Vision Video Of The Near Future: Diverse Thinkers Wanted
Last week, we released our fourth installment in the Near Future series of vision videos. I started creating these vision video’s back in 2006 when I was at HP. The most recent film titled The Near Future: Diverse Thinkers Wanted explores the impact of technologies on our work lives. The Future Visi
The Zero-Tolerance Consumer
The designers and engineers who work at HP face many challenges in getting their ideas signed off on. It’s a long process from an idea to a finished prototype. Before any product can hit the market, it faces one final test. I take the prototype home, give it to my wife, and say, “Tell me […]
Education and Change
About a year ago I got a call inviting me to participate in a meeting with the Department of Education because they were actively looking at ways to innovate how kids are educated. I agreed to participate in a meeting in San Francisco, and I was happy to have the opportunity to do so. My […]
The Battle for Customers
Odds are that you and your competitors are actually competing in two distinct ways. The obvious battle is the one to win customers from each other. The less obvious, but equally important, one is the battle for the resources required to produce your product. We touched on the concept of unexpected j
