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Innovation

These essays on innovation cover a wide range of topics, from the basics of innovation to detailed case studies and examples. Each essay is designed to give readers an understanding of the principles that drive innovation while providing practical advice on creating successful innovations. Through these essays, I aim to help readers better understand the process of innovation and use it more effectively in their own lives.

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Who is passionate about my product

I’ve never shopped at the online craft marketplace Etsy.com or even any of its competitors. Not an area of interest for me as I’m not often in the market for hand-knitted iPod cozies, customized guitar cables, or the like. As for my wife and daughters – they are

Who is passionate about my product
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What is surprisingly inconvenient about my product

What is surprisingly inconvenient about my product? 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

What is surprisingly inconvenient about my product
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How Can My Product Change in 5 Years

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

How Can My Product Change in 5 Years
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Where do we perform research and development

Where do we perform product research and development? Where else could this be done? What is your organization’s philosophy about design and development? Do you keep everything in-house, or do you outsource as needed? There are two schools of thoughts on this.   By keeping the design process in-house, a

Where do we perform research and development
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Where are your future customers?

How will you identify and locate customers in five years? Every hot trend reaches a point I like to call the “Uncle Larry moment.” You know what I mean. It’s the juncture where one of your older relatives announces he’s taken up something that had seemed cutting edge, futuristic, and exciting up til

customers
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In What Order Do You Do the R and D Process

In the traditional R&D process, the product is developed and then handed off to the design team to “wrap” it and make it look pretty. The drawback is that this approach is out of date; in the last ten years consumers have become much more design-savvy.   Consumers want

In What Order Do You Do the R and D Process
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What emotional psychological or status benefit could people derive from my product

What emotional, psychological, or status benefits could people derive from using my product? Do you have diamonds stashed away that you reckon you can sell if times ever get tough? Say, a family heirloom, or an engagement ring from a failed marriage? Perhaps you know how much the diamond was

What emotional psychological or status benefit could people derive from my product
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What is the process used by my customer to discover my product

Do you have a digital twin? The concept first formed on consumer sites like Yelp, but it’s becoming a catchphrase in marketing and sales. The idea is that dedicated users of sites like Yelp eventually notice that there are other users whose tastes, interests, and “favorites” match their own.

What is the process used by my customer to discover my product
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Who am I not selling to because I think they can’t or won’t pay for my product?

Who am I not selling to because I think they can’t or won’t pay for my product? Price is king, right? “Build ’em cheap and stack ’em high” is practically the motto of most segments of the tech industry Naturally, there are some notable exceptions for companies producing

Who am I not selling to because I think they can’t or won’t pay for my product?
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What are your unshakable beliefs about what your customers want

One thing is to know what your customers want to do, another is to understand how they intend to get it done. It’s easy to look at their goals and tell yourself that your product will match their needs. However, if you don’t understand their internal philosophy about

What are your unshakable beliefs about what your customers want