Killer Questions
A Bizarre New Perspective on Brainstorm
We’ve all been in a meeting where we were asked to brainstorm. The concept is familiar. Everyone involved writes out everything they can think of on the given topic, even if it seems strange, silly, or not quite practical, because sometimes, as we let our brains really run, we come across a solutio
5 Great Reasons to Ask Questions
In a world where customers have access to an almost unlimited number of products when they ask a question on Google, most of which they may not even use, it becomes even more important to differentiate yourself in order to draw attention to what you might offer. How can you make a customer’s life ea
Can The Right Questions Unlock Your Creative Process?
All of us could use a little creativity in our life. Regardless of what you do for a living, at some point in your work you will have to develop a creative process to move your business forward. Of course, unless you specifically identify as a creative person, you may feel intimidated by the whole
Beyond The Obvious Is Now Available In Simplified Chinese [创客学:苹果公司也在偷师的创新课]
During my recent trip to China I discovered that the simplified Chinese translation of my book, Beyond The Obvious (创客学:苹果公司也在偷师的创新课), has been released and on-sale. I reached out to the publisher while I was in China and there was a mad scramble to setup a handful of press interviews while I was t
Great Innovations From Asking the Right Questions
Innovation is not about solving just any problem, but about knowing which problems to solve. We discover the right problem by asking the right questions. There are a number of inflection points in history in which a brilliant person took a popularly held assumption — even one that is totally counte
Can you teach yourself to avoid doing the obvious?
The problem that many business people, entrepreneurs, and would-be innovators suffer from is our inability to escape from our past. Simply put, we are all shaped by our past experiences, whether good or bad. We look at the end results of these experiences—“this idea worked”; “this idea failed”— and
On NBC Discussing How Companies Can Be More Innovative (video)
Yesterday, I recorded two segments for NBC’s Press:Here that will appear on Sunday, April 8th @ 9:00 AM in SFO and then later on cable in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, and Washington DC. In segment one, the questions focused on the stodginess of HP, the Palm a
Ignore The Obvious speech on Innovation at Argyle Executive Forum (slides)
This morning I gave a keynote at the Argyle Executive Forum event in NYC. The title of the talk was “Ignore The Obvious” covering a wide range of areas to help the audience better understand and use innovation as a competitive advantage: Doing the obvious is what everyone expects Doing the obvious
Slides For “Predicting The Future: Answers Versus Questions” Speech
Last week, I gave a keynote speech at Edelman’s Leadership event in Chicago. The company brings together the top ~100 executives from around the world once a year. Richard Edelman asked me to present a talk at lunch about the “future of technology”. I took some liberty with the topic and focused on
Help Create The 12 Killer Questions To Innovate US Education
I’ve been asked (more like challenged) to create a dozen or so killer questions that could be used by teachers, schools, districts, state education agencies, federal agencies, etc. to help innovate the educational system in the US. I took up the challenge as a “pay it forward” project to help the
