How I Got Better at Being Terrible: Music, Failure and The Blues-Print for Innovation
“Hey Bob – have you looked at these $10 bills? I think they’re counterfeit.” At the time, my day job was teaching school in the projects in West Philadelphia. I usually stayed late one afternoon each week to teach guitar lessons to any of the kids who were interested. I was teaching them to play […]
What is The Blues-Print for Innovation?
Most well-run corporations are a lot like successful symphony orchestras: they have whole sections of people who are highly skilled at playing their instrument (think: marketing, manufacturing, finance, etc.) and at interpreting a score (think: corporate culture) that’s open to interpretation but is nevertheless formalized. Those ensembles, however, are not designed for improvisation. (Think: innovation.) […]
MIT and Finding Your Customer
Every January, MIT offers a course called The Nuts and Bolts of New Ventures. I taught one of the two 90-minute sessions.
An Innovation Workshop via Zoom: Harsh But Fun
“I’m assigning each team a project area where I think there’s market demand. You’ve got an hour to give a five minute report to all of us…”
What If You Find Too Many Opportunities?
Jack and I met in February, when he was part of a group of innovators that took a two-day workshop on “Finding Your Customer.” Eight months later, he called me.