Here’s a quick quiz for you. Is it easier to get A: 1% of a huge, established market? or B: 100% of a completely new one? If you work for Apple, you might have picked B. But too often when companies embark on innovation projects, they pick A: that is, they start by believing that [...]
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One of the challenges facing market leaders is that transformational trends are only obvious when it’s too late. Typically, transformation starts in seemingly disconnected industries, or as innocent offerings targeting completely different customer segments. To spot these trends early, companies need to heed the advice of Wharton Professor George Day and long-time thought leader (and [...]
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The art and science of behavior change took center stage at this year’s TEDMED. And what a stage it was. The healthcare offshoot of the TED conference moved from its prior digs in San Diego into the elegant Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The venue helped blur the line between speaking and performance, as typified [...]
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A movement originating from the United States’ West Coast has sought to transform the creation of new businesses from an art to a science. The intellectual leader of the movement is Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur who now teaches at Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley. One of Blank’s disciples, Eric Ries, turned [...]
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From the bankruptcy at Borders to the further downgrading of J. C. Penney’s stock despite its high-profile re-branding efforts, retailers have been in the news a lot lately—most of it bad. But there’s some good news from one of the unlikeliest parts of the retail sector—groceries, which is known for its razor-thin profit margins. This [...]
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In Facebook’s initial public offering filing, Mark Zuckerberg says his company adheres to “the hacker way.” Experiment, try a lot of new ideas, prototype them, and keep moving. It’s an ethic that the company will need more than ever when its shares are trading at a projected multiple of 25 times revenue. To meet elephantine [...]
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Usually the question comes right after I tell an audience that I put former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley on my “Innovation Mount Rushmore” as a reminder of the importance of investing time and energy to understand the target market. “But how do you square that with Steve Jobs?” an intrepid audience member asks. [...]
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There’s an interesting example of Innosight’s jobs-to-be-done framework in action in February’s issue of Fast Company. It turns out that YouTube is organizing its search results around the concept. It started with an insight into customer behavior. Shiva Rajaraman, YouTube group product manager, says that the site’s top search queries are “funny videos,” “LOL,” and [...]
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Analyzing the timing of consumer needs can help you “mix and match” a new experience Innovators can sometimes find surprising new business mashups at the crossroads of two customer needs. At a recent lunch seminar with Innosight co-founder Clayton Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor observed how the timing of two different “jobs to be [...]
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Our eyes are underrated innovation tools. It’s easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of activities and miss opportunities that are literally right in front of your face. Make a regular habit of just standing and watching. You may be surprised by what you see. Here’s how it worked for me recently. This Monday, [...]
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