Pogo had the business wisdom decades ago.

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Tom Rieger, a Senior Practice Expert for Gallup, once wrote that “The greatest threat to an organization’s success is not always the competition. Often, it is what a company does to itself. “

Image via Wikipedia

Rieger, who has ...

Image via Wikipedia

A few weeks ago, SeriouslyCreative and Inotivity helped a major company disrupt themselves.

It was a disruption day.

A day for them to ask questions that they typically don’t ask themselves.  A day to look at how conventional thinking has helped them achieve ...

The real currency of innovation is ideas.

And while every insight is an idea.

Not every idea is an insight.

The late chairman of the advertising agency BBDO, Phil Dusenberry made the idea vs. insight subject the cornerstone of his terrific book, Then We Set His Hair on Fire.

“Ideas are a dime a dozen; anyone can have them. They can be good ...

In the early 90’s, The Martin Agency asked me to write one of the first Marriott web sites.  Martin had recently created an outstanding and forward-thinking site for Coca Cola and I jumped at the chance.

The site was in the form of aTraveler’s Journal and it had the just right number of bells and whistles that the age of dial-up modem could handle. It was a success and over time evolved into a more business-oriented site.

But the prevailing question at ...

In the laudable attempt to simplify innovation,  most innovation gurus have created a kind of  linear process.  It’s typically four or five sequential  steps that follow a similar pattern of problem definition, ideation and finally implementation.  These approaches  are brilliant in that they make the complex understandable and set the foundation for further learning.

But the reality of innovation is a bit more complicated.

A good metaphor can be found the neuroscientist David Eagleman’s enlightening book, Incognito.  It began with the discovery ...

Inotivity was born at 30,000 feet on an airplane flying between Chicago and Richmond, Virginia.

It was Sunday, December 9, 2007.

I had just finished a tremendous and inspiring week of innovation training with Gerald Haman at the Thinkubator in Chicago.

When the plane finally reached cruising altitude, I took out a small notebook and began scribbling ideas for a new company. The accompany photo are my actual notebook ramblings. In about four ...