Barcelona has been shut sown by a Taxi strike which is quickly spreading to other cities in Spain and Europe. The origin of the strike is a ruling by a Spanish court that the compromise deal that the city struck between the taxi drivers and the city concerning the entry of Uber and its competitor […]
Looking Outside: How to Sense Opportunities in The Market
We’ve designed organizations that fail to respond to changes in the market. I tried to highlight this idea during my session in the TEDxIESEBarcelona – hosted at IESE campus and organized by the MBA Innovation Club. Opportunities and risks are born outside. Other organizations and people are taking action that changes the conditions of our own organizations. Yet, our organizations are designed to […]
Does Pain Cause Creativity?
If we look at the history of art and artists we see that many artists did their most creative work during the most painful phase of their lives. Pain makes everything human. It makes one empathize with others. And empathy is the greatest gift for creativity
Uber and Sospeter: An Unlikely Duo Changing Africa
While the importance of institutions and governance in Africa fostering development is often given front page, I beg to differ. For me, this is a highly theoretical debate which only results in slow – and few – practical changes at ground level. Real institutional change happens with small innovations – and here is where my […]
How Do You Stimulate Creativity?
Innovation is about translating creativity into valuable opportunities (and then capturing the value). But is creativity something that can be generated or driven within companies? And if so, how? Innovating Without Creativity Let’s take an innovation process such as design thinking. Take a problem, gather data, brainstorm, prototype and you have the solution to your […]
Innovate or Bust: The Challenge for Young Companies
Innovations are countless and all around us. Just look at the evolution of the motor industry for instance. In less than twenty years we have gone from owning a car to different ways of just sharing the asset at our convenience. There is Zipcar, driveMyCar, relayrides, Go get, and many more. Look at health industry […]
A Mistake Engineers Make When They Innovate: The Prototype
Engineers tend to be entrepreneurial people
Bell Labs are back
For most of the 20th century the corporate lab dominated technological innovation. Then it lost its position to venture capital-funded startups. But now the idea of corporate labs being central to innovation is back. New technology giants such as Google and Facebook are creating new corporate labs, but this time the logic is different. In […]
Innovation: Converting Your Company in a Startup Corporation
Established players and startups seem to be two completely different worlds. This belief has led to the Innovation Paradox: The better you are at incremental innovation, the worst you become at generating breakthrough ideas. Yet companies must beat this paradox in order to survive. How? By becoming a Startup Corporation. It is possible. Google has […]