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Watching the UK Government’s response to the Coronavirus outbreak reminds me of a point I always stress when first introducing people to Innovation: INNOVATION IS A PROCESS and it only counts when you complete the journey. So many people think of innovation as the initial idea, that creative moment when you invent/think of something new…but that is the easy part (no really it is!). The tough part comes afterwards converting the idea into reality. It is the seemingly endless meetings and iterations to hone the product/service into something the end user needs (and thus wants) at a price they are willing (and able) to pay.Read More →

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Tick-box management We are seeing a hollowing out of real management skills as more tasks are moved downstream to junior staff, implemented via tick box checklists, using procedures handed down by admin staff. On the face if it this looks like an ideal corporate solution to what is usually the largest cost base for a company – salaries.  If you can get lower paid workers to cover most of the actual ‘doing’ stuff, and admin staff take more of a role in ‘setting and monitoring the tasks’ the role of the middle manager becomes redundant. After all what is the role of a middle manager? To tell their juniorsRead More →

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“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” “Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.”   “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”   “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”   “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” All quotesRead More →

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I am sitting listening to an audio revelation: vinyl. It’s the next big thing! When I was in my youth,admittedly a while ago now, it was the done thing to pore over Hi-Fi magazines and dream of owning the largest speakers and the biggest amps (both in size and price) in order to attain audio nirvana – perfect reproduction from a vinyl disc of the recording made in the studio. I even remember pages and pages devoted to which speaker cable was best. Then came digital, CDs promised the exact digital copy of the sound studio recording onto a convenient, stable format impervious to theRead More →

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Policymakers place great emphasis on innovation as the way for companies, and the economy, to grow and thrive. Indeed, innovation has become a sort of catch all term for ‘improvement’. But without at least a common understanding of what we all mean by innovation, we will struggle to find a way to discuss it in a meaningful way. Personally my preferred definition of innovation is “doing something different that has an impact”. You may notice that I don’t stipulate it has to be a positive impact. Some innovations turn out to be harmful to businesses (remember ‘New Coke’?). Others can be great for business butRead More →