Dispatches from the FrontierMusings on Entrepreneurship and InnovationA Dynamic Portfolio of Options- May 29, 2007 Ashton Udall over at the Product Global blog makes a couple of straightforward, but frequently ignored, observations: Companies have constrained capacities. That is, they cannot do everything at once. Furthermore, commitment to a strategy - by definition - consumes a great deal of capacity. Often, little capacity is reserved for the cultivation of additional strategic and growth options. A portfolio of prospective innovations need not be created in one shot; they can be...http://radio.weblogs.com/0111718/2007/05/29.html#a341 A Buyer's Guide to the Innovation Bazaar- May 28, 2007 In the June 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review, Satish Nambisan and Mohan Sawhney present a framework for understanding the differing roles of Invention Capital, Innovation Capital, and Venture Capital firms in the context of Open Innovation. In their article, A Buyer's Guide to the Innovation Bazaar, they observe, "Companies can shop for innovation in various stages of development - from raw ideas to market-ready products - with the help of intermediaries." Along this...http://radio.weblogs.com/0111718/2007/05/28.html#a340 Uncertainty, Consumer Demand, and the 8020 Rule- May 26, 2007 Ask the chairman of P&G - the $70 billion consumer goods giant - who is more important to his company's success: Wal-Mart or housewives. Sure, it's a tough choice, but I suspect that he'd answer "housewives." In other words, although the Long Tail distribution of market outcomes in the highly competitive world of consumer products is undoubtedly the result of the interaction of supply and demand, it seems likely to me that the dynamics of demand provide the foundation for...http://radio.weblogs.com/0111718/2007/05/26.html#a339 The Long Tail: A Practical Guide for Inventors- May 26, 2007 The likely sales of a compelling product in a large consumer market is smaller than you think. On the other hand, there is small - but meaningful - chance that your product could be a runaway hit. Many, maybe most, individual inventors tend to fixate on the latter and ignore the former. The results can be disasterous. The trap is easy to fall into. Just the other day, an inventor sent me some research that suggests that the total U.S. retail market for products like his..http://radio.weblogs.com/0111718/2007/05/26.html#a338 Entrepreneurship in Montana- May 24, 2007 John Cook, a venture capital reporter in Seattle, quotes a recent study that names Montana as the most entrepreneurial state in the U.S. Heck, nobody is going to hire us, so we have to create our own work.http://radio.weblogs.com/0111718/2007/05/23.html#a337 |