In most folktales, when a young man sets off to rescue the princess and become the king, one of the first tests of his mettle involves generosity. An old woman asks that he share his meager meal, or a beggar pleads for a coin. The young man's older brothers have already refused this request, and bad things have invariably happened to them. read »
Acceptance of social media, especially Facebook, runs similar to the political spectrum. There are extremists on both sides: those who live on Facebook and those who want nothing to do with it. I, along with the rest of the American public, sit somewhere in the middle. There a big rush in the corporate techie space to get everything on to a social media platform like Facebook, from internal communication to job postings. Most of them are uncomfortable fits, but I think there is one area that does[...] read »
Recently, a reporter asked how I could be so optimistic about innovation, entrepreneurism and the American Dream when our political leaders do so little to support a national innovation strategy. I responded that I had to be optimistic, because the alternative – an America that is in perpetual decline – is unacceptable. read »
Troubled Sears wants state and local tax subsidies read »
This is a guest post from James Slavet of venture firm Greylock Partners, which invested in LinkedIn, Groupon, Pandora, Redfin and One Kings Lane. Slavet represents Greylock on the boards of Redfin and One Kings Lane. read »
It’s been interesting to watch the reaction of content providers like Big Music and Big Movies to the cloud and its related product offerings. read »
Ms. Horn raises an important issue in her article “Here’s What’s Wrong with Open Innovation - A Case for ‘Open Protection:’” how can creative people make a living in a world of “open innovation”, where the wisdom of the crowd might trump the ingenuity of the creative individual? read »
Last week I was pleased to guest post on the Front End of Innovation blog about the relationship between innovation and change. My point in that post was that you can’t just inject creativity into people and expect them to go innovate; you first need to create some changes to how things have always been done. Another thing many firms do in the quest for innovation is set up innovation teams to lead efforts within a department or branch to produce better ideas, but these groups often don’t have the[...] read »
Do you have fireproof shoes? read »