As Peter Drucker stated long ago, “What gets measured, gets managed.” Metrics matter: they drive behavior. Read More

Not long ago, a client found out I was the creator of an early viral video campaign she had admired back in the Dark Ages (2006). When I told her about the business results, her jaw dropped. She insisted on doing something similar and asked for advice on how to begin. My answer: “Slow down. Let's... Read More

“You Need an Innovation Strategy” is the title of a recent article in the Harvard Business Review; it is also a statement of fact. An organization without one is, as author Gary Pisano notes, a “grab bag of much-touted best practices” that will only become successful through sheer luck. Pisano put... Read More

Innovation is rarely the result of a single eureka moment. In fact, the vast majority of disruptive technologies enter the market after being adapted from another industry, discipline, or use. The commingling of ideas, and the rate at which companies can adopt external sources of information, has... Read More

This is the second in a three-part commentary addressing how consumer firms can leverage a new approach to “Agile” innovation to reduce their cycle time from consumer insight to market launch, and create a steadier stream of higher-value new products. In Part One, I describe how the current state... Read More

I am often asked by customers what the difference is between discrete manufacturing and process manufacturing. One simple answer is to look at the way the end product is created. In discrete manufacturing, identical products are created, typically in an assembly line. The discrete parts or... Read More

A recent article in The Economist, “ Buying Up the Shelves”, discussed trends in slotting fees, mostly from a European perspective. While I am skeptical that regulator pressure against slotting fees will be replicated in the U.S., I think it is worth considering how this fee for new distribution... Read More

As one of our guiding principles to contribute positively to our community and environment, we dedicated a service day to assist the Foothills Animal Shelter. Sopheon employee volunteers walked the dogs, cleaned the facility, and made delicious pumpkin dog treats. Read More

Every serious innovation program should have some form of system in place to solicit and find ideas that will help the organization to achieve its goals. These systems, if used properly are very effective at finding nuggets or premature concepts that can be fed into the innovation funnel for... Read More

This is the first in a three-part commentary addressing how consumer firms can leverage a new approach to “Agile” innovation to reduce their cycle time from consumer insight to market launch, and create a steadier stream of higher-value new products. In this post, I'll describe how the current... Read More