Expert insights. Personalized for you.
I've spent the week hacking away on MonkeyMake.it as part of the LUXr.co residency program where I'm learning more about User Experience design under the mentorship of Janice Fraser (@celevergirl) and her #leanUX mafia including my friend Tim McCoy (@seriouslynow). Entrepreneurship lean startup User Experience MORE
At the moment many Swedish manufacture plants are bought by BRIC players which are an interesting phenomenon as the interest is increasing meaning that there are reasons beyond low interest here. Historically European countries like Sweden has had a low interest which has lead to investments in automated manufacturing plants competitive with labor intensive manufacturer in the BRIC area, we can find examples like Flextronics. However, in recently bought manufacturing plants it is different. MORE
Top 3 Ways to Fail at Customer Development: Fail #1 - Talk talk talk Fail #2 - ??????? ???? Fail #3 - Being Gullible. Customer Development Entrepreneurship Lean startup MORE
The Swedish Learning Award 2011 is completed and the winner selected. Guess if I am a proude chairman of Lexicon Interactive as they won in the category mobile learning. The winning contribution was a complete new kind of App for the Swedish Addison Society , and the motivation was “Addison is a serious fatal disease that requires constant attention to immediate life-saving measures if it would end up in an Addison crisis. MORE
The best products don’t focus on features, they focus on clarity. Problems should be fixed through simple solutions, something you don’t have to configure, maintain, control. The perfect solution needs to be so simple and transparent you forget it’s even there. However, elegantly minimal designs don’t happen by chance. They’re the result of difficult decisions. MORE
"What the best tool for wireframing?" I've used quite a few and I've come to a pretty strong opinion on the best tools for the job. Product Management User Experience design mockups wireframing MORE
Innovation is a way of getting competitive advantage which is well known and documented since ancient times, ranging from machinery, war equipment to the beauty industry and all trial building the perpetuum mobile. What´s happened lately is the paradigm shift of opening up the innovation process from being secret and closed towards inviting for collective wisdom and creativity. We call it open innovation or sometimes Innovation 2.0. MORE
It is a lot of buzz about green innovations and much talk about potential green washing. And we have seen it all before with pink washing and white washing. To understand whether green innovation is washing or not the question to ask is why it exists. To cover up? To gain short term winnings? To move the focus away from other issues? Or is it possible that it really might exist a long term market opportunity here? Let’s start with low energy light bulbs. MORE
That was the theme a few days back at 2010 Angel Capital Association Summit in San Francisco and the title of the speech by angel investor and blogger Basil Peters , who asserted that VCs are essentially dinosaurs saddled with too-big funds at a time when entrepreneurs can create companies cheaply and quickly, sometimes over a weekend. MORE
Last Friday we could read an interesting blog post by Scott Anthony. It was about four typical innovation pitfalls. Great article , and I like to comment upon it. The first lie is that you can trust the feedback when asking customers, and instead go for what they do today or if they are ready to spend some money on a new idea (on an early stage). MORE
If something is wrong with your spark plug, you don't shoot it. And threatening it with violence isn't going to prevent it from getting dirty. Entrepreneurship Management blame leadership management MORE
Innovation is a way of getting competitive advantage which is well known and documented since ancient times, ranging from machinery, war equipment to the beauty industry and all trial building the perpetuum mobile. What´s happened lately is the paradigm shift of opening up the innovation process from being secret and closed towards inviting for collective wisdom and creativity. We call it open innovation or sometimes Innovation 2.0. MORE
As we speak there is a new trend rising providing us with opportunities or threats, depending on what side of the fence you are mentally located. Let’s first back the tape a bit. Take a moment and ask yourself “why are people launching apps on Android and iTunes in numbers close to impossible to believe”? Is it to give away apps for free making the world a better place? To earn money? To be seen and confirmed? I think it is because it is possible, and the evolution takes care of the rest. MORE
In a recently report Gartner state that games will be used to drive innovations, an old phenomenon but interesting. One of the most interesting stories is about how LEGO made an amazing turnaround some years back, and in the new spirit started to invited their customers to design and customize their own LEGO via Internet. And not just that, they also released a complete new highly interactive and flexible platform Mindstorm encouraging customers to design and develop their own LEGO-robots. MORE
Sometimes pivoting describes how entrepreneurs adapt to customer feedback. Sometimes it's an annoying buzzword, grating to the ears. Customer Development Entrepreneurship Investment Lean startup Pitching anti-patterns lean startup pivot pivot MORE
The pursuit of someone who is "committed to the idea" is insidious because it's less obviously flawed. Why wouldn't you want a co-founder who's in love with your idea? Entrepreneurship Finding Co-Founders Human Resources cofounder cofounder dating finding a co-founder MORE
Would you rather take a photo using your phone, a point-and-shoot camera, or a digital SLR ? How you answer this question is probably a good indicator of your photographic expertise. If you snap casual shots, your phone or a point-and-shoot camera will probably suffice. MORE
When considering this issue, many people will focus on incentivizing the founders as well as issues of equality and equity. I would recommend a deep understanding how roles and responsibilities will be divided prior to discussing the equity split. Finding Co-Founders Investment co-founders equity vesting schedule MORE
Yes and no. A business plan as a lengthy 40 page document which lays out a five year plan is still used in many companies, in many industries, in many countries around the world. Entrepreneurship Strategy business model business plans MORE
8] Booz & Co, “Executives Say They’re Pulled in Too Many Directions and That Their Company’s Capabilities Don’t Support Their Strategy,&# (Feb 2011). Did you ever get bounced around between departments when interacting with a company or service? This happened to me recently with my credit card: the card issuer and the bank backing it seemed to disagree who was responsible for my problem. Each blamed the other. I got caught in the middle. MORE
I receive a large number of requests for referrals to investors, co-founders, feedback, etc. I also send out a lot of requests for help, advice, etc. I try to respond to all of them and I try to be as helpful as possible, but sometimes I can't. So I filter. Pitching cold call email pitching MORE
55 If the customer doesn't start complaining for the next fifteen minutes, they don't have a pain point. The length of time a person will complain uninterrupted is a pretty good proxy for the amount of pain they're feeling. Customer Development Entrepreneurship customer validation entrepreneur MORE
I'd rather learn from someone who has screwed up ten companies than someone who has only started one. After all, what's Zuckerberg going to teach you?). Entrepreneurship lean startup consulting experts MORE
Just the other day A Great Place to Work also released their list 2011 FORTUNE’S 100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR® which is based upon a deeper cultural audit and as far as I can see much more reliable. Their Top 5 on the Fortune list 2011 is: SAS. Today Hey Group release their Global Top 20 companies for leadership, top five at the list was: General Electric. Procter & Gamble. Intel Corporation. Siemens. Banco Santander. MORE
For the past 7 days I've been working round the clock to organize and promote a StartupWeekend in San Jose. It start in two days. A ridiculous and ill advised timeline. Entrepreneurship Finding Co-Founders lean startup Marketing startup startupweekend MORE
Three principles that everyone at the TechBA lean startup bootcamp by TechBA agree on including Patrick Vlaskovits, Brant Cooper, Tim McCoy and Hiten Shah. Customer Development Entrepreneurship lean startup startup MORE
I recently ran across an old guide to running meetings that I wrote for a larger company. Here is is with only minor edits: Productivity meetings organizing meetings MORE
It's time to consider whether it's time for a National Endowment for Open Source. Is there any doubt right now about the strength and power of open source software for accelerating technological innovation? Entrepreneurship Uncategorized open source politics MORE
Are our expectations of humanity so low that we are prepared to proclaim not fighting amongst ourselves as an innovation? Entrepreneurship MORE
Image via Wikipedia 2011 is the 100th anniversary of a really bad idea. In 1911, the British Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott’s determination to learn less, rather than more -- about life, clothing and diet in extreme cold conditions -- led to his assuming that he was smarter than thousands of MORE
Join us Saturday, May 28th, 2011 at UX SketchCamp [“SketchCamp.com&# :[link] or &# @sketchcamp&# :[link] on Twitter] in San Francisco for a chance to learn from the experts, practice UX sketching and share what you know with others. MORE
Personas are an amazing tool for doing customer development. They are the clearest form of hypothesis, test, and learn (a.k.a. build, measure, learn). Customer Development Entrepreneurship User Experience design lean user experience personas user experience MORE
There's a whole academic (and practical) discipline out there which has been doing something suspiciously close to Customer Development over two decades. Customer Development Entrepreneurship Lean startup Product Management User Experience design lean user experience leanux user experience ux MORE
A friend of mine was thinking about joining a startup and asked me, "How stable are startups?" Well.not very. Entrepreneurship Human Resources Investment hiring stability startups uncertainty MORE
It's been a few days now since Steve Jobs passed away and his legacy continues to occupy my thoughts throughout my week. I recently watched the video of his memorial service from Apple's Cupertino campus and wanted to share a few items with you, in the hopes that you'll be encouraged by this.The service began with a moving introduction from Apple CEO, Tim Cook. While all of his remarks were. what if?" MORE
Don't outsource your decision making. Even if it's someone you respect and they've tried a similar business model before, do the customer development yourself. Customer Development Entrepreneurship Investment Lean startup experts mentors pivot MORE
Over the last year the key topics within the world of innovations has been impacted by social responsibility and sustainability aspects, which can be seen by analyzing the last 12 months of Google searching using Google Insights for Search. The top area of interest over the last 12 month has been. business innovation. open innovation. innovation management. technology innovation. social innovation. US, Canada and KU is dominating all searches except from Open Innovation where Germany is leading. MORE
Oh, yes, I now remember that Necessity is the Mother of Invention. Sorry, Plato, I had to borrow your quote here as I was reminded today by a former student that simple innovations are often the best innovations. See for yourself by watching this short video. answers in the everyday creativity green tech ingenuity innovation repurposed solar solving a pain tinkering MORE
Joseph Schumpeter , the guru of innovation, addressed the process of innovation with his theory of creative destruction and his definition of entrepreneurs as people who combined existing elements in new ways to create a new product or service. MORE
Social Innovation and sustainable thinking is emerging, business leaders shifting focus using social and sustainable thinking sharpening their competitive advantages. Interested reading more? Have a look at our new trend watch at [link]. The post Buy 10,000 green mil and get an Audi for free appeared first on Home of Innovation. Blog Uncategorized Audi Green Green Innovation Innovation Social Innovation Sustanability MORE
Minimum Viable Test is a Terrible Name Minimum Viable Schism If an MVP Falls in the forrest without anyone around to hear it, does it make a sound? Minimum Viable Interaction. Entrepreneurship MORE
There is an ongoing misconception that creating a company under a lean startup approach is incompatible with a big entrepreneurial vision. Customer Development Entrepreneurship Lean startup startup vision MORE
Since writing more about design, I've been getting emails asking for design feedback. Unfortunately, no one seems to include a description of the customer. Entrepreneurship User Experience customer personas design user experience MORE
2011 Related Topics Boxes and Arrows
JANUARY 5, 2011
Join us Saturday, May 28th, 2011 at UX SketchCamp [“SketchCamp.com&# :[link] or &# @sketchcamp&# :[link] on Twitter] in San Francisco for a chance to learn from the experts, practice UX sketching and share what you know with others.
Boxes and Arrows
APRIL 20, 2011
Would you rather take a photo using your phone, a point-and-shoot camera, or a digital SLR ? How you answer this question is probably a good indicator of your photographic expertise. If you snap casual shots, your phone or a point-and-shoot camera will probably suffice.
Grasshopper Herder
OCTOBER 24, 2011
Sometimes pivoting describes how entrepreneurs adapt to customer feedback. Sometimes it's an annoying buzzword, grating to the ears. Customer Development Entrepreneurship Investment Lean startup Pitching anti-patterns lean startup pivot pivot
Boxes and Arrows
NOVEMBER 22, 2011
The best products don’t focus on features, they focus on clarity. Problems should be fixed through simple solutions, something you don’t have to configure, maintain, control. The perfect solution needs to be so simple and transparent you forget it’s even there. However, elegantly minimal designs don’t happen by chance. They’re the result of difficult decisions.
Boxes and Arrows
SEPTEMBER 7, 2011
8] Booz & Co, “Executives Say They’re Pulled in Too Many Directions and That Their Company’s Capabilities Don’t Support Their Strategy,&# (Feb 2011). Did you ever get bounced around between departments when interacting with a company or service? This happened to me recently with my credit card: the card issuer and the bank backing it seemed to disagree who was responsible for my problem. Each blamed the other. I got caught in the middle.
Grasshopper Herder
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011
Top 3 Ways to Fail at Customer Development: Fail #1 - Talk talk talk Fail #2 - ??????? ???? Fail #3 - Being Gullible. Customer Development Entrepreneurship Lean startup
Grasshopper Herder
OCTOBER 11, 2011
The pursuit of someone who is "committed to the idea" is insidious because it's less obviously flawed. Why wouldn't you want a co-founder who's in love with your idea? Entrepreneurship Finding Co-Founders Human Resources cofounder cofounder dating finding a co-founder
|
Grasshopper Herder
JUNE 29, 2011
Are our expectations of humanity so low that we are prepared to proclaim not fighting amongst ourselves as an innovation? Entrepreneurship
Grasshopper Herder
FEBRUARY 15, 2011
Yes and no. A business plan as a lengthy 40 page document which lays out a five year plan is still used in many companies, in many industries, in many countries around the world. Entrepreneurship Strategy business model business plans
Grasshopper Herder
MAY 3, 2011
Three principles that everyone at the TechBA lean startup bootcamp by TechBA agree on including Patrick Vlaskovits, Brant Cooper, Tim McCoy and Hiten Shah. Customer Development Entrepreneurship lean startup startup
Grasshopper Herder
MARCH 7, 2011
If the customer doesn't start complaining for the next fifteen minutes, they don't have a pain point. The length of time a person will complain uninterrupted is a pretty good proxy for the amount of pain they're feeling. Customer Development Entrepreneurship customer validation entrepreneur
Grasshopper Herder
FEBRUARY 8, 2011
When considering this issue, many people will focus on incentivizing the founders as well as issues of equality and equity. I would recommend a deep understanding how roles and responsibilities will be divided prior to discussing the equity split. Finding Co-Founders Investment co-founders equity vesting schedule
Grasshopper Herder
JULY 13, 2011
Personas are an amazing tool for doing customer development. They are the clearest form of hypothesis, test, and learn (a.k.a. build, measure, learn). Customer Development Entrepreneurship User Experience design lean user experience personas user experience
|
Grasshopper Herder
SEPTEMBER 22, 2011
If something is wrong with your spark plug, you don't shoot it. And threatening it with violence isn't going to prevent it from getting dirty. Entrepreneurship Management blame leadership management
Grasshopper Herder
DECEMBER 6, 2011
Minimum Viable Test is a Terrible Name Minimum Viable Schism If an MVP Falls in the forrest without anyone around to hear it, does it make a sound? Minimum Viable Interaction. Entrepreneurship
Grasshopper Herder
FEBRUARY 22, 2011
I receive a large number of requests for referrals to investors, co-founders, feedback, etc. I also send out a lot of requests for help, advice, etc. I try to respond to all of them and I try to be as helpful as possible, but sometimes I can't. So I filter. Pitching cold call email pitching
Grasshopper Herder
OCTOBER 4, 2011
Don't outsource your decision making. Even if it's someone you respect and they've tried a similar business model before, do the customer development yourself. Customer Development Entrepreneurship Investment Lean startup experts mentors pivot
Grasshopper Herder
MARCH 17, 2011
I'd rather learn from someone who has screwed up ten companies than someone who has only started one. After all, what's Zuckerberg going to teach you?). Entrepreneurship lean startup consulting experts
Grasshopper Herder
MAY 31, 2011
I recently ran across an old guide to running meetings that I wrote for a larger company. Here is is with only minor edits: Productivity meetings organizing meetings
Grasshopper Herder
JULY 21, 2011
"What the best tool for wireframing?" I've used quite a few and I've come to a pretty strong opinion on the best tools for the job. Product Management User Experience design mockups wireframing
Grasshopper Herder
OCTOBER 18, 2011
Since writing more about design, I've been getting emails asking for design feedback. Unfortunately, no one seems to include a description of the customer. Entrepreneurship User Experience customer personas design user experience
Grasshopper Herder
SEPTEMBER 28, 2011
It started simply enough, there was a fairly obvious $8,364,175.00 error in my financial statement from Mint.com that prompted me to contact customer support. Customer Development Customer Support customer support
Grasshopper Herder
SEPTEMBER 27, 2011
A friend of mine was thinking about joining a startup and asked me, "How stable are startups?" Well.not very. Entrepreneurship Human Resources Investment hiring stability startups uncertainty
Grasshopper Herder
SEPTEMBER 19, 2011
It's time to consider whether it's time for a National Endowment for Open Source. Is there any doubt right now about the strength and power of open source software for accelerating technological innovation? Entrepreneurship Uncategorized open source politics
Grasshopper Herder
JULY 11, 2011
There's a whole academic (and practical) discipline out there which has been doing something suspiciously close to Customer Development over two decades. Customer Development Entrepreneurship Lean startup Product Management User Experience design lean user experience leanux user experience ux
Innovation 360 Group
JANUARY 25, 2011
Just the other day A Great Place to Work also released their list 2011 FORTUNE’S 100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR® which is based upon a deeper cultural audit and as far as I can see much more reliable. Their Top 5 on the Fortune list 2011 is: SAS. Today Hey Group release their Global Top 20 companies for leadership, top five at the list was: General Electric. Procter & Gamble. Intel Corporation. Siemens. Banco Santander.
Bill Fischer
JUNE 28, 2011
Image via Wikipedia 2011 is the 100th anniversary of a really bad idea. In 1911, the British Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott’s determination to learn less, rather than more -- about life, clothing and diet in extreme cold conditions -- led to his assuming that he was smarter than thousands of
Innovation 360
MARCH 26, 2011
The Swedish Learning Award 2011 is completed and the winner selected. Guess if I am a proude chairman of Lexicon Interactive as they won in the category mobile learning. The winning contribution was a complete new kind of App for the Swedish Addison Society , and the motivation was “Addison is a serious fatal disease that requires constant attention to immediate life-saving measures if it would end up in an Addison crisis.
Bennett Cherry
OCTOBER 24, 2011
It's been a few days now since Steve Jobs passed away and his legacy continues to occupy my thoughts throughout my week. I recently watched the video of his memorial service from Apple's Cupertino campus and wanted to share a few items with you, in the hopes that you'll be encouraged by this.The service began with a moving introduction from Apple CEO, Tim Cook. While all of his remarks were. what if?"
Grasshopper Herder
APRIL 13, 2011
For the past 7 days I've been working round the clock to organize and promote a StartupWeekend in San Jose. It start in two days. A ridiculous and ill advised timeline. Entrepreneurship Finding Co-Founders lean startup Marketing startup startupweekend
Bennett Cherry
SEPTEMBER 19, 2011
Oh, yes, I now remember that Necessity is the Mother of Invention. Sorry, Plato, I had to borrow your quote here as I was reminded today by a former student that simple innovations are often the best innovations. See for yourself by watching this short video. answers in the everyday creativity green tech ingenuity innovation repurposed solar solving a pain tinkering
Grasshopper Herder
JULY 8, 2011
I've spent the week hacking away on MonkeyMake.it as part of the LUXr.co residency program where I'm learning more about User Experience design under the mentorship of Janice Fraser (@celevergirl) and her #leanUX mafia including my friend Tim McCoy (@seriouslynow). Entrepreneurship lean startup User Experience
Innovation 360 Group
JUNE 9, 2011
Over the last year the key topics within the world of innovations has been impacted by social responsibility and sustainability aspects, which can be seen by analyzing the last 12 months of Google searching using Google Insights for Search. The top area of interest over the last 12 month has been. business innovation. open innovation. innovation management. technology innovation. social innovation. US, Canada and KU is dominating all searches except from Open Innovation where Germany is leading.
Innovation 360
AUGUST 4, 2011
Social Innovation and sustainable thinking is emerging, business leaders shifting focus using social and sustainable thinking sharpening their competitive advantages. Interested reading more? Have a look at our new trend watch at [link]. The post Buy 10,000 green mil and get an Audi for free appeared first on Home of Innovation. Blog Uncategorized Audi Green Green Innovation Innovation Social Innovation Sustanability
Innovation 360 Group
MAY 25, 2011
It is a lot of buzz about green innovations and much talk about potential green washing. And we have seen it all before with pink washing and white washing. To understand whether green innovation is washing or not the question to ask is why it exists. To cover up? To gain short term winnings? To move the focus away from other issues? Or is it possible that it really might exist a long term market opportunity here? Let’s start with low energy light bulbs.
Innovation 360
JULY 7, 2011
Joseph Schumpeter , the guru of innovation, addressed the process of innovation with his theory of creative destruction and his definition of entrepreneurs as people who combined existing elements in new ways to create a new product or service.
Innovation 360
JUNE 5, 2011
Last Friday we could read an interesting blog post by Scott Anthony. It was about four typical innovation pitfalls. Great article , and I like to comment upon it. The first lie is that you can trust the feedback when asking customers, and instead go for what they do today or if they are ready to spend some money on a new idea (on an early stage).
Innovation 360
MAY 14, 2011
That was the theme a few days back at 2010 Angel Capital Association Summit in San Francisco and the title of the speech by angel investor and blogger Basil Peters , who asserted that VCs are essentially dinosaurs saddled with too-big funds at a time when entrepreneurs can create companies cheaply and quickly, sometimes over a weekend.
Innovation 360
MAY 6, 2011
Innovation is a way of getting competitive advantage which is well known and documented since ancient times, ranging from machinery, war equipment to the beauty industry and all trial building the perpetuum mobile. What´s happened lately is the paradigm shift of opening up the innovation process from being secret and closed towards inviting for collective wisdom and creativity. We call it open innovation or sometimes Innovation 2.0.
Innovation 360
MAY 6, 2011
Innovation is a way of getting competitive advantage which is well known and documented since ancient times, ranging from machinery, war equipment to the beauty industry and all trial building the perpetuum mobile. What´s happened lately is the paradigm shift of opening up the innovation process from being secret and closed towards inviting for collective wisdom and creativity. We call it open innovation or sometimes Innovation 2.0.
Innovation 360
APRIL 19, 2011
In a recently report Gartner state that games will be used to drive innovations, an old phenomenon but interesting. One of the most interesting stories is about how LEGO made an amazing turnaround some years back, and in the new spirit started to invited their customers to design and customize their own LEGO via Internet. And not just that, they also released a complete new highly interactive and flexible platform Mindstorm encouraging customers to design and develop their own LEGO-robots.
Innovation 360
MARCH 31, 2011
As we speak there is a new trend rising providing us with opportunities or threats, depending on what side of the fence you are mentally located. Let’s first back the tape a bit. Take a moment and ask yourself “why are people launching apps on Android and iTunes in numbers close to impossible to believe”? Is it to give away apps for free making the world a better place? To earn money? To be seen and confirmed? I think it is because it is possible, and the evolution takes care of the rest.
Innovation 360
MARCH 12, 2011
At the moment many Swedish manufacture plants are bought by BRIC players which are an interesting phenomenon as the interest is increasing meaning that there are reasons beyond low interest here. Historically European countries like Sweden has had a low interest which has lead to investments in automated manufacturing plants competitive with labor intensive manufacturer in the BRIC area, we can find examples like Flextronics. However, in recently bought manufacturing plants it is different.
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