You need fresh voices and new perspectives to go from doing the work to figuring out how to position your business to thrive over time.
Finding Fresh Voices 3
read more
Independent Thinking Blog
innovation
The Future of Design is Immaterial
The first time I watched CSI: Miami I was hooked. No, not on the show -- on the uber-cool screen in the lab the characters were manipulating with their hands to pull up information. I wanted one. If that was the future of design, it was pretty awesome. Today, of...
How the Brainbelts Will Save America
Welcome to the era of brainbelts. A brainbelt is a term coined by Antoine van Agtmael and Fred Bakker to talk about the transformation of traditional rustbelt cities in the U.S. and Europe into centers of global innovation. van Agtmael said in remarks at the Brookings...
2014 Digital Trends, Un-trends, and Other MAM Summit Highlights
The Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit is one terrific conference. And I’m pretty skeptical when it comes to conferences; a lot of the time I find myself in sessions doodling or diving into my reading backlog, or outside walking the halls talking with other stragglers. In...
What You Need to Know About Cryptocurrencies (Think Bitcoin)
I'm fascinated by Bitcoin. Not the currency per se, but rather the "why" and "how" of it. I'm excited, for example, by initiatives to create a more-transparent financial system. Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams talked about this in their 2010 book, Macrowikinomics,...
Why Wearable Tech Is Not a Game Changer
According to Mashable, the hot items at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) included a computer-in-a-watch and a wristband that measures sun exposure. Engadget put on its CES “best of” list a wristband that tracks your activity and reminds you to work out. As...
Is YouTube the Next Big Thing?
The raw YouTube statistics are staggering: More than 100 hours of video uploaded per minute. More than 1 billion unique visitors per month. More than 6 billion hours of video viewed each month. Almost 40 percent of videos are viewed on mobile devices. And, yes, I've...
What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Google Glass
Google Glass is very cool. And if you can hook me up with a tangerine pair, that would be nice. But it's really just a smartphone, minus the ability to make phone calls. It's iterative technology. I love that Google explores boundaries and pushes the innovation...
Does Your Corporate Culture Make Sense?
Does your corporate culture make sense? There was a terrific interview with Evernote founder Phil Libin recently in which he said, in part: We always try to ask whether a particular policy exists because it’s a default piece of corporate stupidity that everyone...
It’s Not Just for Apple and Amazon: An Interview with Author Phil Simon on How Small Companies Can Adopt Platforms
I had the pleasure of talking with author Phil Simon this morning. His latest book, The Age of the Platform, looks at four 21st-century powerhouse companies (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google) which have managed to grow big while keeping their competitive edges and...