Drive Innovation by Leveraging Your Inexperience!
What makes someone truly qualified to work in information technology? In recent months, my news feeds have been teeming with passionate, and at times toxic, debates on the level of experience required for an IT career. These … Continue reading
Why Great Meetings Are Killing Your Productivity
There’s nothing like a bad meeting to ruin your productivity, and sometimes your day. Though, without a deliberate approach to collaboration, even great, productive meetings can be silent – and … Continue reading
A Collaborative Approach to Escaping the Doom of Fanatical Process Orientation
“Why does fanatical process orientation seem an almost inescapable doom as an org/business grows? Is it possible to stay results-oriented?” This great question is not simply a perception based upon … Continue reading
Digital Privacy: Why We Need Clear Notice & Consent Protocols and Trust Frameworks
Read the fine print When was the last time you read the full terms of service or privacy policy for an app? Have you ever read them? When you received … Continue reading
The Importance of Digital Hygiene
As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is broadening globally, both the private sector and the public sector have taken action to address its public health impact and to dampen … Continue reading
What Musical Theatre Can Teach Us About Business Strategy
Musical theatre actors are amazing strategists. The similarities between the types of strategic decisions by a single actor in a musical and someone running a large organization are striking. Those … Continue reading
You’re Not Failing if You’re Learning
How “learn-fast” thinking can improve innovation and combat fear of failure “We’re a large organization. We can’t fail fast and break things!” It’s the type of statement I frequently encounter, … Continue reading
Why Innovation Competitions Backfire
Understanding the evolution of breakthrough ideas can be the key to a successful innovation program. Why do innovation competitions — aimed at delivering breakthrough ideas and improving morale and engagement … Continue reading
What Wilderness Navigation Taught me About Lean Transformation
Lean approaches drive benefits far beyond their profit-driven, private-sector roots I hear it often. “This lean and agile stuff is cool, but it’s not really applicable to me.” “We’re not … Continue reading
What Motivates Successful Intrapreneurs
by George Watt At a summit in Boulder, Colorado, I spoke with a group of founders about what motivated them to become an intrapreneur (an entrepreneur who creates a new … Continue reading
New Book! Lean Entrepreneurship: Innovation in the Modern Enterprise
I am pleased to announce that Lean Entrepreneurship, my newest book, is now available. In this book we discuss obstacles to innovating in established organizations, the behavioural anti-patterns that result, and how they can … Continue reading
Four Signs Too Many Resources are Killing Your Innovation
How to spot the signs and what to do about it. Often when a new idea promises to be the next big thing, organizations will throw as many resources as … Continue reading
Five Innovation Killers and How to Stop Them
Want innovation to flourish at your company? Avoid these common problems. By George Watt Innovation is hard. Many of the hardest parts of the journey come long after an innovative … Continue reading
Innovation programs: the worst thing to happen to innovation
Why many innovation programs kill innovation, and what you can do to change that. In “The Innovative CIO” I wrote about several innovation killers ranging from interpersonal styles to unnecessarily … Continue reading
What opening an airplane exit door in flight taught me about design
Product and feature design thinking must happen early and must center on the human perspective. Recently, as I sat waiting for a flight’s boarding to complete, I noticed an unusually … Continue reading
What being half naked on an airplane taught me about innovation
How to tap the true power of innovation and avoid building new products nobody wants. You never forget being half naked on a fairly full airplane. But what can that … Continue reading
Five Ways the Application Economy is Changing Fashion
Fashion industry evolution demonstrates the app economy is more than hype. We’ve heard it all before. Every new trend, every new movement is revolutionizing business. The latest hype machine is … Continue reading
Are IT security and the business really disconnected?
A recent survey suggests IT security and the business are closer than you might have thought. “If they think so alike, why do IT teams and the business teams they … Continue reading
How is the application economy impacting your job?
It’s not just senior IT and business leaders feeling the impact of the application economy. It’s causing a culture change across entire enterprise organizations. Rarely now do I open my … Continue reading
Surviving the “application economy paradox”
How an encounter with my grandfather and an oil change changed my innovation perspective forever. What is the “application economy paradox”? It begins with the desired result: modern apps deliver … Continue reading
The innovation pot of gold you may not know you already have
There’s nothing like success to suck the innovation out of a great team. I have seen it many times. A team has a great, innovative idea. They have that magical … Continue reading
Supplier partnerships are a strategic weapon in the application economy
What being a cloud provider taught me about licensing and supplier relationships. “Please don’t make me count.” Just as we were celebrating that we had solved a tremendous business agility problem with … Continue reading
How to catch the app development skills boomerang
Why you may already have the app development skills you desperately need “Application developers? Why would we need to have any of those in-house?” No developers, please If you have … Continue reading
We all need a life jacket when wading into the application economy
What a canoe trip taught me about the application economy and how preparation is key for those charting new waters You may not think that canoeing and the application economy … Continue reading
Untold stories of the application economy
How a retail technology company was born from a unique consumer brand that provides personalized fashion for brides When people discuss the application economy, their focus is often or nearly … Continue reading
Security Becomes an Innovation Driver in the Application Economy
“Hi. I’m Al. I work in IT Security. My job is to suck the fun out of life.” That was how the instructor of one of the first security training … Continue reading
Innovation, Technology, and Life in the Cloud 