Innovation by walking through mud
By brendan at 6 November, 2009, 2:04 pm
Over the Melbourne Cup long weekend (yes, I know it wasn’t a real long weekend) I took my family and another family over to Lakes Entrance for four days of fun and frivolity. One of the activities we organised was a bush walk/navigation exercise through the Lake Tyers area. Although I had planned the route [...]
Read More >>Its the great ideas I want, not just the good ones!
By brendan at 22 October, 2009, 2:44 pm
Last week it was my parents something or other wedding anniversary (north of 45, south of 50). I got my daughter to give her Grandmother a call to say “Happy Wedding Anniversary, thanks for making me possible”. Anyway we, my daughter and I, got into a discussion about who my family was. How could my [...]
Read More >>People in 3D
By brendan at 17 June, 2009, 1:38 pm
Once a month I have a “boys night out at the movies” with a group of other guys. We normally have a quick drink, see a movie (I’m voting for Lesbian Vampire Killers next) then a quick discussion afterwards.
As the amateur film critic, I have developed a pattern of thought in where I ask myself [...]
Pitching for Government Agency IP
By brendan at 24 March, 2009, 1:56 pm
In 1999 a small web development business called Pyra Labs was founded by two people. They were trying to build an online Project Management system called Pyra. Times were tough and staff number fluctuated dramatically (at one stage, down to one person holding on to the vision). Eventually some interest was shown in a side [...]
Read More >>Failure has bad PR
By brendan at 16 March, 2009, 12:02 pm
In mid February the Churchill Club ran a programme called Innovation DNA which was about making innovation a sustainable programme in Australian SME’s. One of the panellists, Wes Sonnenreich from Deloitte, mentioned that a good failure was one that was quick and cheap.
Which got me thinking about failure again. My assertion has been for a [...]
5 Innovation Lessons
By brendan at 23 February, 2009, 10:19 pm
A book title that really appealed to me was “Why things Fail” by British Economist Paul Ormerod, so I picked up a copy last year. The book is a study into similar patterns of failure that appear in a variety of different environments (biology, geology, economics etc). The guts of the book (warning spoiler ahead) [...]
Read More >>consumer innovation
By brendan at 16 February, 2009, 9:34 pm
One of the things that I love about my iPhone is that is a fully fledged 16gb iPod as well as a multimedia device and phone. Every time I go for a drive (or catch a tram) I am now entertained and or challenged by podcasts that I subscribe to (they automatically [...]
Read More >>Hard or soft serve?
By admin at 23 April, 2008, 12:32 pm
Last year I met with a British researcher who was out in Australia to talk about Innovation policy. From my point of view, the interesting thing about David Connell was that not only was he a researcher at Cambridge, but he was also, until recent years, the CEO of a Venture Capital fund specializing in [...]
Read More >>How I learnt to love bad customers
By brendan at 9 May, 2007, 4:51 am
I think that my journey to love bad customers started with Warren. He was making a reasonable living out of multi-level marketing and wanted to embrace the internet.
Highly enthusiastic, Warren would never plan because planning and paperwork were beneath him. Instead, everything occurred at the last minute and had to be the latest technology because [...]
